About one year after the August 29 2005 Katrina hurricane hit the Gulf Coast of our north american continent, a report was issued by the Independent Levee Hurricane Katrina Investigation Team. This investigation targeted three main questions: (1) What happened?, (2) Why?, and (3) What types of changes are necessary to prevent recurrence of a disaster of this scale again in the future?

The three main causes, listed in the executive summary of the report, for the many failures involved, are:

“(1) a major natural disaster (the Hurricane itself), (2) the poor performance of the flood protection system, due to localized engineering failures, questionable judgments, errors, etc. involved in the detailed design, construction, operation and maintenance of the system, and (3) more global “organizational” and institutional problems associated with the governmental and local organizations responsible for the design, construction, operation, maintenance and funding of the overall flood protection system.”

For this article, keep your eye on #3 as it affects the present constructing and unveiling of the latest man-made public work to fix the problems. Check out the update in the NYTimes on the new adventure into man’s control of nature:

Nearly five years after Katrina and the devastating failures of the levee system, New Orleans is well on its way to getting the protection system Congress ordered: a ring of 350 miles of linked levees, flood walls, gates and pumps that surrounds the city and should defend it against the kind of flooding that in any given year has a 1 percent chance of occurring.

The scale of the nearly $15 billion project, which is not due to be completed until the beginning of next year’s hurricane season, brings to mind an earlier age when the nation built huge works like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hoover Dam and the Interstate highway system.

The city’s reinforced defenses are already stronger than they were before Katrina. But even after 2011, experts argue, they will still provide less protection than New Orleans needs to avoid serious flooding in massive storms.

For a region devastated by a storm and by a loss of faith in the government’s ability to safeguard it, the new system is a test of more than the prowess of the Army Corps of Engineers. Some residents say they may never fully get over the failure of the Katrina response. “Do I trust them?” asked Beverly Crais, a Jefferson Parish resident. “No. How can I trust somebody who makes that big of an error?”

First off, wouldn’t it be grand if all we needed is for “Congress to order” the protection of anything these days. Secondly, the folks in New Orleans have reason to distrust the Army corps of Engineers, and their own local engineers and the folks foiling their expeditions into the unknown. Look deeper into this article and the characters that emerge and you wonder when sex and drugs show up in this saga.  From recent NYTimes article:

“Victor Zillmer, the engineer in charge of the Lake Borgne barrier, stood on the roadway that runs along its top and looked at the cranes building its navigation gates. His challenge, he said, is to build “the world’s tallest surge barrier on the world’s worst soils — in the least amount of time.”

Many who watch the corps declare themselves impressed. “The system that they are building is going to keep us, I think, safe,” said Timothy P. Doody, the president of the consolidated levee board to correct the failures of fragmented local boards.”

And I’m pretty sure Mr. Doody hasn’t a clue how safe this Godzilla project is going to make anyone but I am real curious why you would say that. What on earth, or the water, makes anyone believe these guys have a clue, or is buying time the best we can expect? History, apparently, is no precedent.

On the other side of the moon, we read what Cal Berkeley professor Robert G. Bea, said that “he has seen ‘lots of positive changes’ in the corps but said 100-year protection “is not even close to what is needed.” The system needs a greater margin of safety, he said.” The bigger problem lies beyond the walls, said Ivor van Heerden, author of the State of Louisiana’s report on the levee failures. “The nation needs to rebuild fragile wetlands, which are disappearing at a rate of about 24,000 acres a year and reduce the force of storms. We’re never going to succeed if we rely on concrete alone,” Dr. van Heerden said. Van Heerden has stated in the past that, “failure of the New Orleans hurricane-protection system could have been prevented.” Ah concrete, if there was ever a clever word to include in any public works project looking for Federal aid, it is concrete.

Many years ago, I recall a little book written by John McPhee titled, “Control of Nature,”  a trilogy of natural disasters looking for a day to happen. McPhee’s writing style draws you in with his descriptions of how the Mississippi works and how water flows through the continent and exits it’s southern border without any documents or privilege.

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His descriptions of the Army Corps of Engineers are over thirty years old, but may depict a problem that will take that long again to repair.

“In 1980, for example, a study published by the Water Resources Research Institute, at Louisiana State University, described Old River as “the scene of a direct confrontation between the United States Government and the Mississippi River,” and—all constructions of the Corps notwithstanding—awarded the victory to the Mississippi River. “Just when this will occur cannot be predicted,” the report concluded. “It could happen next year, during the next decade, or sometime in the next thirty or forty years. But the final outcome is simply a matter of time and it is only prudent to prepare for it.”

In McPhee’s account of how the Corp viewed the southern exposure, he describes an interview with a Cajun lockmaster back several decades:

“Rabalais works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Some years ago, the Corps made a film that showed the navigation lock and a complex of associated structures built in an effort to prevent the capture of the Mississippi. The narrator said, “This nation has a large and powerful adversary. Our opponent could cause the United States to lose nearly all her seaborne commerce, to lose her standing as first among trading nations. . . .We are fighting Mother Nature. . . .It’s a battle we have to fight day by day, year by year; the health of our economy depends on victory.”

Well, at least they realized one thing. They knew that as we saw major cities left to disintegrate, under the failure of politicians with the common sense of a slab of concrete, confidence in this economy and our ability to sustain our way of life is threatened everywhere. Never before has the ‘every man for himself’ been evident in our government. It’s a pity the hubris and failures history elaborates on have not taught us that Mother Nature is not amused.