The river made New Orleans great. Drainage made it livable. Before the
back swamps were drained as many as 10,000 New Orleanians died each
year of Yellow
Fever, malaria and other mosquito borne diseases. (do you understand
why we celebrate our biggest festival in the winter? and why each month
our bills from the Sewerage and Water Board include an entry for
"mosquito control"). Canals and waterways provided commerce and drainage. Levees
protect the populace from flooding. Since 1913
mechanical pumps have helped drain and protect the city from its
surrounding waterways.
The open canals of New Orleans shown above are augmented by
many more miles of canals that have been fully enclosed and now occupy
underground culverts. The ASCE has recommended enclosing the three
outfall canals along the lakefront eliminating the need for levees.
Compare the Orleans canals in the eastern half of the satellite image
to the similar canals along the lake front in Jefferson Parish. You'll
have to look closely at the image or zoom in and pan across the
lakefront. Jefferson Parish is to the west of the the 17th street
canal.
Its Bonnable canal is east of the causeway and all the others in
Jefferson are west of the causeway.
- The Jefferson Canals are sealed from the lake by pumping
stations positioned at the entrance to the lake. Breakwaters further
protect the canal mouth and pumping station. Because of this design, levees are relatively unimportant.
- In Orleans the canals drive straight into the city for miles with their levees providing the first and only line of defense.
Even with this design, disaster forecasters expect Jefferson to be
flooded by a slow moving Category 3 storm. Jefferson did experience
street flooding by rising rainwater when its pumps were turned
off tuning the storm.
As of December 15th Donald Powell announced that Louisiana will get Cat
3+ Levee Protection including state of the art pumping stations at the
mouths of three canals (17th, London, Orleans). Congress approved the
levees but not the pumping stations. The Corps' Project Guardian
promises what Congress approved by June 1, 2006. Congress continues to
debate the balance. Th Corps drops a bombshell in March, telling us it
will cost $9.1 billion. But their plan is just "levees only." Doesn't
their memory include the last time they said that. The result was the
Great Flood of 1927.