In a recent column in the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page basically blamed the problems with rebuilding in New Orleans on mayor Ray Nagin. This is a fairly common assertion, and depends on a contrast with Mississippi’s supposedly spectacular pace, as with Tony Blankley’s assertion that it is all because Mississippi’s leadership is “honest” (ha!) while Louisiana’s is “notoriously corrupt and incompetent” (I refuse to link to him). Nagin has been a very handy scapegoat, which is one of the reasons rich white Republicans in Louisiana worked so hard to get him re-elected.

This is just silly. What happened in Mississippi (hurricane) and what happened in New Orleans (unprecedented flood) is beyond apples to oranges (maybe apples to manatees?). Moreover, the people making the assertions show a depressing ignorance of the basic facts of the issue.

I was going to go into the comparison issue more, but Markus at the Wet Bank has handled this admirably. I’ll just mention one point. According to NPR, there has been 7.5 billion allotted to Louisiana for housing assistance. Number of checks actually cut to Louisiana: two.

So let’s move on to the ignorance part. Page decries Nagin’s unwillingness to just write off low-lying areas:

“Neighborhoods that are lowest-lying or most isolated may receive few rebuilding resources, if any. In big jeopardy, for example, is the Lower Ninth Ward, home of such artists as Fats Domino. He, too, was trapped by the storm.”

How are we to take this seriously? If you look at this map of the elevations in New Orleans, Lower Ninth Ward is not on particularly low ground. It’s higher than, say, the upper 9^th, or Lakeview, or Broadmoor, or all of East New Orleans. The Jackson Barracks, staging point for the Guard, endured massive immediate flooding despite being above sea level and never ever having flooded before. Land elevation was often less a variable in level of flooding than proximity to levee breaches.

Better yet, look at the Bucktown part of Metairie. It’s in the upper left corner of the map, right across the 17^th street canal from Lakeview and West End. Notice that it is no higher in elevation than the destroyed neighborhoods next to it. It’s pretty low land; much lower land than the famed Lower Ninth.

So what happened in Bucktown? Click on any area of this map to see the estimated max flooding, it never get above three feet. People with ground floors more than a few feet off the ground (precious few, alas) got no damage at all. Better yet, look at the 14^th picture in this sequence (the whole sequence is quite informative) to see an overhead shot with the canal in the middle. Now Metairie’s situation was not itself ideal because we did not have the pumps working after the storm. But the whole damn city was up and running at latest by the new year. Some flooding happened, but enough of the city was stable enough to absorb it. (This leaves aside the Jefferson flooding that came up into the country club area).

There is only one major variable at work here. The levees on the Metairie side of the 17^th St Canal did not fail.