By: Marc Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
In recent weeks, tropical storm Hanna and Hurricane Gustav have hit the U.S. mainland, luckily without causing wide-spread damage. But as of this writing, a much larger and more dangerous storm, Hurricane Ike, is racing towards the United States with its eye firmly fixed on Texas and the Gulf Coast. As the former mayor of New Orleans, I take more than a passing interest in these storms. I was an early and ardent critic of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago. I have taken every opportunity since then to urge the federal government and the Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade the nation's flood control and levee systems, especially in New Orleans and throughout Southeastern Louisiana.
Since Katrina, there has been significant improvement in the performance of both the flood protection and emergency response infrastructures in the Gulf Coast region. Government officials deserve high marks for their speedy and efficient response to Hurricane Gustav, the largest hurricane to hit the region since Katrina. Two million people were quickly evacuated, there was no loss of life, and, as the Army Corps of Engineers stated, "the pumps pumped and the system held." But, it would be a big mistake to assume that because New Orleans emerged relatively unscathed in the wake of Gustav that the city is completely secure.
By all accounts, New Orleans dodged a bullet. Gustav, which had been forecast as a much larger storm, wound up making landfall as a category 2, landing only a glancing blow to New Orleans. But even that relatively minor punch taught us another set of lessons that need to be heeded if we are going to ensure that what happened with Katrina never happens again.
What caught my eye with Gustav was that even as a category 2 storm, water was at the very top of the levees in the industrial canal. Those levees must be completely raised because that canal is subject to storm surge from both the river and the lake, and is a continuing risk for the region.
The Army Corps of Engineers has secured about $15 billion for a comprehensive repair and upgrade of the New Orleans region flood control system. I believe that is a necessary investment. Southeastern Louisiana has the largest concentration of domestic oil and gas production facilities anywhere in the world. It is also the conduit through which most of the imported oil and gas comes in. The economic and human consequences not only for the region but for the nation of not providing an adequate flood control system are too great to ignore.
I urge the Army Corps to step up the pace of its work. We must raise the height of the levees as well as strengthen them as quickly as possible. We must also be mindful of nature's own hurricane protection system and work to rapidly restore our nation's wetlands.
We should all be grateful that Hurricane Gustav did not live up to its predictions. But, rather than making this a celebratory moment, we should heed the lessons of the past so we can prevent a Katrina-like disaster in the future.
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