Press

It's always a big deal when New Orleans is treated with anything approaching accuracy in the national media. John Schwartz's NYT piece today on the "patchwork" state of our flood control "system" is such an occasion.

The entire flood system still provides much less protection than New Orleans needs, and the pre-Katrina patchwork of levees, floodwalls and gates that a Corps of Engineers investigation called “a system in name only” is still just that.

The corps has strengthened miles of floodwalls, but not always in places where people live. It has built up breached walls on the east side of one major canal, but left the west side, which stood up to Hurricane Katrina, lower and thus more vulnerable. It has not closed the canals that have often been described as funnels for floodwaters into the city.

And its most successful work, building enormous floodgates to cut off the fingerlike canals that brought so much flooding into the city, had a divisive effect. The gates now protect prosperous neighborhoods like Lakeview, and though corps officials say there has been no favoritism, the effect has been to draw out old resentments and conspiracy theories in a city that never lacked for them.

This is not to say the article is perfect although the tone is about right. Those "successful" floodgates and pumps have been subjected to heavier criticism than Schwartz makes clear.. but he does allude to it and even talks to Matt McBride. I'd much rather have this article in circulation nationally than I would the recent National Geographic debacle.

Update: Dangerblond titles her post with my other favorite quote from the NYT article.