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So what has happened in the year that followed the carnival of negligence on the Gulf Coast? In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has worked day and night--like men bailing a sinking ship, literally--to rebuild the bulwarks. They have got the flood walls and levees to where they were before Katrina, more or less. That's, er, not enough, we can now say with confidence. But it may be all that can be expected from one year of hustle.
Meanwhile, New Orleans officials have, to their credit, crafted a plan to use buses and trains to evacuate the sick, the disabled and the carless before the next big hurricane. The city estimates that 15,000 people will need a ride out. However, state officials have not yet determined where the trains and buses will take everyone. The negotiations with neighboring communities are ongoing and difficult.
More encouraging is the fact that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the state legislature managed to pass mandatory building codes this year. Most states already have such codes. Florida has had a strict one in place since 2001, and structures built under it tend to be the ones left standing after a 120 m.p.h. wind rips through. We know that for every dollar spent on that kind of basic mitigation, society saves an average of $4, according to a 2005 report by the nonprofit National Institute of Building Sciences. Then there's Mississippi, which, believe it or not, still has no statewide building code. Katrina destroyed 68,729 houses there. But this year a proposed mandatory code, opposed by many builders, real estate lobbyists and homeowners, ended up voluntary.
At the same time, Mississippi has helped coastal towns develop creative plans for rebuilding more intelligently. New Orleans, however, still has no central agency or person in charge of rebuilding. The city's planning office is down to nine people, from 24 before Katrina, and it really needs 65, according to the American Planning Association. And the imperative to rebuild the wetlands that protect against storms, much discussed in the weeks after Katrina and just as important as the levees, gets less attention every day. Worst of all, Mayor Ray Nagin and the city council are still not talking honestly about the fact that New Orleans will have to occupy a much smaller footprint in the future. It simply can't provide city services across its old boundaries, and its old boundaries cannot realistically be defended against a major storm anytime soon.
Here is the reality of New Orleans' risk profile, present and future: Donald Powell, the banker appointed by President George W. Bush to run the reconstruction effort, said last December, "The Federal Government is committed to building the best levee system known in the world." As of right now, the Corps plans to spend $6 billion to make sure that by 2010, the city will (probably) be flooded only once every 100 years. That's not close to the best in the world. The Netherlands has a system designed to protect populated areas against anything but a 1-in-10,000-years flood. Alternatively, the Corps could build 1-in-500-year protection for the city, but that would cost about $30 billion, says Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center.