Fun with Floodmaps
The floodmaps have been released!
For those of you new to this game, residents who have every interest in rebuilding have been in limbo for the last several months. The federal government makes the determination of which areas of the city are susceptible to what level of flooding. Until those federal maps were released, basic things like mortgages, insurance, and equity loans could not be obtained. So businesses were afraid to re-invest, and workers were unable to move back, and so on. This was the one great barrier to any generation of positive momentum.
So now we have something to go on, and on the whole, the news is good for New Orleans.
The best news is that the flood elevations were not changed from the last assessment in 1984. This could have been very different. For example, Lakeview, which is right next to the 17th street canal breach, got a ton of flooding, 10'-12' in some places. But the flood plain map allows for houses to be built so that the first floor can be 2.5' below sea level. In many cases this still involves 'raising' the house, but in far fewer than before. Your house also has to be 3 feet above "grade", or ground level around the house. Given the basic drainage issues in Nola, this is a fantastic rule. Of course, the rules only apply if your home was "substantially damaged" -- renovating the house would cost more than 50% of what it would cost to re-build it from scratch. Nola.com has a good FAQ for those who care.
The one place that got screwed is Plaquemines parish, the jut of land that follows the river southeast from New Orleans to the Gulf. This will make commenter Ellen happy, but has Rep. Charlie Melancon seriously annoyed. This might be a play to get the oil companies to cough up some cash to protect their own investments down there. But that involves the brain-stretching idea that this administration is doing something that would hurt an oil company, so we'll see.
The fact that the flood elevations were not changed despite the severity of Katrina's flooding further reinforces the fact that this was largely an unnatural disaster. The severity of the flooding was due to structural flaws in the levees, so we should be able to plan our city based on those being fixed.
My next few posts will be addressing the comments from previous postings, so I'll be doing weird things like "defining" New Orleans. If there's something you want to talk about, get it in there.
I would be interested in finding out what is the precise practical difference between the 'one in 100 year event' standard and 'cat 5' protection for the levees. My suspicion is that the latter is stronger and is one of the things a broad-based multi-ethnic national Katrina Activism support movement should support on behalf of NOLA.
I have also heard the suggestion that seagates could be installed at the opening of Lake Ponchartrain and in other locations to keep down the amount of the storm swell of the Lake. It seems to me that, at the end of the day, since you are going to have a major urban area in NOLA anyway, we have to spend the money to basically protect it, include wetland restoration in the far south of LA, allowing the Mississippi river to flood more widely and spread its silt in some areas to preserve the wetlands as a protection, as well as sea-gates and cat 5 protection etc. And then, since you really have to have a high baseline of investment unless you want to more or less abandon the whole area, something no one purports to be contemplating, the additional cost of making sure that the lower 9th Ward and other areas that planners seem intent on eviscerating isn't so great as to make it prohibitively expensive, precluding one of the major arguments of the other side.
These points seem to me, further, to be so obvious that they are not lost on those who are railroading through a 'bleaching of the Big Easy' agenda, including not having satellite voting or releasing the voter rolls, so what they are really interested in is in driving out the black poor as much as possible and then making a killing as developers. Both profit and remaking the City in their own (W Bush and allied interests) image seem to drive the horror.
I really would like to see someone from the activism in the area comment at least once a week at TPM, possibly someone from http://www.commongroundrelief.org/ or an ACORN activist in the area. They could talk about the elections and the other political and practical issues as they play out in local politics. That would supplement what we already have, but I would have liked to have heard a full-dress review of the major April 1 march, that got national coverage, and some of these other issues from the standpoint of the political struggles going on, with TPM supplementing what there is now.
I suspect that if someone from TPM contacted Malik Brahim at Common Ground Relief, at the above URL, he would have a writer to provide something once a week, but I can't promise, not being actively involved in Common Ground Relief myself
April 14, 2006 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Boyd, where were ya when I needed ya?
April 14, 2006 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's an article from the Times-Picayune today on Plaquemines Parish. Some quotes:
Plaquemines is a major Gulf Coast oil and gas producer, with 10,973 active wells within the parish boundaries, according to Leonard Mistich, executive director of the Plaquemines Association of Business and Industry. About 9,000 energy workers access offshore oil platforms through the parish every month.
Combined, the commercial fishing ports of Empire and Venice rank a consistent second or third on the list of the most productive ports in the country, pulling in about 400 million pounds of shrimp, red snapper, tuna and other fish every year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
On the recreational side, Venice is considered one of the world's top sport-fishing destinations, drawing anglers from across the country. Abundant redfish and speckled trout are found close to shore, and prized game fish such as wahoo, cobia and amberjack in the deeper waters of the Gulf.
"It's the people. It's the energy for this country that comes through that parish's pipelines. It's the fisheries, the largest fleet of shrimp boats in the Gulf that come out of Venice and Empire," said U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville. "As far as I know, Plaquemines Parish is still in this state and is still in this nation, and they are as important as any parish or any county that was hit by this storm."
April 14, 2006 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The fact that the flood elevations were not changed despite the severity of Katrina's flooding further reinforces the fact that this was largely an unnatural disaster. The severity of the flooding was due to structural flaws in the levees, so we should be able to plan our city based on those being fixed."
That may be the conclusion of POLITICIANS who don't want to lose votes by seeming heartless, but that doesn't make it SCIENTIFIC fact.
The FACTS are that no matter what the government says, homes rebuilt in low lying areas will be in danger of future flooding. For Pete's sake, it's not like this is the first time New Orleans has ever flooded! And thanks to global warming (a phenomenon the Administration may not believe in), future hurricanes are going to be more intense than past ones.
I am not saying that the decisions about what people must do to rebuild are necessarily wrong-- I lack the expertise to make that judgment. But the statement that just because a politically-appointed government body says it's safe to build and that the flooding had little to do with the weather doesn't mean anything. It's the real-life equivalent of the business owners and politicians at Amity Beach who denied there was any danger of shark attacks and fought to keep the beaches open.
April 14, 2006 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that the flood elevations were not changed . . . reinforces the fact that this was largely an unnatural disaster. Boyd Blundell
Agreed; but a more accurate way of putting it would be to say that someone -- who's authority to do so is questionable -- has made that judgment.
It may well be that the Corps was negligent (although what New Orleanians and especially, the experts at Tulane and LSU had been doing for the last 41 years by way of looking out for themselves is another question), but the law is clear: the Corps by statute and the federal government by common law are immune from suit. Those affected by the flood wall failures have no claims in the courts. They must rely upon their various insurance policies -- and the good hearts of the taxpayers (up to $150,000 per housing unit).
To get rebuilding going, FEMA ruled that the 100-year flood plain restriction on taxpayer funded flood insurance would be waived for New Orleans. With federally funded flood insurance now available, owners and mortgagees can now more confidently finance rebuilding.
Which brings us back to the issue of who should make this decision to award "welfare" to the New Orleans MSA. Thus far, it appears that the politicians (in a democracy they are said to act for the citizens/taxpayers) have decided to punt, that is, they left town for a two week recess and let FEMA make the announcement during Holy Week.
Were this decision based upon science, then, it would be proper for FEMA to make the decision. But it wasn't. It was based on politics and bureaucratic convenience.
We in a democracy deserve a robust discussion and a public decision by our duly elected representatives -- not a few unknown non-responsible bureaucrats -- when taxpayers are put on the hook.
April 14, 2006 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink