Introduction
Introduction
Background
Solutions:
Environmental and Engineering
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Background
Introduction
Background
Solutions:
Environmental and
Engineering
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Geography of New
Orleans
Hurricane Katrina
Environmental
Issues
Alternative Plans
100 Year Plan
New Orleans Geography
 Lake Pontchartrain (north)
 Lake Borgne (east)
 Mississippi River (through the city)
 Gulf of Mexico (south)
 Wetlands (southeast)
Environmental Concerns






Elevation– from 2 m above to 5 m below sea level
Mississippi River bed is rising
Subsidence– 5-8 mm per year
Reduction of Wetlands– 75 sq. km per year
Sea Level Rise– 11 cm to 77 cm in 100 years
Global Warming
Hurricane Katrina
 Made landfall as a Category 3 in southeastern
Louisiana
 Sustained winds of 125 mph
 Projected storm surge of 28 ft
 On August 28th, Mayor Ray Nagin enacted the first
mandatory evacuation plan
 Superdome housed 26,000 people
 Storm surge caused several levee breaches and
flooded city
 Overall death toll: 1,800
Government Response
 Response was slow and inefficient
 FEMA mobilized 1000 Homeland Security workers
 Firefighters and ambulance crews not allowed in
immediately
 Federal government lacked sufficient devastation
information
 Problems with looting
 Superdome became a humanitarian crisis
 Search and rescue efforts were uncoordinated
Increasing Hurricane Intensity
 Hurricane Betsy - 1965


81 casualties
$1.4 billion
 Hurricane Camille - 1969


335 casualties
$11 billion
 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - 2005


2,000 casualties
$105 billion
Looking 100 Years Into The Future
The Possibilities
&
The Final Proposal
The Possibilities
 Rebuild and Improve
 Abandon
 North Shore Plan
 The Final Proposal
Rebuild and Improve
 Rebuild better than pre-Katrina
 High cost
 High risk
 Preserves unique New Orleans culture
 Maintains economy
Abandon
 Deemed too risky to live in
 Organized relocation of citizens
 Low cost
 Low risk
The North Shore
 Preserve unique portions


Historical
Economic functions
 Relocate residents to St. Tammany Parish
 Make New Orleans a commuter city
 High risk on North Shore also
 Lack of available land
The Final Proposal
 Downsize to historical sector
 Move major port functions


Port of South Louisiana
Baton Rouge
 New hurricane and flood protection
system
 Citizens’ Relocation Committee (CRC)
 Use river to develop wetlands
The Final Proposal
 Incorporates the best from the other possibilities
 Preserves historical sector
 Provides for relocation of port economy
 CRC provides for safety of suburban residents
 Smaller region to protect
 Lower long-term cost
 Lower risk
Solutions: Environmental and
Engineering
Introduction
Background
Sea Level Rise
Solutions:
Wetlands
Environmental and
Rivers
Engineering
Flood Protection
System
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Global Warming
 Increase in temperature
 Caused by emission of greenhouse gases
 Affect on sea level rise:
 Thermal Expansion
 Melting glaciers, ice caps
 Changes to hydraulic cycle
Sea Level Rise
 Range: 10 cm to 100 cm (IPCC Third
Assessment Report)
 Median: 48 cm
 Models used: CCCma, GFDL, HadleyCM3, MPI
Uncertainty of Sea Level Rise
 Do not capture multiple climate effects
 Uncertainty in heat uptake by deep ocean
 Timescales lead to inaction in policy
 Kyoto Protocol
Subsidence
 Types of:
 Endogenic – caused by human activities
 Exogenic – caused by natural processes
 Causes:
 Groundwater withdrawal
 Petroleum extraction
 Tectonic motion
Cost of Sea Level Rise
 $20 - 150 billion if sea levels rise 100 cm (Pugh,
2004)
 $370 million dry land damages
 $893 million for wetlands damage
 $200 - 475 billion for coastal stabilization
 $57 - 174 million in transient costs
 1500 damaged homes yearly
(McCarthy, 2001)
Louisiana’s Wetlands: Functions
 Commercial importance



Produces 1/4 of the nation's oil and natural
gas
Produces 1/3 of the nation’s
fisheries’ landings
Hosts 2nd largest wildlife habitat in the U.S.
 Protective importance


Protection against storm surges
Every 3-4 linear miles of healthy wetlands
reduces storm surge by 1 foot
Long Term
 Reduce and compensate for current rate of
loss of 75 square kilometers per year
 Prepare for sea level rise
 Maintain barrier islands
 Improve knowledge of ecosystem
dynamics and restoration technology
Wetlands Problems and
Solutions
 Draining and Filling

Zoning laws
 Canals and Channels


Use fewer canals
Prevent further erosion from canals
 Erosion




Barrier Islands
Use of dredged sediments
Revegetation
River diversions
Draining and Filling
 Proposed Legislation:



Prohibit draining and filling of ecologically
important wetlands
100 foot buffer between wetlands and developed
areas
Best management techniques for drilling and
farming
Canals
 Small Scale Canal Impact
 Canal dredging
 Human-altered hydrology and substrate
collapse
 Large Scale Canal Impact
 Deep navigation canals
 Pipelines
 8,000 miles of pipelines across coastal
Louisiana
Barrier Islands
 Katrina’s destruction of Chandeleur
barrier islands (approximately 50% loss)
 Present-day: slow rate of recovery
 Immediately: dredging
 Sand deposits of previous delta lobes
(i.e. Ship Shoal)
Dredged Sediments-Marsh
 Sediment pumped into or placed on
shallow water areas
 Increases elevation of marshes or creates
new marsh
 Mixed success
 May become more important in the
context of increased sea level
Revegetation
 Major plant death
 Salt water intrusion
 Lack of nutrients
 Stabilization of soil
 Species must be well-adapted to predicted
conditions

Spartina can tolerate moderate salinity
River Distributaries
 Dredged sediments and revegetation are
inefficient to continue long term
 Sediment and nutrient delivery system



Raise elevation
Counteract subsidence
Revive ecosystems to reduce erosion
Distributaries
 Two distributaries
 Each divert up to 1/5 of normal river
discharge
 Floodgate at entry point to control water
level
 Open wider during floods
 Open less during low water
 Armored banks
Distributaries
 EAST: Breton Sound


Fill in MRGO until Violet Canal
Violet Canal and MRGO form distributary
 WEST: Barataria Bay


Wilkinson Canal forms distributary
Establish Barataria Waterway as main canal for
Lafayette oil and gas field
Cutoff
 Southern cutoff
 2 crevasses between cutoff and Buras –
maintain navigation, not flood control
 No levees below Buras – navigation channel
will not be maintained
Entry Point: Buras
 Buras to replace Head of Passes as main
entry point to deep draft channel
 Two navigation canals will allow entry from
east and west
 Bird-foot delta abandoned; nothing south of
Buras unless built on a deepwater platform
Problem: Riverbed Rise
 Riverbed rise

Sediment builds up on riverbed because it cannot
be distributed on floodplain
 Increasing stress on Old River Control
Structure

Maintains 70% discharge through current
Mississippi River channel
Dredging
 River currently being dredged to maintain
navigation channel
 Very costly but feasible because of
economic importance of river
Wing Dams
 Wing dams: dikes that extend from a river’s
banks while allowing water to flow
unhindered through the middle of the
channel
 Water behind dams will slow and drop
sediment, building up sediment behind the
dam
 River channel will narrow and deepen
Wing Dams, cont.
 Increased current velocity and pressure on bed
will increase erosion, promote self-scouring
process to bring bed level closer to sea level
 River banks must be armored, so that increased
erosion occurs on the bottom and not the sides
 New river entry point at Buras shortens
horizontal distance, allowing erosion to steepen
profile
New River Specifications
 Below Baton Rouge maintain 500 ft wide
main channel, wide enough to
accommodate riverboat traffic
 Between Port of South Louisiana and
Wilkinson Canal maintain 650 ft wide main
channel, to accommodate the traffic at
Port of New Orleans, especially boats
turning around
Old River
 Erosion of bed closer to sea level will
decrease height difference between
Atchafalaya and Mississippi beds at Old
River, currently 12-14 ft
 Material will be dredged from behind Old
River to match changing elevation of
Mississippi River bed
 Increases capacity and use of existing
structure for flood control
Flood Protection System Plans
 Filling in the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet
 Floodgates and double pumps on the 17th
Street, Orleans Avenue, and London
Avenue Canal Levees
 Levee Reconstruction
 Monitoring and Maintenance
Filling-In the Mississippi River
Gulf Outlet
 Storm surge coming up outlet was
intensified, causing levees to be breached
 Filling-in protects against funnel effect
 Commercial/industrial impact
Floodgates and Double Pumps
 Floodgates stop water from coming into
the city through the canals
 Gates close when storm surge threatens
 Governance by NOAA
 Increase and redesign pump system
throughout city
Levee and Floodwall
Reconstruction





