Word: gustave
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...defenses just three years after their tragic errors and warped priorities drowned New Orleans. The sad truth is that the Big Easy--while slightly less vulnerable than it was before Katrina--is still extremely vulnerable. And eventually the region will face the Big One, a storm far larger than Gustav or Katrina. "We got lucky this time," says law professor Mark Davis, director of Tulane's Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy. "I like being lucky. But at some point we have to get smart...
...brunt of the storm passed directly over the coast's best-preserved barrier island, Grand Isle, which sapped its power; Gustav also seems to have passed over another speed bump in the form of a rare swath of healthy marshes. "It's really incredible; a slight variation of the track either way could have meant six more feet of storm surge," says Louisiana State University coastal scientist Robert Twilley, who studied Gustav's track. "I hope nobody gets a false sense of security." The barrier islands that once protected New Orleans have eroded, and most of the city's nearby...
...Corps has pledged that by 2011, the city will be safe from a 100-year storm--the level of protection that was required but never provided before Katrina. It has already repaired or improved 220 miles (350 km) of flood walls and levees and installed floodgates that during Gustav helped keep surges from Lake Pontchartrain out of the city's drainage canals. "The New Orleans area now has the best flood protection in its history," the Corps boasted...
...decades, Louisiana's southern parishes have clamored for a series of gigantic levees across the coast--a kind of Great Wall of Louisiana--starting with a 72-mile (116 km) Morganza-to-the-Gulf dike for the city of Houma and some exposed bayou towns. Keith Luke rode out Gustav in his shrimp boat; his hometown of Dulac, once nestled behind cypress swamps and marshes, is now surrounded by open water. "We need levees," Luke said after the storm. "This is one bayou that's not protected ... I'm sure we're going to get our turn...
...hectares) of wetlands. Scientists believe it would make the coast even less safe by ravaging storm buffers, amplifying storm surges and encouraging complacency. And a preliminary Corps analysis suggests that building the levee to real 100-year standards could cost $10.7 billion, a 1,200% increase. Before Gustav, Jindal had convened a science panel to review Morganza-to-the-Gulf, and momentum has been building for an alternative alignment that would protect Houma without cutting off wetlands. "We're still vulnerable, no question about it," says John Lopez, who designed the alternative plan for the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation...