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  Two Years On: One Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Is Still at Risk

Two Years On One Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Is Still at Risk

By John Schwartz in New Orleans

Part 2: Analyzing the Risk

Col. Jeffrey A. Bedey, commander of the corps’ Hurricane Protection Office, acknowledged that the work so far has been piecemeal, because the scale of project is so enormous. The drive to provide protection against that 1-in-100 storm by 2011, Colonel Bedey said, is more thorough.

He said the maps that will predict the impact of that work, which could be published before the end of August, “should show Upper Gentilly looking very good,” and much of the rest of the city besides.

And so, he said, the analysis that many people will have to make is, “Am I really willing to take the risk between 2007 and 2011” that no big storm will overpower the work done so far?

That requires more than an analysis of risk; it requires a calculus of hope. And it is not a question that needs to be asked only in New Orleans. It is the same question that comes up when a steam pipe in New York City explodes or a bridge 1,200 miles up the Mississippi from New Orleans collapses. Getting infrastructure right is hard, and keeping it strong takes vigilance. And that means safety, uncomfortably, is a relative thing.

“If people were looking for a quick and easy answer — is it safe? — there is no easy answer,” said David E. Daniel, the president of the University of Texas at Dallas and the head of a panel that monitors the corps’ investigation of the Katrina disaster.

Some can live with thoughtful uncertainty more comfortably than others. Marion LaNasa, a homeowner in Lakeview, said he loves New Orleans and cannot imagine being happy anywhere else. “If you were really smart, would you stay?” he asked. “Probably not. But there’s more to life than assured comfort and no risk.”

Ms. Pratcher said she would continue to demand change — and to pray. “I do believe in God,” she said. “He’s the person I’m calling on now to help us, because man isn’t doing it.”

Going on Instinct

The corps has repeatedly urged local residents to come to its community briefings or to look over the flood risk data, available on its Web site at nola risk.usace.army.mil, that provides possible water levels by street address.

Mr. LaNasa, who works for Lockheed Martin at the Michoud Assembly Facility east of town, said that when the risk maps were unveiled in June, he and his wife sat at the computer and looked at the likely flooding in their home in Lakeview. He saw it as evidence that the family should stay, but his wife, who is not from New Orleans, was less certain.

“She certainly saw a lot of dark colors, which indicates a lot of water, which is distressing to her,” Mr. LaNasa said.

What he saw, though, was that the area around their house, close to Lake Pontchartrain, was relatively higher and, potentially, drier. “We’re pressing ahead — I’m not dwelling on the risk,” he said. “My wife is pressing ahead with me, but a little more skeptically.”

After climbing the learning curve, he said, “the decision is going to be an emotional decision,” just a more educated one. “Ultimately, you have to go with your gut.”

Others seem to be trusting data from a higher authority. On St. Ferdinand Street in the Desire section of the Ninth Ward, Ora M. Singleton, 70, was standing in her still-ruined front yard pulling grass out by the roots. It costs too much to have it mowed, she explained.

Ms. Singleton wanted to get rid of the grass until she can move back into the house — a process that looks, from the appearance of the place, as if it may still be a while. She has put on the new roof and installed new windows, but there is still much to be done after the house took on 7.5 feet of water.

She is close to the west wall of the navigation canal that the corps acknowledges is lower than the new one on the other side. But she has not been able to go online to look for information. “I don’t have the Internet,” she said.

If she had, she might have seen that her home still stands in a spot where waters from a 1-in-100 flood would reach six feet. Other nearby areas could expect to take on eight feet of water.

“I love my city,” she said. “I was led by the Lord to come back.”

Will she do anything different, then?

“This time we’ll not furnish our home with all that nice antique furniture,” she said. Her mailbox was swept away, but she has precariously wired a new one to the rusted fence. The mailbox is white with delicate letters: “Home Sweet Home.”

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