Old River Case Study

This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong

The Old River flows from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya River. To regulate this flow, the Old River is dammed by the Old River Control Structure, which is an effort by the Army Corps to keep the Mississippi River from giving most of its water to the Atchafalaya River. If that were to occur, Morgan City (a town of 12,000 that sits on the banks of the Atchafalaya River) would be underwater and New Orleans would lose its most vital asset in the Mississippi River. To New Orleans, the Mississippi River means financial success, as New Orleans is a transportation hub. Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana, also sits on the banks of the Mississippi River. Baton Rouge originally had an economy based on natural gas, to which the river was vital in a transportation aspect. Now, the state capital has an economy with many different sectors. Marucci Sports, best known for making baseball bats, calls Baton Rouge home. The Atchafalaya River would struggle to support economies that require transportation like the Mississippi River, as it doesn’t run the length of the United States. The Atchafalaya River is 137 miles long, compared to the Mississippi’s 2,320 miles, running from where the Red River and Old River meet all the way to the Atchafalaya Bay. The Atchafalaya Bay is connected directly to the Gulf of Mexico, which differs from the Mississippi River’s situation

In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount

Repeated events, highlighted by the flood of 1993 and the fallout of Katrina, continues to illustrate the US Army Corps of Engineers’ failure in strengthening flood control up and down the Mississippi, including the redesign and upgrading levees. America is a product of this constant struggle in dominating nature using science and reason.

For this paper water structures and infrastructures were selected as focus points because the longer we wait to fix issues with them, the more expensive it will get, in other words, we are in a race against time. Studying the past it is easy to see how water availability made population explode in an area such as Southern California, where savvy marketing and great politics made it happen. Particularly, for Los Angeles and for the purposes of public narrative, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert does a great job at understanding and identifying the politics and key figures in getting water to Los Angeles. Great hydrologic structures were created using both manpower and water politics. It is important to state that there are connections between water, politics, environment, and geography when analyzing what the biggest problems involving water structures and infrastructures (Reisner.) We must think of water as both a socio-political issue and a natural resource, whose fate is molded by the understanding of its connectivity to itself, man-made structures, geography, environment, and society. The classes taken in this program have taught us ideals that in order to become a great water resource manager, one must master the political and scientific knowledge to make decisions that are prosperous for society and the environment. Furthermore, one must know the United States’ hydrological history in order to gain manipulation upon the system that makes it both thrive and deteriorate.

They had thought about it but there was certain effects they just couldn’t over look. The Atchafalaya was used as a safety valve, to relieve a good deal of pressure and help keep New Orleans from ending up in Yucatan. The Atchafalaya was the source of water in the swamps and bayous of the Cajun world. The Atchafalaya was the water supply of countless towns and small cities. The Corps was not in a political or moral position to kill the Atchafalaya. The principles of nature said the more the Atchafalaya was given, the more it would want to take, because it was the deeper stream. The more it was given, the deeper it would make its bed. The Corps would have to build some kind of contraption that could give the Atchafalaya a portion of the Mississippi and at the same time prevent it from taking it all.

The New York Times article, “Left to Louisiana’s Tides, a Village Fights For Time,” discusses the plight of Jean Lafitte, a town of seven thousand people located two miles below the levee protecting New Orleans. A fourth of Louisiana’s wetlands have been lost, much of which is due to intense hurricanes from 2005 to 2008. It is estimated that a football field worth of wetland disappears every 100 minutes and that in 200 years the wetlands will be completely gone. This degradation is due to climate change and human intervention in the area in pursuit of oil and farmland and in the creation of levees. Oliver A. Houck, a Tulane professor quoted in the article, claims, “It is the largest ecological catastrophe in North America since the Dust Bowl.” The loss of the wetlands puts coastal, working-class communities, many of which have lived in the area since the 1800s, in danger of washing away. Local governments

Levees were implemented as the primary form of protection from the bodies of water surrounding the city. Moreover, officials recognized these structures were critical to protecting the city’s inhabitants given the city’s topography. However, a confluence of factors led to projects that were more immediately profitable being a top priority while simultaneously allowing the infrastructure critical to protecting the city deteriorate. Because of decisions to postpone upgrades and maintenance, the city’s chances of withstanding a hurricane of Katrina’s magnitude were decreased. Ultimately, the levee breaches caused the city’s destruction.

The outflow channel was dig between the two rivers in the path of the former Upper Old River. The overbank structure did just what it sounds like. It’s a large dam the spans over the land. It has large levees on each side to keep the river separate but in the event that the Mississippi River was out of its banks they could open the overbank structure and continue to allow water to the Atchafalaya River as well as relieve the stress on the Mississippi River. This potentially saved the Mississippi River from breaching its banks and flooding the city of New Orleans. In 1973 a massive flood plagued the area and sent the Mississippi river over its banks. The overbank structure opened and began letting massive amounts of water flow into the Atchafalaya. The flood of 1973 nearly caused the downfall of the Old River Control Structure. During the flood a large hole opened up causing the Low Sill Dam to partially collapse. The Army Corps was able to dump large amounts of rock behind the dam in order to prevent a complete failure. Had the dam failed the Mississippi river would have changed course causing thousands of miles of southern Louisiana swampland to become completely flooded. Following the flood of 1973 the U.S. Army Corps were able to repair the dam and restore original flow rates. In order to prevent failure in the case of a future flood that began renovations and additions to the

The city of New Orleans lies below sea level in a bowl bordered by levees which prevent the high waters of the Mississippi River from flooding the city. These levees were put to the test on August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit, causing severe destruction along the Gulf coast. Three concrete floodwalls protecting the city of New Orleans fractured and burst under the weight of surging waters from the hurricane, killing hundreds and resulting in an estimated $100 to $150 billion worth of damage (Luegenbiehl, 2007). In the aftermath of the storm, society placed part of the blame on design flaws that compromised the safety of the levees and endangered the public. Under the Flood Control Act of 1965, Congress had mandated the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to protect the city from a Category 3 storm, yet the floodwalls were unable to withstand the force of Hurricane Katrina, which was eventually classified as Category 3 (Grunwalk & Warrick, 2005). The Corps pointed towards a massive surge that exceeded the height of the floodwalls, but investigations by civil engineers and other experts pointed towards the inadequate design and construction by the Corps of Engineers as the cause of the failure (Englehardt et al., 2013). The Corps acted in a manner contradicting ethical engineering behavior by being less than forthcoming about deficiencies that were accumulating in the overall system. In order to prevent future disasters involving human life, the government should require

The Atchafalaya River was created over 1000 years ago. It was formed because of the mighty Mississippi river. It plays a very important role in the everyday lives of the Louisiana people. The conceivable redirection of the Mississippi River and man1s push to oppose it, present one of the best stream designing issues ever experienced. The proof that backings the case that catch of the Mississippi by the Atchafalaya is inevitable, is accessible and plentiful. Information on the decay of the limit of the Mississippi underneath Old River and the expanding limit of the Atchafalaya has been gathered and validated. Geotectonic movement a1 so shows that the inclination toward preoccupation is expanding.

Louisiana has one of the most culturally diverse areas on earth, with respect to “SoLa,” or Southern Louisiana. New Orleans was the birthplace of Jazz, and is full of great culture from people who have developed unique traditions that are special to New Orleans. Not is the culture diverse, the wetlands contain some of the most diverse ecosystems in North America. With 40% of America’s wetlands in SoLa, the area is very unique when compared to many other places in the US. Along with the uniqueness in culture and environment, the practices of the politicians and industries may be unique due to the questionable practices of the politicians and companies. The problems described in the film for Louisiana seem to be quite unique, but after some thought, the problems are almost universal to most of the modern world.

Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana on August 29th, 2005, but the failure of the local government started before this day “by allowing building and growing in areas in low flood lands.” The local government did not regulate these land areas that have always

The failure to adequately prepare for the storm led to increased and more widespread devastation, which in many cases harmed those living in the affected areas. An independent analysis of the reason for such massive chaos was performed and determined that “Most of the damage was due to the failure of the levee system that surrounds the city to protect it from flooding” (Ubilla). Had these levees been properly built, and had there been more of them protecting the city of New Orleans, major flooding could have potentially been lessened. A simple feature of the levee structure which engineers neglected to include is the concrete

The defiance of nature bespeaks a rare relationship between a river and adjacent terrain—any river, anywhere, let alone the third-ranking river on earth. Cajun country is the adjacent terrain, in a geographical sense the apex of the French Acadian world, which forms a triangle in southern Louisiana, with its base the Gulf Coast from the mouth of the Mississippi almost to Texas, its two sides converging up here near the lock.