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| Houston, take heed from us Katrina survivors. This is what lies ahead of you | Houston, take heed from us Katrina survivors. This is what lies ahead of you |
| (10 days later) | |
| Houston, this time it’s you that’s got the problem. And after your kindness sheltering so many of us in the Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina, it hardly seems fair that now you’re the city going underwater. | Houston, this time it’s you that’s got the problem. And after your kindness sheltering so many of us in the Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina, it hardly seems fair that now you’re the city going underwater. |
| Just how big your problem will get remains to be seen. The week’s rain totals – verging on 50in – could bring devastation that is “unprecedented … unknown and beyond anything experienced”, according to the National Weather Service. Here in New Orleans we’ve had some practice with that. So here are some tips on what may lie ahead. | Just how big your problem will get remains to be seen. The week’s rain totals – verging on 50in – could bring devastation that is “unprecedented … unknown and beyond anything experienced”, according to the National Weather Service. Here in New Orleans we’ve had some practice with that. So here are some tips on what may lie ahead. |
| Your death toll, a dozen fatalities as of Tuesday morning, is far less than the 1,800 deaths associated with Katrina. But be certain of this: over the coming weeks that toll will rise as the frail and the elderly, folks just not equipped for life as displaced evacuees, take sick, take their lives or in other ways join the few who fell immediately to floods, collapsing houses and crashed cars. | Your death toll, a dozen fatalities as of Tuesday morning, is far less than the 1,800 deaths associated with Katrina. But be certain of this: over the coming weeks that toll will rise as the frail and the elderly, folks just not equipped for life as displaced evacuees, take sick, take their lives or in other ways join the few who fell immediately to floods, collapsing houses and crashed cars. |
| Your city will drain much faster than ours did. Half of New Orleans is below sea level, requiring that rainfall (and, yes, all of our sewage) to be pumped over the ring levee that protects us from storm surge. (It took us weeks to dry out; some of us were still fighting black mold a year after our homes got coated with it.) | Your city will drain much faster than ours did. Half of New Orleans is below sea level, requiring that rainfall (and, yes, all of our sewage) to be pumped over the ring levee that protects us from storm surge. (It took us weeks to dry out; some of us were still fighting black mold a year after our homes got coated with it.) |
| There will be grief and there will be bitterness as you return in the coming months. You will debate the conflicting signals on evacuation that were issued by your governor and your mayor. You will experience revulsion as officials strut and preen amid your wreckage, trying to avoid the excoriation heaped on George W Bush for his administration’s incompetent response to Katrina. | There will be grief and there will be bitterness as you return in the coming months. You will debate the conflicting signals on evacuation that were issued by your governor and your mayor. You will experience revulsion as officials strut and preen amid your wreckage, trying to avoid the excoriation heaped on George W Bush for his administration’s incompetent response to Katrina. |
| It strikes us as ironic that the climate-change skeptic, Greg Abbott, is the one who got jittery in the face of a storm that seems to conform rather nicely to the pattern of worsening weather scientists associate with global carbon pollution. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner’s effort to hose the governor down was probably rooted in his memories of evacuation fiascos such as the bus fire that killed 24 nursing home residents trying to flee Katrina’s sister storm, Hurricane Rita. | It strikes us as ironic that the climate-change skeptic, Greg Abbott, is the one who got jittery in the face of a storm that seems to conform rather nicely to the pattern of worsening weather scientists associate with global carbon pollution. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner’s effort to hose the governor down was probably rooted in his memories of evacuation fiascos such as the bus fire that killed 24 nursing home residents trying to flee Katrina’s sister storm, Hurricane Rita. |
| There will be a round or two of blame-gaming, trying to decide who misled you the worst. But it’s an academic exercise at this point. (The award for hypervigilance has already been earned by Rockport mayor pro tem Patrick Rios, for his warning that everyone opting to ride out the storm needed to inscribe their names on their flesh with a Sharpie so the coroner could identify their corpses.) | There will be a round or two of blame-gaming, trying to decide who misled you the worst. But it’s an academic exercise at this point. (The award for hypervigilance has already been earned by Rockport mayor pro tem Patrick Rios, for his warning that everyone opting to ride out the storm needed to inscribe their names on their flesh with a Sharpie so the coroner could identify their corpses.) |
| Harvey’s floods were much more an act of nature than the Katrina mess – and who can blame nature? The source of our devastation, the collapse of our levees, was an engineering failure, the second worst in human history after the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. The army corps has atoned for its sins with a $14.5bn makeover. It took years, of course. | Harvey’s floods were much more an act of nature than the Katrina mess – and who can blame nature? The source of our devastation, the collapse of our levees, was an engineering failure, the second worst in human history after the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. The army corps has atoned for its sins with a $14.5bn makeover. It took years, of course. |
| There may be some good news: if your experience is anything like ours, much of the bitterness will give way to a sense of civic engagement and solidarity as normally easygoing and somewhat cynical urbanites get about the task of rebuilding – and perhaps even reforming – a great Gulf coast megalopolis. It makes for an awful lot of meetings and arguments and anxiety, but it’s wondrously invigorating. | There may be some good news: if your experience is anything like ours, much of the bitterness will give way to a sense of civic engagement and solidarity as normally easygoing and somewhat cynical urbanites get about the task of rebuilding – and perhaps even reforming – a great Gulf coast megalopolis. It makes for an awful lot of meetings and arguments and anxiety, but it’s wondrously invigorating. |
