NNO: Compromising nature?
[New New Orleans posting archive here, with updates here, here, here, here, here, and here.]
Not only has FEMA issued its long-awaited rules, the line FEMA has drawn is broadly generous. As the Washington Post reports:
NEW ORLEANS — A long-awaited government projection on this city’s flood danger recommends that thousands of homes and businesses in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina be raised at least 3 feet, a requirement that clears the way for residents to decide how, or whether, to rebuild.
“This will enable people to get on with their lives,” said Donald Powell, the chief federal coordinator for
As the Post further comments:
Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines released Wednesday are meant to help residents rebuild in ways that comply with early drafts of flood maps showing how high water is expected to rise during a once-in-a-100-year storm. The so-called flood advisories also detail how well the city’s levees would protect residents.
“How well” means “not perfectly.” Risk remains in the equation. Are the risks prudent ones to take?
Depends partly on who’s taking them:
The guidelines recommend that thousands of homes and businesses in the area be raised at least 3 feet. Property owners who ignore the guidelines risk losing out on government aid to rebuild and could miss an opportunity for lower flood insurance premiums.
A house on
In drawing up the advisories, government experts took into account the increasingly active hurricane seasons, recent erosion of coastal land that acted as a buffer against large storms and the sinking of land in parts of southern
FEMA had delayed the release of the advisories several times since the start of the year as researchers incorporated new post-Katrina data.
Lt. Gen Carl Strock, Army Corps of Engineers Commander, speaks at a press conference to announce the advisory flood data in
Even assuming that the actual New New Orleans will be smaller and stronger, the city desperately needs new capital flows. My colleague Todd Trehubenko visited
The unresolved reconstruction issues (revised flood maps, levee reconstruction, funding) remain pervasive even eight months after the storm. This is going to take years, and many people will probably never come back now that they’ve reestablished themselves elsewhere. City population has expanded past two months in particular but is at just one-third of pre-storm level.
“Houses in Lakeview, a moderate to high income area that was gentrifying before the storm.”
Todd concurs that bright-line guidance, even if imperfect, is essential to stimulating recovery:
Even sophisticated housing professionals (developers, lenders, syndicators) are stymied in this environment because they cannot make sound financial decisions with so many unknowns. Few major issues are likely to be resolved between now and start of the next hurricane season, June 1 [Only eight weeks away! — Ed.]
“We did not go to the hardest hit areas like the Lower Ninth Ward because they are not allowing tour buses to go through these low income neighborhoods.”
The extent of the devastation (mile after mile) is hard to capture in still photos. I wish I had gotten a shot of the thousands of cars abandoned throughout the city, many under highway overpasses.
Now that the guidelines are out, some will move:
Some residents who suffered the worst damage have decided they might as well start fresh.
“We’re going to build a new home meeting the new guidelines,” said Jeb Bruneau, whose ranch-style home, built on a concrete slab, was flooded to the eaves during Katrina.
Wise answer!
For Bruneau, president of a neighborhood association in the city’s Lakeview area, demolishing and rebuilding seemed easier than dealing with the costly process of jacking up the structure and gutting, cleaning and treating for mold.
He expects many of his neighbors will do the same, which could dramatically change Lakeview’s landscape. Like many across
Bruneau was relieved the long-awaited recommendations had been released.
“This will spur activity unbelievably,” he predicted. “A lot of people have been waiting for the advisory to come out so they’d have direction. A lot of people are looking at this as progress.”
Politically, and more important economically, it is progress. Capital will now flow faster.
Wednesday’s advisory, as officials called it, opens the door to new flood-insurance maps, which will come later this year. Even for those who must raise their houses, the federal requirement could be good news because elevating a house by as little as five feet can cost more than $100,000. Up to $30,000 in federal money is available to homeowners for such projects.
Now that we’ve got the Federal money, we’re all set.
Is FEMA’s rule sound engineering? Three feet might not be enough:
Certainly, it’s generous:
But the announcement, anxiously anticipated as a critical step in rebuilding this still-ravaged city, was nonetheless greeted with some relief by local officials and residents. They had feared that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic flooding, the government would demand that some houses be raised as much as 10 feet, at enormous expense.
Wrong — the government would not have demanded anything — the guidelines were the price of Federal flood insurance.
The lesser requirement assumes that the area’s damaged levee system will be solidly reconstructed. To that end, federal officials also announced Wednesday that most of the system’s 36 miles or so of flood walls — which sit atop levees in places where massive earthen structures are not practical — would be replaced. The cost for that and other levee improvements is $2.5 billion, which the Bush administration said Wednesday that it would actively seek from Congress.
The three-foot mark appears to have been driven not just by engineering but also politics:
The announcement dovetails with a political climate in
Now, the federal government — by making rebuilding requirements less stringent than had been anticipated — appears to have concurred, though FEMA officials did not say specifically why they chose the three-foot figure.
Not everyone loves the choice:
Some experts were critical of the decision. “It’s wacky,” said J. Robert Hunter, a former director of the federal flood insurance program. “Three feet — where did that come from? Why are we building up three feet, when the water was up over the roof?”
“What’s that three feet going to do?” Mr. Hunter asked. “Instead of coming up with real science, they’re making it up. Which means that people are going to be at risk, they’re going to die again, and taxpayers are subsidizing unwise construction with very cheap insurance.”
So FEMA has acted decisively. This is great politics, murky policy. Is it wise in the long run?
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
– Richard Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Here’s hoping that Nature plays no more jokes on New New Orleans.
