Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
same time, St Bernard Parish produced its own plan for reconstruction, while
Jefferson Parish refused any change of plans indicating simply that the Army Corp
of Engineers was working to reinforce the HPS.
By 2011 the HPS should provide sufficient protection to resist a Category
4 storm: Levees are being raised, floodgates are in place to prevent storm surges
from backing up drainage canals leading into Lake Pontchartrain, and pumping
capacity has been reinforced. One might reasonably ask, however, whether these
efforts are not in vain given the extreme violence of hurricanes over the Atlantic,
given that storm surges move very quickly across shallow Gulf of Mexico waters,
and finally, given that global warming will likely result in a sea level rise of about
0.45 meters
6
by the end of the century? These considerations alone, combined with
the issue of subsidence, imply that a hurricane of comparable energy and size, and
which created a centenary risk or probability of 1% per year in 2000, automatically
becomes a 2% annual risk in 2020, 3% in 2050, and 7% by 2100.
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In such a variable
environment, risks must be periodically re-evaluated and structural protections
revised. This is precisely the opposite of what was done with the HPS between 1966
and 2005.
As pointed out by Lewis [LEW 03], New Orleans has passed through four stages
in its urban development, each of which ended brutally with a crisis or unexpected
change. After the three historical phases prior to the Second World War, does
Hurricane Katrina mark the end of post-Second World War urban sprawl? We
might think so given that the most recent crisis caused considerable human
displacement, unprecedented decline in city population (the “shrinking city”
phenomenon), and involved urban reconstruction and a completely redesigned
layout opening the city to potentially significant changes. Increases in building
permits since 2005 for the St Tammany Parish, and in particular for petitioners
arriving from St Bernard Parish, suggest a very different landscape - one of a
metropolitan area in which natural disaster precipitated the decline of the center city
and increased urban sprawl, making New Orleans the first “suburb without a city” to
reverse the words of David Rusk [RUS 03]. In this sense, the outbreak of crime
associated with the return of the African-American community, which in 2007 had
never been poorer, is a formidable threat to the scenario of city reconstruction on the
6
. Projected average according to the 4th International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
report which varies between 0.3 and 0.6 meters by 2100 (work group 1, Chapter 10, page 165,
2007). GIEC reports are available online at: http://www.ipcc.ch/.
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. If the Mississippi River delta continues to subside at the same rates observed in the 20th
century, the relative “sinking” of New Orleans will vary between 1.1 and 1.4 meters by 2100.
