Don't blame Katrina. Blame Mr. Go.

[eridani]

Why in fucking HELL is the administration going to appeal this?

http://www.gregpalast.com/bushd-againnew-orleans-mr-o-and-mr-go/#more-3994

Five years ago this week, a beast drowned New Orleans. Don't blame Katrina: the lady never, in fact, touched the city. The hurricane swept east of it.

You want to know the name of the S.O.B. who attacked New Orleans? Locals call him "Mr. Go" - the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO).

MR-GO was undoubtedly the most bone-headed, deadly insane project ever built by the Army Corps of Engineers. It's a 76-mile long canal, straight as a gun barrel, running right up from the Gulf of Mexico to the heart of New Orleans.

In effect, MR-GO was a welcome mat to the city for Katrina. Experts call it "the Hurricane Highway."

Until the Army Corps made this crazy gash in the Mississippi Delta fifty years ago, Mother Nature protected the Crescent City with a green wreath of cypress and mangrove. The environmental slash-job caused the government's own hydrologist to raise alarms from Day One of construction.

Unless MR-GO was fixed or plugged, the Corps was inviting, "the possibility of catastrophic damage to urban areas by a hurricane surge coming up this waterway." (I'm quoting from a report issued 17 years before The Flood.)

<snip>

Let me tell you: it goes beyond the money. To "make things right" means Obama would have to face down powers fiercer than any Taliban: Big Oil.

The widening of MR-GO drowned New Orleans; it was not an Act of God. It was an Act of Chevron. An Act of Shell Oil. And, yes, an Act of BP.

The Army Corps admitted that it used its "discretion" to put shipping above safety. The choice was made to help the Gulf oil giants move their crude. Now they'll have to take a little detour.

I talked with Jonathan Andry yesterday, the litigator for the Katrina survivors. Obama's decision to appeal the verdict really set him off. "We gave $185 billion to AIG to pay off crooks. I represent people who lost their lives, their family ."

[Mimosa]

1. Great post.

I know the locals know about Mr. Go.

[jobycom]

2. I can't find any stories about an appeal of the ruling.

Every Google search I can think of links only to the Palast story or someone commenting on it. Anyone have a link to a story about this appeal?

Palast, as usual, is part right, part hyperbole about Katrina. A lot of damage was caused by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. All the flooding in the Lower Ninth and the Ninth Wards and much of it in St. Bernard Parish were because of MR-GO. The worst levee break--the one some people thought was blown, on the edge of the Lower Ninth--was because of the MR-GO, where it emptied into another large canal, the Industrial Seaway, which connects the lake and the river. Just where MR-GO enters the canal the levee broke, destroying the Lower Ninth Ward--which was already flooding from the topped levees along MR-GO. The canal probably didn't even have to be filled in to prevent the damage, if there had been an effective flood gate to keep the storm surge out of it, and/or if the levees along the MR-GO itself had been built for Category 5 hurricanes. The flooding from MR-GO wasn't a surprise, either, since other hurricanes, like Betsy in 65, did the same thing.

But Katrina didn't miss New Orleans. The eye may have, but the northwest quadrant hit New Orleans. New Orleans East and the shore of Lake Pontchartrain flooded, not because of MR-GO, but because the storm surge entered the lake and topped the outdated and undersized levees. That same surge destroyed the Twin Spans between NOLA and Slidell, nowhere near MR-GO. The lawyer he mentions wasn't flooded because of MR-GO, but because of the levees along Lake Pontchartrain, most likely.

Further, the rain and the flooding from all fronts overpowered the outdated and poorly maintained pumping stations of New Orleans. New Orleans is low-lying (it's not all below sea level, contrary to rumors), and needs pumps to pump rain water into a series of canals that empty into the lake. The pumps failed, and then some of the levees along the canals failed, notably the 17th Street Canal. Since New Orleans is low lying, and the Lake was overfull from the storm surge (it's slower to empty than to fill) and from flooding of streams that empty into it further inland, the lake flowed through the openings in the canal levees until the water in the lake was even with the water in New Orleans--that equalization came with most of New Orleans under water, stopping just short of the French Quarters.

If no levees had failed, and if all levees had been built to withstand a Category 5, most of the flooding wouldn't have happened. Metairie, right on the other side of the 17th Street Canal, was barely touched, since the levee only broke on the NOLA side. Algiers, across the River, was barely touched. It was the failure of the levees that killed New Orleans, but it wasn't just MR-GO.

And it wasn't just a mild rainstorm that broke the levees. Katrina was still a Category 3 with an unprecedented storm surge where it entered Lake Pontchartrain and struck New Orleans East. In New Orleans proper, it was probably only a Category 1, but the storm surge topping the levees along the lake and rushing up MR-GO were generated by the full force of the hurricane.

Another failure of the Army Corp and of government in general was in the wetlands. For forty years, the wetlands have been systematically destroyed by the oil industry and by population growth. Wetlands reduce a storm surge by a about half a foot every two miles. Ten more miles of wetlands might have kept the surge from topping the levees. When Camille, a much stronger hurricane, followed the same path, it had a 22 foot storm surge, which at the time was unprecedented, and was seen as the limit for how high a storm surge could go. Growing up there, we were always told that a 30 foot storm surge--while often rumored--was impossible, or Camille would have done it. With the destruction of the wetlands, the surge had less to slow it down, and perhaps that played a role in the damage even to Mississippi (although there may have been other factors in the unprecedented surge, too).

Anyway, I'd love to know what Obama is thinking, too.

[annabanana]

3. Rachel introduced me to Mr. GO last week.

I had not heard of him before.

[bvar22]

4. Mr GO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) not entirely responsible.

Mr GO flooded New Orleans East and the lower 9th Ward,
but the failure of the internal levee on the 17th Street Canal flooded Lake View, Mid City, and Uptown.

The 17th Street Canal connects to Lake Pontchatrain, and is the boundary between Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish (Metairie) on the Western side of New Orleans. It has no connection to Mr GO.