New Orleans repeating deadly levee mistakes

updated 4:31 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - Signs are emerging that history is repeating itself in the Big Easy, still healing from Katrina: People have forgotten a lesson from four decades ago and believe once again that the federal government is constructing a levee system they can prosper behind.

In a yearlong review of levee work here, The Associated Press has tracked a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations since Katrina, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood.

Dozens of interviews with engineers, historians, policymakers and flood zone residents confirmed many have not learned from public policy mistakes made after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which set the stage for Katrina; many mistakes are being repeated.

"People forget, but they cannot afford to forget," said Windell Curole, a Louisiana hurricane and levee expert. "If you believe you can't flood, that's when you increase the risk of flooding. In New Orleans, I don't think they talk about the risk."

'It makes me feel safe'
Tyrone Marshall, a 48-year-old bread vendor, is one person who doesn't believe he's going to flood again.

"They've heightened the levees. They're raised up. It makes me feel safe," he said as he toiled outside his home in hard-hit Gentilly, a formerly flooded property refashioned into a California-style bungalow.

Geneva Stanford, a 76-year-old health care worker, is a believer, too. She lives in a trim and tidy prefabricated house in the Lower 9th Ward, 200 feet from a rebuilt floodwall that Katrina broke.

"This wall here wasn't there when we had the flood," Stanford said, radiant in a bright kanga-style dress. "When I look at it now, I say maybe if we had had it up it there then, maybe we wouldn't have flooded."

They're not alone. A recent University of New Orleans survey of residents found concern about levee safety was dropping off the list of top worries, replaced by crime, incompetent leadership and corruption.

This sense of security, though, may be dangerously naive.

For the foreseeable future, New Orleans will be protected by levees unable to protect against another storm like Katrina.

'Not exactly great protection'
When and if the Army Corps of Engineers finishes $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work, the city will have limited protection — what are defined as 100-year levees.

This does not mean they'd stand up to storms for a century. Under the 100-year standard, in fact, experts say that every house being rebuilt in New Orleans has a 26 percent chance of being flooded again over a 30-year mortgage; and every child born in New Orleans would have nearly a 60 percent chance of seeing a major flood in his or her life.

"It's not exactly great protection," said John Barry, the author of "Rising Tide," a book New Orleans college students read to learn about the corps' efforts to tame the Mississippi.

As a rule, any levee building makes people feel good in this unsettling landscape where the Gulf of Mexico can be seen gleaming from the top floors of skyscrapers and where the ubiquitous dynamics of a sinking and eroding river delta ripple through every aspect of life.

Levees tend to get built after devastating hurricanes: It's happening now and it happened after Betsy struck and flooded much of the same low ground that Katrina invaded.

"We did go in and did a whole bunch of levee work right after Betsy," said Philip Ciaccio, a New Orleans appellate judge and longtime former politician from eastern New Orleans, a reclaimed swamp transformed into the Big Easy's version of the American suburban dream.

Between Betsy and Katrina, about 22,000 homes were constructed in eastern New Orleans out of an abundance of confidence.

"We were under the illusion that what we had done would prevent another Betsy from flooding the area," Ciaccio said. "Hopefully the experts know what they're doing this time."

MORE FROM LIFE

Life Section Front

Tropical storm rumbles ashore in Ala. Dropout, 21, wins $8.55 million poker event Suicides raise worries about recession’s real cost Recession’s good news: Burglaries fall Trucker dies as rig plunges off S.F. bridge Philly transit system running as strike ends Utah girl’s pierced nose brings suspension Jobless: 10 percent is tougher than it used to be Life Section Front   Add Life headlines to your news reader: