What Changes Has New Orleans (And The Gulf Coast) Made Since Hurricane Katrina?

Suggested Commendation:"2 New Orleans Before and After Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/13178.

two

New Orleans Before and After Katrina

Two speakers at the workshop provided historical perspectives on the experiences of New Orleans with hurricanes. Craig Colten, the Carl O. Sauer Professor of Geography at Louisiana Country University, compared the experiences of New Orleans during Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to track the development of resilience in the metropolis over the past half century. Allison Plyer, co-deputy director of the Greater New Orleans Customs Information Eye, provided a statistical analysis of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area since Katrina to highlight both the accomplishments and the challenges of the mail service-Katrina period.

FORGETTING THE UNFORGETTABLE: CRAIG COLTEN

On September 9, 1965, Hurricane Betsy struck New Orleans with winds over 100 miles per hour. At the time, except for the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, only pocket-size barriers protected shorelines from flooding, and the city had more than residents than it does today. The tempest, which inundated less than half the urban area of New Orleans, caused considerable but non overwhelming damage to residences, and the state of Louisiana suffered just over lxxx deaths (Colten and Sumpter, 2008).

Almost exactly 40 years later, the city had a much more formidable hurricane protection levee system, and the population of the city had fallen from 627,000 residents in 1965 to circa 437,000 residents just earlier Katrina (Kates et al., 2006; Williamson, 2010). Yet a staggering number of homes were seriously flooded or destroyed, and the storm acquired more than i,500 deaths throughout Louisiana (Kates et al., 2006).

After Hurricane Betsy, Louisiana Governor John McKeithen pledged that "cypher like this volition happen again" and asserted that his administration would "establish procedures that volition someday in the virtually future make a echo of this disaster impossible." Forty years later a storm of bottom magnitude acquired far worse damage and fatalities. "Had the lessons of Betsy been retained?" asked Colten during his presentation. "Had they been woven into hurricane preparations and used to brand the metropolis more resilient?" The reply has to be no. Resilience eroded in the city of New Orleans between the two events, Colten said. The urban center did not retain the lessons of past hurricanes, and information technology did not plan or prepare adequately for future events. This erosion of resilience has implications for any other city that faces repeated disruptive events.

Resilience Defined

Colten divers resilience as the ability of a community to rebound subsequently an extreme or stressful result to either the same status or to a functional state. This definition can use to either ecological or human communities, he observed. Simply man communities have the power to learn, arrange, and arrange to subsequent disruptive events, and so long as they retain lessons learned in previous events and use those lessons to adapt to future events.

Given this definition, the term resilience implies a community that anticipates problems, reduces vulnerabilities, responds effectively to an emergency, and recovers rapidly to a safer and fairer functional land. To achieve resilience, communities need to brand deliberate efforts to infuse preparations with historical perspectives and to convey lessons to each generation of leaders, Colten said. They demand to preserve, nurture, integrate, and perpetuate social memories of past events and use these memories every bit growth points for the renewal and reorganization of socioecological systems (Adger, 2000).

Changes Between 1965 and 2005

One area where there was significant improvement betwixt the two hurricanes was in storm forecasting. The forecasting tools in 1965 included early radar systems, hurricane hunter flights, and networks of transport reports. Two days before the landfall of Betsy, the city of New Orleans and federal officials had already launched total grooming for the hurricane. A day before landfall the alert expanse extended from Texas to Florida.

In 2005 the National Hurricane Center produced a virtually perfect track for the hurricane 72 hours before landfall (east.g., http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/katrina.html; accessed May xxx, 2011). This emphatic alarm provided impetus for the evacuation of able-bodied people and the provisioning of shelters, although many people with special needs still did non accept enough fourth dimension to evacuate from the metropolis.

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Before and Later Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13178.

Colten identified iv central elements that have been involved in the loss of resilience betwixt the 2 hurricanes: (one) flood-proof architecture, (two) protective structures and land use, (3) local evacuation and multiple shelters, and (four) the coordination of the organizational response. Colten offered a historical context to understand these factors before Hurricane Betsy and between Betsy and Katrina.

Architecture

From the colonial era into the 1920s, Colten noted that many New Orleans homes were elevated to a higher place the floodplain. This was usually done to make them libation in the summertime, just it also provided protection confronting floods. Early on construction also often relied on waterproof materials such every bit cypress and tile, which provided some caste of resilience fifty-fifty when structures were not elevated.

After Earth War 2, houses built on concrete slabs raised just a few inches in a higher place footing level largely replaced raised houses in the city limits. The city planning office noted that this slab on-grade housing was a fault afterwards the hurricane of 1947, merely no steps were taken to restore safety construction. These houses became the dominant type of structure and were immune by building codes (Colten and Sumpter, 2008).

State Apply

Later New Orleans was founded in 1718, early settlement clustered on the narrow high ground of natural levees near the river, which provided the only solid footing and were the last areas to flood and the first to bleed after flooding (Figure two-1). As the city grew during the 19th century, information technology spread along the high ground, avoiding more flood-prone areas (Kates et al., 2006).

In the 20th century, housing extended into more susceptible areas as New Orleans became one of the largest cities in the U.s.a.. Afterward a devastating hurricane in 1915 drove storm surge beyond the lakefront and into the sprawling city, the city turned to structural protection. It built a ix.5-foot seawall on the lakefront, which was completed in 1934, to keep h2o out of the city's "dorsum door." With that barrier in place, the metropolis expanded toward the lakefront during the economical boom of the 1920s, facilitated by public works programs that drained depression-lying areas and provided water and sewer lines. Past the beginning of the Neat Depression, the neighborhoods of Lakeview and Gentilly were developed, and the inhabitants believed them to be safe despite their low elevations (Kates et al., 2006; see maps in Appendix D for locations of New Orleans neighborhoods).

A 1947 hurricane rekindled concern, Colten indicated, but the lakefront levees provided expert protection, and developers felt it was safe to extend urban sprawl. The U.S. Ground forces Corps of Engineers congenital the Jefferson Parish lakefront levee along with other levees to protect urban areas and waterways.

Suggested Commendation:"2 New Orleans Earlier and Afterward Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13178.

Figure two-ane Development occurred in areas protected by an expanding levee network betwixt 1900 and 2005. For additional maps, meet Appendix D. SOURCE: Kates et al., 2006.

Following Hurricane Betsy, the urban center and country appealed for enhanced structural protection to what was then a minor arrangement. The Corps of Engineers provided a plan to Congress in July 1965 for new levees, and the plan was approved. Progress roughshod chronically backside schedule and the plan had not been finished in 2005, though it had originally been scheduled for completion in 1978 (USGAO, 2005; Colten and Sumpter, 2008).

Many of the new levees protected uninhabited areas, which meant that their cost could be justified only if these areas were developed. With new levees in place, urban growth largely ignored prior floods. The levees excluded the entire city from the 100-year floodplain,¹ though 67 percent of the city's homeowners had alluvion insurance to guard confronting freshwater floods (Colten, 2005; Meitrodt and Mowbray, 2006).

____________

ⁱ A 100-year floodplain is the area that volition exist inundated past a flood having a 1 per centum chance of beingness equaled or exceeded in any given year. See http://www.fema.gov/plan/preclude/floodplain/nfipkeywords/flood_zones.shtm (accessed May 30, 2011).

Suggested Citation:"ii New Orleans Before and After Katrina." National Inquiry Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13178.

Equally levees were extended following Betsy, many new subdivisions were platted in areas that were flooded in 1965. For case, 22,000 new homes were congenital in New Orleans Eastward between the 1960 and 1980 censuses, representing a massive expansion of housing in areas below sea level. Jefferson Parish underwent dramatic growth during this period, with the population more doubling. Metropolitan New Orleans added 150,000 housing units between 1965 and 1985, well-nigh of them in areas backside new simply uncompleted levees (Colten and Sumpter, 2008).

Another issue of the widespread construction of levees was subsidence of the state. When the areas behind levees were drained, the land compacted and lowered, increasing the susceptibility of housing to extreme damage if the levees failed or were overtopped.

Evacuation

During the 1965 hurricane, planning emphasized local evacuations. More than 180 shelters were bachelor and hands accessible, so people could evacuate within minutes. Many sturdy two-story neighborhood schools were designated as shelters, providing prophylactic, cooking facilities, and toilets. Other shelters included military machine bases that provided for bones needs. The country programme had enough food to provide for more than 400,000 people for two weeks before the storm, and cots were ready before the storm arrived (Colten and Sumpter, 2008).

On the eve of Hurricane Betsy, warnings were sent out to people living in lower littoral parishes, and city residents were urged by radio, telly, and newspapers to relocate to shelters. Evacuation routes marked in previous years showed the way, and more than 300,000 people evacuated low-lying coastal areas in Louisiana (Goudeau and Conner, 1967). Many walked or took public transit, so they were non dependent on individual cars.

After Betsy, development outpaced available levels of protection. With the new levees, deep submersion of the city was possible, so it was no longer possible to evacuate locally. People would need to evacuate long distances, which meant that evacuations would rely largely on private automobiles. But many people had no admission to private transportation. Also, many public facilities—such as hospitals, jails, and nursing homes—opted not to evacuate given the expense of doing so.

Although at least 800,000 people left the urban area in 2005 (http://www.dhs.gov/xfoia/athenaeum/gc_1157649340100.shtm; accessed May xxx, 2011), some 100,000 remained backside (Heitman, 2010), and there were inadequate provisions for those who did not evacuate. Some people were stranded in their homes. Others fled to neighborhood schools and broke into the buildings. Others went to the convention center after the tempest, seeking rescue or supplies. Approximately 10,000 people congregated at the Superdome (Filosa, 2005), and people were told to bring 3 days' worth of their ain nutrient. Then the roof of the Superdome failed during the storm.

Response

The primary planning for the response to Hurricane Betsy was done by the Department of Civil Defense, which maintained lists of shelters and coordinated response planning. The military also played an important role, with the Coast Guard performing rescues and the National Baby-sit providing security, and local governments providing an assortment of police, fire, and other services. Though there was some criticism after Betsy about the need for greater coordination, at that place was a remarkable lack of bickering across levels of regime, said Colten.

During Katrina, the National Weather Service did an beauteous job of forecasting the storm, and the urban center alleged a mandatory evacuation with reasonable atomic number 82 times. But the failure of the levees disrupted response procedures and interfered with communications. While the Declension Guard and the fire department were among the few organizations that received praise, the tempest became a major social cataclysm, Colten indicated. The scale of the effect exceeded the power of organizations to respond at an appropriate scale. This failure at all levels led to finger pointing rather than a sense of shared responsibility, every bit afterwards Betsy.

Changes Since Katrina

In full general, said Colten, the lessons that should take been learned from Betsy and other hurricanes were not heeded earlier Katrina, and many of these lessons still are non being heeded. Although the levees are under repair and new surge barriers are in place, the city's footprint has not been fundamentally reduced, even though the corps no longer considers the levees around New Orleans to provide protection confronting a 100-year flood consequence. Today, many houses in New Orleans are beneath sea level, and even some of the houses built after Katrina are sick suited for high water, said Colten.

After a protracted public process, New Orleans adopted a plan that opens the entire city to redevelopment while targeting sure areas for rebuilding, renewal, and redevelopment. Edifice can occur in nigh of the areas that were flooded and remain susceptible to future floods.

Great improvements accept occurred in preparing for the evacuation of the infirm, every bit demonstrated past the much more successful evacuation carried out before Hurricane Gustav in 2008, and plans have been made for the establishment of more local shelters. Even so, long-distance evacuation remains the major response program.

A congressional select commission ended that many failures in the emergency response during Katrina were attributable to inadequate cooperation and communication among government bodies responsible for preparation and response. Despite the emergence of spontaneous groups such as Mutual Footing to fill this void, merging their efforts with those of existing agencies and nongovernmental organizations remains problematic, Colten indicated.

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Before and Subsequently Katrina." National Enquiry Quango. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13178.

Resilience as a concept is gaining widespread application. But later on a calamity, immediate and deliberate steps need to be taken to identify and archive effective resilience techniques, Colten said. Social memories demand to be perpetuated at all levels and all stages to heighten emergency response, recovery, and long-term reconstruction. Today, memories of Katrina remain strong, which has motivated change. Volition these memories still be motivating similar behaviors when the next major hurricane strikes New Orleans?

THE NEW ORLEANS INDEX AT FIVE: ALLISON PLYER

The New Orleans Metropolitan Area has sustained three major shocks in the last five years: (ane) Hurricane Katrina, (2) the economic recession that started in 2008, and (3) the oil spill acquired by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in 2010. Yet New Orleans is rebounding from all of these events, said Allison Plyer, co-deputy managing director of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Information technology has become more resilient and is better positioned to non just adjust just transform itself in the futurity. Plyer added that key economical, social, and environmental trends in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area remain troubling and are testing the region'southward path to prosperity.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center publishes the New Orleans Index with the Brookings Institution, which began publishing the alphabetize after Hurricane Katrina. For the 5th anniversary edition of the index, the Community Data Heart and the Brookings Institution examined trends in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area across the past 30 years to expect more deeply at problems of resilience. The resulting analysis, forth with seven essays on aspects of resilience and recovery past local scholars, are being included in a book published past the Brookings Institution Press (see also Liu and Plyer, 2010)ⁱⁱ.

Measures of Prosperity

The New Orleans Index looks at 4 dimensions of prosperity: (i) economic growth, (2) inclusive growth, (3) sustainable growth, and (4) quality of life. The metropolitan area includes the vii parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Plaquemines, St. John, and St. Tammany, though in some cases the assay includes the three additional parishes of St. James, Tangipahoa, and Washington. The index as well compares the New Orleans region to 57 "weak metropolis"

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² Allison Plyer's remarks are sourced from a report of the Brookings Establishment and the Greater New Orleans Community Data Heart chosen "The New Orleans Alphabetize at Five: From Recovery to Transformation," released in Baronial 2010 [http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2007/08neworleansindex.aspx]; the Power Betoken presented by Ms. Plyer derives from that report and can be found here: https://gnocdc.s3.amazonaws.com/NOIat5/NOLArecoveryBriefing.ppt. Both links accessed May 30, 2011.

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Earlier and After Katrina." National Enquiry Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: x.17226/13178.

metropolitan regions—older industrial cities that, like New Orleans, have experienced decades of relative economic turn down.

Employment data for New Orleans prove a nifty deal of variation in the terminal 5 years (Figure 2-ii). It lost jobs immediately after Katrina, gained jobs during the initial stages of recovery, and then lost jobs once more during the recession. However, New Orleans shed fewer jobs when the recession hit, losing only 1.4 percent of all jobs betwixt 2008 and 2009 compared with 4.iii percent nationally. Postal service-Katrina rebuilding and the relative strength of the oil and gas industry helped the area weather the recession ameliorate than the norm (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

The index looks specifically at "regional consign industries" that serve customers exterior the region. As a broad rule of thumb, every export industry job supports about two local serving jobs. For example, ane job in the oil and gas industry might support the equivalent of 2 dry-cleaning jobs, with export industry jobs typically paying higher wages than local serving jobs, Plyer said.

The economy of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area has been diversifying (Effigy 2-3). Among regional export industries, jobs in the oil and gas industry, shipping, and ship edifice have dropped since 1980, as have jobs in tourism

Figure two-2 Job growth and loss in New Orleans (light-green line) rebounded after Katrina and did not decline as much in the recent recession as the national average. SOURCE: Liu and Plyer, 2010.

Suggested Commendation:"two New Orleans Earlier and After Katrina." National Enquiry Quango. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/13178.

FIGURE ii-three Regional export jobs for the ten largest consign specializations have declined in traditional industries but are expanding in cognition-based industries. SOURCE: Liu and Plyer, 2010.

since Katrina. In contrast, jobs in knowledge-based industries, such as higher didactics, legal services serving clients exterior the region, and insurance, have increased in number. In 2009, for instance, jobs in college education became the fourth largest economic driver in the metropolitan surface area, exceeding shipbuilding, heavy structure, and engineering (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

Wages in the New Orleans Metropolitan Surface area accept grown by near fourteen percent in the concluding 5 years—to nigh $45,000 in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars—approaching the national average for the showtime time since the mid-1980s

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Before and Afterward Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Declension of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: ten.17226/13178.

Effigy two-4 Wages in New Orleans surged 14 percent afterwards Katrina only have stagnated since 2006. SOURCE: Liu and Plyer, 2010.

(Figure ii-4). This increase in wages started before Katrina equally noesis-based industries grew, and accelerated afterwards the tempest. The median household income also grew by 4 percent from 1999 to 2008 while national median household incomes declined. These changes are due to some extent to the loss of lower-paying jobs amongst people who could not afford to render to the New Orleans area after the tempest. Notwithstanding, tracking where people have moved and what has happened to them after Katrina has been difficult, then the effects of demographic changes on average incomes are very difficult to determine.

The rate at which New Orleanians are creating new businesses is higher than the national boilerplate, after lagging behind the national boilerplate before Katrina. The number of arts and culture organizations in the city too grew from 2004 to 2007, from 81 to 86, despite the city'south smaller population after Katrina (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

A greater share of students attend schools that encounter land standards of quality—59 per centum compared with 30 percent in 2004—which is too a trend

Suggested Commendation:"2 New Orleans Earlier and After Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/13178.

that accelerated after Katrina. Furthermore, these gains take occurred beyond all of the parishes (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

Resilience Factors

Plyer analyzed five factors that help determine resilience: (i) a stiff and diverse regional economic system, (ii) big shares of skilled and educated workers, (3) wealth that tin be deployed in strategic ways to adapt when a shock hits, (4) strong social upper-case letter, and (v) customs competence.

Of these 5, New Orleans has exhibited particular strength in the last three since Katrina, she said. For example, it has experienced a significant increment in community participation. More than New Orleanians are involved in shaping public policies. New Orleanians are "more likely than residents of other cities to nourish public meetings… . Individuals and groups have become more than strategic and sophisticated … and at that place is greater cooperation betwixt organizations, including the emergence of new umbrella groups" (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

The recovery has seen the rising of sophisticated resident and community groups. These groups are pursuing holistic strategies to revive entire neighborhoods and are engaging in constructive policy advocacy to pursue economically integrated housing and neighborhoods, Plyer indicated. The federal government has "taken steps to overhaul the troubled housing authority," and depression-income households are beingness provided with quality, permanent, and affordable housing (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

Later years of meetings, New Orleanians have an approved master program designed to guide the urban center toward a modern and secure future that also recognizes the civilisation and history of the city (see http://www.nolamasterplan.org/; accessed May 30, 2011). The plan provides for predictable development and formalizes the community participation procedure. "Citizens and civic leaders have also advocated for and won critical governance reforms, such as the consolidation of the levee boards, the merger of the city's seven belongings assessors into one office, [and] the creation of the Office

Suggested Commendation:"2 New Orleans Before and Afterward Katrina." National Enquiry Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: ten.17226/13178.

of the Inspector Full general…." (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

In the area of education, the majority of the schools in the New Orleans school district were converted to charter schools after Katrina. Many school facilities have been upgraded, and new teachers accept been recruited. A higher percent of eighth and fourth graders are proficient in mathematics and English today than earlier the tempest (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

In wellness care, the metropolitan surface area now "provides access to principal care and outpatient mental health services at 93 sites across iv parishes… . Emergency room visits have declined as patients have increased their visits for preventive intendance" through this new system of health care delivery (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

In the criminal justice expanse, programs have begun to offer alternatives to incarceration. New legislation establishes an independent police monitor as part of the Inspector Full general's Office and new interagency partnerships beyond the criminal justice organization (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

With respect to the coastal wetlands, best-selling every bit of import for inundation protection, the state created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. A programme for coastal restoration has as well been passed by the state, and the need for better state-use and state-use direction plans has been recognized, including the adoption of a statewide edifice lawmaking (Liu and Plyer, 2010). At the federal level, the Obama administration released a roadmap to guide federal efforts to restore littoral ecosystems of Louisiana and Mississippi (meet http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/gulfcoast/roadmap; accessed May 30, 2011).

All of these reforms "demand a lot more than work," said Plyer, but many were "substantially unimaginable before the storm."

Remaining Obstacles

Despite this progress, several indicators point to standing difficulties every bit New Orleans seeks to recover from Katrina. First, coin remains a serious constraint. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita combined caused an estimated $150 billion in amercement beyond the Gulf Declension. The federal government spent an estimated $126 billion on the recovery effort, but much of that money went to such short-term measures as emergency rescue operations and short-term housing. Simply near $45 billion of that coin went to rebuilding. Private insurance provided about $30 billion for reconstruction, and philanthropies provided almost $6 billion—three times as much as for whatever other upshot in history. Even with expenditures of that magnitude, a gap of almost $70 billion remains (Ahlers et al., 2008). "We are going to run across the effects of Katrina in our communities for probably our lifetime because at that place'due south not enough coin to rebuild."

Furthermore, major industries, including oil and gas, and shipping, accept all declined since 1980. To some extent, a rise in tourism fabricated up for the loss of jobs in oil and gas, but the number of tourism jobs is at present lower than in 1980. The Deepwater Horizon disaster reinforced how vulnerable many industries in the region are to water-related disasters, though the 2010 oil spill provides an opportunity to employ some of the funds from BP (British Petroleum) to clean up and restore the wetlands that protect the city.

Also, New Orleans may take lost educated workers later the storm. In 2008 the share of higher-educated workers in New Orleans remained unchanged from 2000 at most 23 percent, but this number grew nationally (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

Income disparities remain stark among whites, Hispanics, and African Americans in New Orleans. Black and Hispanic household incomes are 45 and 25 per centum lower than for whites, respectively. The New Orleans African American population has fifty-fifty lower household incomes than the national average for African Americans. The suburban parishes now business firm the majority of the metro-

Suggested Commendation:"ii New Orleans Earlier and After Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: x.17226/13178.

politan surface area'due south poor (Liu and Plyer, 2010). This trend started before Katrina and is consistent with the national trend of the suburbanization of poverty.

Despite the growth in average wages and median household incomes in the metropolitan area, "renters in the urban center and suburbs nonetheless pay too much of their earnings toward housing" (Liu and Plyer, 2010). In Orleans Parish, 58 percent of renters, and 45 per centum of renters in the metropolitan expanse, pay more than 35 per centum of their pretax household income toward housing, compared with 41 percent of renters nationally. Homeowners in New Orleans also acquit a higher cost brunt than is the boilerplate nationwide (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

"Fierce crimes and property crimes have risen" since Katrina "and remain in a higher place national rates," (Liu and Plyer, 2010) though they are lower than they were in 1990. The rates for both types of crimes in Orleans Parish are near double the national rates, Plyer said.

Meanwhile, littoral wetlands have continued to erode. More than 23 percent of the country around the New Orleans Metropolitan Area has been lost since measurements began in 1956; the impact of the oil disaster on the wetlands has not nonetheless been measured (Liu and Plyer, 2010).

Principles for Recovery

Much of the recovery since Katrina has been aimed at bringing the city back to where it was earlier the disaster. Merely that is not enough, Plyer said. The goal must be transformation, not only preserving the condition quo. In this regard, she identified three key principles for standing the recovery.

The first is to sustain and build on postal service-Katrina reforms. Specific ideas suggested in Liu and Plyer (2010) include

• Increasing the pool of qualified teachers.

• Providing "sustained gap funding for community-based health centers."

• Edifice "capacity inside local government to bulldoze … improvements" among criminal justice agencies.

• Non rescinding or reallocating unspent hurricane recovery dollars and rather using those funds to address unmet housing needs, neighborhood rehabilitation, and community chapters.

The 2d principle is to embrace new opportunities presented by the recession and oil spill. Liu and Plyer (2010) advise

• Investment in the restoration of littoral wetlands, and advancing the arroyo to live with water.

• Diversification of the economy, including the energy sector.

• Challenging entrepreneurs to generate creative business ideas that strengthen legacy industries.

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Before and Later on Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: x.17226/13178.

• Expanding international export chapters through port modernization and multimodal freight strategies.

• "Increasing the capacity of small businesses, especially minority- and women-owned businesses," to participate in growth sectors.

The tertiary principle is to strengthen "regional resilience to minimize futurity shocks and shape the future course" of events (Liu and Plyer, 2010). In this area, Liu and Plyer (2010) suggest that New Orleans should

• Diversify its economy and increase skills.

• "Expand local 'wealth' (due east.g., tax base, private investment, philanthropy) to match outside resource."

• "Keep to nurture an open up society where engagement, networks, partnerships, and collaborations tin evolve organically."

• "Help maintain citizen participation every bit the community transitions from 'crisis' to implementation."

Becoming resilient is a marathon and not a sprint, Plyer concluded.

Discussion

During the discussion period, Plyer was asked virtually her vision for New Orleans in 2050. She responded that New Orleans has tremendous potential to lead in such areas equally renewable energies, for example, by redeploying scientists and engineers involved in the oil and gas industries. Sectors of the U.S. economy, such as the military machine, and entire countries, such equally Red china, accept made a commitment to renewable free energy, and so a market exists. New Orleans culture has non emphasized innovation in the past, but the numbers of entrepreneurs in the city accept grown since Katrina. "It'southward a thing of industry, will, and intention."

New Orleans also has the unique advantage of the Mississippi River, which it could employ to increase its office in an export economy. The United States has many products that could be sold abroad, and the country needs to opposite its trade imbalances. New Orleans exists because of its port, and reforms to the port's governance and infrastructure could make the city a vibrant identify. "Nosotros have allowed other ports to greatly supersede our chapters, like Mobile, Houston, et cetera, but they don't have the Mississippi River."

Finally, many new people are moving to New Orleans, which is changing the city'due south civilisation. "We enjoy Mardi Gras, but we're going to go on pushing to arrive a modern city with a vibrant and time to come-oriented economic system." Bug of inclusion and equity also need to be addressed as the city's civilization changes, "considering we can't exist prosperous unless everybody is prosperous." Changing the culture is a lot of difficult work, but the city already has a culture unlike that of any other city. Building on that civilization could create a new future for the city.

Suggested Citation:"2 New Orleans Before and Afterwards Katrina." National Research Council. 2011. Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters: The Perspective from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi: Summary of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: ten.17226/13178.

In response to a question about the privatization of governmental services, Plyer responded that more evidence is needed to brand generalizations that apply across sectors. In some cases the privatization of services in New Orleans after Katrina has had benefits, merely in other cases the privatization of services has been tremendously inefficient. Information technology "bends both ways."

Plyer also said that people in every neighborhood in the city tend to express the opinion that other neighborhoods are receiving more money than is their neighborhood. However, tracking the verbal expenditures of recovery funds is very difficult. "Tin can we say for sure that Lower Nine is getting less than Lakeview? I don't know that there are any numbers that could show that. What we encourage folks to practise is really to continue to build their capacity to advocate for what they need in their neighborhood."

Finally, in response to a question almost climatic change, Plyer observed that the U.South. Army Corps of Engineers has been commissioned to build levees that will protect the city confronting a 100-year storm. Just that level of protection volition non be adequate in the future. Many people in the city have become interested in the inundation protection measures beingness built in kingdom of the netherlands, where protection confronting an eleven,000-twelvemonth storm is the goal. Pursuing such a goal for New Orleans would require a tremendous effort. "It's not going to happen overnight, but the folks who understand what it'due south going to take for the city to exist sustainable volition non give upward that fight, considering folks are non fooled into thinking that the levees will exist sufficient."

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Source: https://www.nap.edu/read/13178/chapter/4

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