Re: A Moment to Ask: Will This Protect New Orleans? by John Schwartz
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/a-moment-to-ask-is-this-the-right-way/
One of the fundamendal root causes of the Katrina catastrophe is that there is striking clash between the way the American Society of Civil Engineers requires its members to regard safety as paramount and the way the Corps and Congress work. If this way of working, which puts safety after growth, budget and politics, continues into the future, Americans must stop thinking about the Corps as the nation's civil engineers and think of them as un-professional tradesmen who pour cement and move dirt.
There are several hallmarks of a true, comprehensive system that were absent when the pre-Katrina flood works were assessed to be a \"system in name only\"
True systems are defined and bounded by a particular set of risks experienced by a population or other results of value. Calling a group of civil works a "risk reduction system" is an oxymoron for a true system. The systems engineer's system needs to deliver basic results such as "protect us (the population) from catastrophic disturbance triggered by storm surge".
A true system would manage all the risks (all category hurricanes and storms) and all the potential mitigation (structural, non-structural and preparation)measures. Niether the Corps nor and other public sector player has committed to step up to a comprehenive systems view and solution. New Orleanians and other populations at risk will continue to have to make life-criticfal decisions without receiving actionable risk information from anyone.
Evacuations may save lives but, as we've seen, do nothing for property or economic viability (jobs, homes, culture, etc.)
The best place to start is with a world class peer review to answer the question: "Is the flood protection for greater New Orleans going to be more that just a system in name only and, if the answer is no, what needs to done to attain an adequate level of system protection?"
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