June 5th, 2006
Editorial: Hurricane Forecasts Only Make Things Worse In Nola
New Orleans residents, many still suffering eight months after Katrina laid waste to the region, are now being told by a risk assessment firm in Georgia that out of 28 coastal cities at risk of being struck by hurricanes this year, New Orleans is Number One.
The city has a 29.3 percent chance of experiencing hurricane-force winds during the storm season, which began June 1. Chances are one in 10 that the storm will be a Category 3 or stronger, meaning wind forces of at least 111 mph. The hurricane season in 2005 was worse than predicted.
Reuters has cited details from the forecasts done by Kinetic Analysis Corporation, Savannah, Ga., whose spokesman, Chuck Watson, told the news firm, “Given the state of the infrastructure down there and the levees, gosh, that’s just not good news. But that is what the climate signals look like.”
Watson worked with a Florida statistics professor, who predicted that oil production in the gulf would be disrupted for a minimum of a week at a cost of 7–8 million barrels of oil. Chances are one in 10 that rigs will be damaged sufficiently to cut production by 278 million barrels, further boosting gas prices.
On May 23, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 2006 season is likely to produce 13 to 16 named storms, including four to six major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher.
The folks in New Orleans have a lot of bad news to digest, considering that the 2006 hurricane season already is here. What are some of the major issues they worry about?
- First and foremost, many have not recovered from Katrina. Many, burdened by paperwork and delays, are already in trouble.
- Debris removal is far from complete, and new issues have arisen over the methods being used to demolish buildings containing asbestos. Workers are unprotected, and hauling the debris in open trucks only increases the spread of refuse containing asbestos.
- Critics are continually saying that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not capable of solving the problems with the New Orleans levee system (we’d like to know who is!), which only exacerbates mental trauma. They blame the Corps for much of what has happened.
- Recently announced findings by scientists who sailed their ship directly into the heart of a hurricane revealed that the world in general must change its methods for evaluating storms, which they say simply do not react as we expect them to.
- The courts have ruled that many property owners are not covered for damage caused by storm surges. For many it is a question of whether to rebuild, and if they do, where will they get insurance? State insurance pools are being formed. Rates are rising.
Many, who reside, work and/or operate businesses in New Orleans and other hurricane-ravaged areas of the Gulf are between a rock and a hard place. It appears there is no speedy solution. Undesirable conditions are likely to exist for some time.
But there is another new element to the story. Corps Civil Works Director Maj. Gen. Don Riley has issued to many Corps division commanders and leaders a rebuttal he wrote in response to a Washington Post article about Katrina, lambasting the Corps. The newspaper refused to publish the rebuttal.
Gen. Riley said that because of the May 14 Post op-ed piece by Michael Grunwald, the Corps workforce is countering “misleading assertions.” The article, headlined “Par for the Corps,” “is unfortunately full of errors, undocumented claims and misrepresentations,” Riley said.
“Its inflammatory rhetoric exploits the suffering of the Gulf Coast by minimizing the true impact of Hurricane Katrina. While Katrina was a Category 3 storm in terms of wind speed when it hit landfall on August 29, only 24 hours earlier it was the largest Category 5 storm on record in the Gulf of Mexico, generating storm surges within the Gulf at over 28 feet. Although the wind speed dropped, the surge still came, making this the largest natural disaster to ever strike a nation.”
According to Gen. Riley, “The chief of Engineers has commissioned an Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) consisting of approximately 150 engineers, scientists, and other experts from government, academia and industry across the nation and world to investigate the hurricane protection system performance during Katrina. IPET’s analysis has been thorough and upon completion of review by the American Society of Engineers and the National Academy of Sciences will guide the Corps’ ongoing and future work in New Orleans, as well as advance the practice of civil engineering for other public and private projects.”
Color us naive if you will, but after decades of observing Corps operations, we have always believed the agency to be wide open to evaluation of projects and willing to work with others who, for one reason or another, oppose them. We predict IPET will find the Corps’ approach to the problem credible.
The Corps has always been subjected to a vast number of opposing exterior forces, political and otherwise, that control what the agency can and cannot accomplish. It was found recently that there was a longtime reluctance to financially support the kind of levee system everyone knew New Orleans should have.
While the agency is always open to evaluation, we’ll cast our lot with the Corps. We find its explanations far more credible than the criticisms of opponents.
The Waterways Journal encourages letters to the editor.
Have something on your mind?
Send letters to: jshoulberg@waterwaysjournal.net.
(Please indicate whether or not your letter is intended for publication.) |
 |
319 N. 4th St., Suite 650 · St. Louis, MO 63102 · Phone (314) 241-7354 · Fax (314) 241-4207
|
|