| You will grow impatient with politics as usual. Our levels of corruption were higher – or at least more notorious – than yours. After Katrina we jailed a mayor and some of his cronies, along with two school board presidents. And then we enacted an amendment to the city charter that called for a masterplan with force of law. No longer, we hoped, would the city’s elected leadership continually rework the zoning code at the behest of whoever came through with a hefty campaign donation or outright bribe. (We’re still tweaking the masterplan, but by god it’s got teeth – not that politicians aren’t working energetically to extract them.) | You will grow impatient with politics as usual. Our levels of corruption were higher – or at least more notorious – than yours. After Katrina we jailed a mayor and some of his cronies, along with two school board presidents. And then we enacted an amendment to the city charter that called for a masterplan with force of law. No longer, we hoped, would the city’s elected leadership continually rework the zoning code at the behest of whoever came through with a hefty campaign donation or outright bribe. (We’re still tweaking the masterplan, but by god it’s got teeth – not that politicians aren’t working energetically to extract them.) |
| More good news: the billions in federal relief money will nicely cushion your already reviving oil-patch economy. We rode out the 2008-09 crash with scarcely a whimper, thanks to the levee upgrade and billions more in tax subsidies and outright grants to those of us who lost our homes. We even got a little money from the insurance industry, notwithstanding its attempt to renege on a lot of claims. (Watch out for that.) | More good news: the billions in federal relief money will nicely cushion your already reviving oil-patch economy. We rode out the 2008-09 crash with scarcely a whimper, thanks to the levee upgrade and billions more in tax subsidies and outright grants to those of us who lost our homes. We even got a little money from the insurance industry, notwithstanding its attempt to renege on a lot of claims. (Watch out for that.) |
| On the other hand, our zeal to grab hold of that recovery money sometimes led to projects that were ill considered at best. We abandoned an art-deco masterpiece, the old Charity Hospital, and replaced it with a new hospital that gutted 40 blocks of vintage housing – this in a city dependent on tourists who come here to savor our architectural heritage. | On the other hand, our zeal to grab hold of that recovery money sometimes led to projects that were ill considered at best. We abandoned an art-deco masterpiece, the old Charity Hospital, and replaced it with a new hospital that gutted 40 blocks of vintage housing – this in a city dependent on tourists who come here to savor our architectural heritage. |
| If you’re smart, you’ll study the Dutch approach to water management. We did – before sinking back into lethargy and failing to implement a lot of what we learned. The idea is that places as vulnerable to rising seas as New Orleans and Houston need to learn to live with water rather than fight a losing battle to make it go away, need to get as wily as Rotterdam. | If you’re smart, you’ll study the Dutch approach to water management. We did – before sinking back into lethargy and failing to implement a lot of what we learned. The idea is that places as vulnerable to rising seas as New Orleans and Houston need to learn to live with water rather than fight a losing battle to make it go away, need to get as wily as Rotterdam. |
| In that spirit, and proud as you may be of your numerous city parks and green spaces, you’ll scold yourselves for having paved over mile upon mile of surrounding pastureland. You converted once verdant acreage into low-rise suburban sprawl. Nothing is clearer from Harvey than the importance of creating a more rain-retentive environment around the ribbons of concrete at the heart of Houston. In place of endless swaths of tract housing, try to imagine parkland interrupted only by the occasional apartment tower above parking levels that can flood without damage to residences. | In that spirit, and proud as you may be of your numerous city parks and green spaces, you’ll scold yourselves for having paved over mile upon mile of surrounding pastureland. You converted once verdant acreage into low-rise suburban sprawl. Nothing is clearer from Harvey than the importance of creating a more rain-retentive environment around the ribbons of concrete at the heart of Houston. In place of endless swaths of tract housing, try to imagine parkland interrupted only by the occasional apartment tower above parking levels that can flood without damage to residences. |
| The biggest surprise for us was the way catastrophe proves alluring and inspirational to a generation of young people looking for a purpose in life. | The biggest surprise for us was the way catastrophe proves alluring and inspirational to a generation of young people looking for a purpose in life. |
| Lazy, cynical old New Orleans was fearing out-migration and eventual abandonment after our population was cut – first to nothing, then to about two-thirds. Instead, we have been positively overrun since Katrina by the young, the restless and the idealistic. They’ve gentrified our older neighborhoods – a problem that needs to be managed – but they’ve also energized our schools, our restaurants, our nightlife and our digital and cultural economies. | Lazy, cynical old New Orleans was fearing out-migration and eventual abandonment after our population was cut – first to nothing, then to about two-thirds. Instead, we have been positively overrun since Katrina by the young, the restless and the idealistic. They’ve gentrified our older neighborhoods – a problem that needs to be managed – but they’ve also energized our schools, our restaurants, our nightlife and our digital and cultural economies. |
| Maybe the devastation after Harvey will prove less apocalyptic than what we went through. Maybe it won’t be quite enough to turn a crisis into a crusade. For your sake, we sure hope so. But along with our grief over what we lost, the lives the homes, the memories, 12 years later we’ve got plenty to be thankful for. Disaster is like that. | Maybe the devastation after Harvey will prove less apocalyptic than what we went through. Maybe it won’t be quite enough to turn a crisis into a crusade. For your sake, we sure hope so. But along with our grief over what we lost, the lives the homes, the memories, 12 years later we’ve got plenty to be thankful for. Disaster is like that. |
| Jed Horne was awarded a Pulitzer prize for his part in coverage of Hurricane Katrina by the New Orleans daily, The Times-Picayune. His chronicle of the storm, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (Random House), was declared “the best of the Katrina books” by NPR. | Jed Horne was awarded a Pulitzer prize for his part in coverage of Hurricane Katrina by the New Orleans daily, The Times-Picayune. His chronicle of the storm, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (Random House), was declared “the best of the Katrina books” by NPR. |