Patchwork system
Levees poorly monitored
Subsidence
I-walls protecting Lower Ninth Ward
New Orleans East levees overtopped and
eroded
 I-walls were not able to handle pressure from
storm surges
 Scouring and seepage caused some I-walls to
fail
 Foundations were poor
Solutions
 Rebuild to withstand Category 5 hurricane:
 Replace I-walls with T-walls
 Selective levee armoring
 Rolled clay levees
 Replace poor foundations with compacted soil
 New levees from Intracoastal Waterway to
Jefferson West Levee System
Monitoring and Maintenance
 Levee Governance Board
 Yearly levee inventory
 Differential Global Positioning System to
monitor subsidence
 Role of Army Corps
Timeline
Floodwalls and levees raised to approved
heights and engineering errors fixed.
2010
Nov 2006
Sept 2007
Temporary floodgates on canals.
220 miles of levee repaired.
Flood Protection System complete.
Intermission
Introduction
Background
Solutions:
Environmental and Engineering
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Absorbing the Information
 The 100 Year Plan
 Environmental and Engineering Issues




Sea level rise and subsidence
Wetlands
Mississippi River
Flood Protection System
Solutions: Social and Political
Introduction
Downsizing/Zoning
Background
Ports/Jobs/Relocation
Solutions:
Social/Cultural
Environmental and
Engineering
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Insurance/Building Codes
Evacuation
Costs
Committee for Continued
Monitoring
Downsizing By District
What Do We Do Now?
 Risk of subsidence, sea level rise,
increased storm surge
 Returned population- 190,000; 43% of the
2004 population of 440,000
 Residents rebuilding
 Repair Hurricane Protection Systems- $300
million spent by Army Corps of Engineers
Lakeview and Gentilly
 Safe in the short term
 Repaired Hurricane Protection Systems:
 $170 million spent by Army Corps of
Engineers
 Plans for another $120 million in future
projects
 Necessary for general protection of city
 Will be zoned over 50 years
50 Year Zoning Plan
Time
Zoning Law
Immediate
No new house construction
5 years
No household additions
10 years
No immigration
Criteria for Clearing Neighborhoods
Time
Occupancy
Immediate
<5%
30 years
<10%
35 years
<15%
40 years
<20%
45 years
<25%
50 years
All evacuated from selected neighborhoods
New Orleans East, Venetian
Isles, Village de L’Est
 Severe damage and high subsidence rates
 Would not be safe if another, similar hurricane
hit
 Significant additional costs to make these areas
safe


$67.5 million spent
$232.5 million planned
 Eminent domain, “full and just” compensation
Lower Ninth Ward
 Considerable damage: 82% of homes had at
least $5,200 in damages
 Subsidence rate of 5 mm/year
 Average elevation 0.9 meters above sea level
 Returned population of 5%
 Suitable for rebuilding
 Remaining districts in Orleans Parish will be
preserved
Plaquemines
 57 % of homes sustained greater than
$5200 in damage
 13 mm per year subsidence rate
 Downriver from Pointe a la Hache
immediate evacuation
 Between Wilkinson Canal and Pointe a la
Hache—50 Year Zoning Plan
Other Uses for Land
 Research Area
 Wetlands
 Alternate Energy Sources
 Wildlife Reserve
Port Functions
 Port of South Louisiana will take over
many of the roles of the Port of New
Orleans
 Shift shipping and trading business out
while maintaining tourism
 Provide monetary incentives for businesses
to relocate to Port of South Louisiana
Jobs
 We plan to move businesses to Baton
Rouge
- Preparing Baton Rouge
- Offering incentives for businesses to
relocate
 Most jobs still in New Orleans will be
related to tourism
Relocating People
 People will relocate
- Zoning and eminent domain in some
neighborhoods
- Following the jobs to other cities
 Offer support through the Citizens’
Relocation Committee (CRC) and
monetary aid
Plans for Preservation Programs
 Goal: promote cultural awareness
 Festivals, museums, libraries, and
memorials
 Example: New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival
 New Orleans History Month
 Preserve a city’s culture while moving on
to a safer, more efficient municipality in a
new location
Social Considerations
 Completion of clean-up
 Reopening of funeral homes
 Beautification of cemeteries
 Propagation of neighborhood festivals
 Hurricane and Flood Memorial
Education




Vocational training
Non-academic activities for grade school students
Normalize transportation and hours
New curriculum:




Local cultural and political history
Diversity acceptance
Hurricane and flood preparedness
Conservation and environmentally sound living
Insurance Policy
 Louisiana Department of Insurance


clarify insurance ambiguities
expansion of agent-homeowner
services
 Mandatory National Flood Insurance
Program

avoid “natural disaster syndrome”
Building Codes and Green
Architecture
 First Floor Plan


Minimizes flood damage
$5000 contents coverage limit
 Wind Damage Recommendations




Protection of building openings
Improved roof-sheathing attachment
Improved roof-wall connections
Secondary waterproofing to roof joints
 Green Architecture
Government-Subsidized Housing
 Single family homes and low-rise
apartments
 Follow building codes and green
architecture guidelines
 Integration of mixed income communities
Evacuation/Storm Refuge
 Evacuation Routes
 Major evacuation routes:



I-10 to Baton Rouge/Houston
I-55
I-59 to northern Mississippi
 Contraflow changes inbound to outbound
Car Access and Remnant
Population Problem
 Superdome housed 26,000 people
 9% of population has no car access
 Solution:
 Public bus transportation to common
evacuation destinations
 Set up additional local shelters
 Staff and supply Superdome with a
maximum capacity
Baton Rouge Overpopulation
Problem
 Baton Rouge's population nearly doubled with
incoming evacuees
 Solution:
 Allow only up to 50-100,000 refugees into city
 LSU as temporary shelter
 Develop Houston as evacuation destination by
designating Astrodome as a shelter and
Astrodome/Reliant Center Complex as a
health clinic
Current Plan: Phase System
Phase
Location
Time Before
Landfall (hrs.)
Strength of
Hurricane
1
South of
Intracoastal
Waterway
50
Category 1 or
higher
2
Between
Intracoastal
Waterway and
Mississippi
River
40
Category 2 or
higher
3
Between
Mississippi
River and I-12
30
Slow-moving
Category 3 or
higher
Additions
 Phase 3 begins contraflow
 During Phase 1, begin pre-supplying
shelters in New Orleans with food, water,
and first-aid kits
 Contract private companies to do so and to
stock excess emergency supplies such as
flashlights and batteries throughout
hurricane season.
Evacuation Cooperation
 20-30% of New Orleans population failed to
evacuate
 Solution:
 Remind public of hurricane dangers; increase
evacuation cooperation
 Hurricane Awareness Week
 Continue to advertise/distribute info
pertaining to evacuation routes, home
security, bus transport stops
Costs of Short-Term Plan
Wetland Restoration
Levee Repair & Construction
Clean-Up and Recycling
Acquisition of Land
City Planning and Insurance
Mississippi River
TOTAL
$815,558,000
$15,125,000,000
$2,500,000
$6,480,400,000
$1,401,345
$248,855,000
$22,672,313,000
+ $500,370 per government
subsidized and insured
house
Costs of Long-Term Plan
Wetland Restoration
$24,435,000,000
Levee Repair & Maintenance
$15,000,000,000
Phasing Out of People and
Industry
Mississippi River Monitoring
and Maintenance
TOTAL
$40,000,000,000
$3,500,000,000
$82,935,000,000
Committee for Continued
Monitoring
 Experts and professionals from many
different fields
 Provides flexibility to our proposal
 Keeping New Orleans safe in the future
Conclusion
Introduction
Background
Solutions:
Environmental and Engineering
Intermission
Solutions:
Social and Political
Conclusion
Conclusion
 A plan of integration
 A downsized, sustainable city
 A New Orleans for the future
Credits
We would like to thank Sam Bowring, Rafael
Bras, Ari Epstein, Katrina Cornell, our
Undergraduate Teaching Fellows, our
Alumni Mentors, Debra Aczel, Maria
Shkolnik, Ruth Weinrib, and the librarians.
We would also like to thank the panelists.
Mission 2010: New Orleans