Message from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to New Orleans: return to parts of our city, which will be reopened very soon.
Massage from federal officials: Warning: Returning to live in New Orleans right now might be dangerous to your health.
And, just a few minutes ago, President George Bush added his warning, too:“”We want this city to reemerge. As I said, I can’t imagine America without a vibrant New Orleans. It’s just a matter of timing,” Bush said. “We’re cautious about encouraging people to return at this moment of history.”
It seems like the classic tug-of-war between a political desire to get business back as soon as usual by perhaps trying to nudge things along VERSUS the cold, hard realities of what can happen to people if they try to shove feisty Mother Nature around. Little things can happen, like widespread disease and perhaps even death, if water, sewage and other services aren’t not only available but barely working or dangerous.
And now there’s a NEW element added not appearing in many news stories. What if Tropical Storm Rita, now heading towards Florida and forcing the evacuation of the lower Keys, morphs into a full-fledged hurricane and veers towards New Orleans to give the on-its-knees-remnant-of-a city a double whammy?
The AP outlines the high-stakes clash between the mayor who wants to restore at least a symbol of normalcy to his city and federal officials worried about compounding problems and tragedy this way:
Mayor Ray Nagin’s plan to officially reopen parts of New Orleans drew criticism from federal officials and health care experts who warn that city services might not be able to handle the influx of people.
Nagin said residents may return Monday to Algiers, a section of the city across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans that saw little damage from Hurricane Katrina. Over the next week and a half, Uptown, the Garden District and the French Quarter, the city’s historic heart, are also due to open to residents and businesses.
All are sections that didn’t flood, but Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal government’s hurricane response, has urged Nagin not to rush people back into areas where basic services, such as drinkable water, telephone and 911, are still not in place.
Allen also expressed concerns that another storm, even something considerably smaller than Katrina, could cause the patchwork repairs to New Orleans’ levees to fail and bring another round of flooding. On Sunday, a new tropical storm called Rita formed southeast of the Florida Keys and appeared to be headed for the Gulf of Mexico, although forecasters did not expect it to hit the battered Gulf Coast.
The two will meet to talk it over later today. Meanwhile, another AP report notes that people are already returning, as of this morning:
Residents of the Algiers section streamed back to their homes Monday morning as part of a plan by the mayor to reopen New Orleans one ZIP code at a time, despite repeated warnings from the top federal official on the scene that the city is not ready.
Algiers, situated across the Mississippi River from downtown New Oleans, saw little damage from Hurricane Katrina and was the first section to be reopened. Over the next week, the city’s Uptown neighborhood, the Garden District and the historic French Quarter are also set to open to residents and businesses at Mayor Ray Nagin’s invitation, bringing about one-third of New Orleans’ half-million inhabitants back.
A steady stream of traffic rolled into Algiers. The mayor said that police would be checking residents’ identification to make sure they lived in the areas reopened.
The New York Times notes that the mayor’s plans are flexible — which sounds like he has second thoughts and is keeping his options open about how many people to encourage to return:
A spokeswoman for Mayor Nagin, Sally Forman, said Sunday that the plan was considered fluid from the start and that the mayor intends to reassess after residents begin to return today to Algiers, a neighborhood across the Mississippi River from downtown where about 57,000 people lived before the storm. Power has largely been restored to the area, which suffered far less damage than others.
Ms. Forman said the city would review traffic counts at checkpoints, the number of emergencies reported, sanitation problems and storm damage to homes and see how well it could provide services.
“There will be a complete reassessment – what worked, what didn’t – because we will have moved an entire population back in,” Ms. Forman said.
The official death toll from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana climbed to 646 on Sunday.
The differences between Mayor Nagin and Admiral Allen came as Tropical Storm Rita formed near Puerto Rico on Sunday. An early projection by the National Hurricane Center showed the storm moving into the Gulf of Mexico as a powerful hurricane later this week, most likely striking Mexico or Texas but possibly turning toward the southwest coast of Louisiana.
This makes watching the weather reports all the more compelling: what (if any) plans are in place now for the unthinkable situation where a lambasted New Orleans gets clobbered a second time, with damaged facilities and levees and a returned population living in areas with deficient services and telephone service? It’s worrisome to the feds:
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal government’s hurricane response, warned over the weekend – and again on Monday morning – that city services may not be able to handle the influx of people.
He cited a lack of drinkable water and 911 service, and expressed concern that another storm could cause the patchwork repairs to New Orleans’ levees to fail and bring another round of flooding.
“Our concern is when you have the general population returning in large numbers without the proper infrastructure to support them,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.
So who’s correct here? The mayor or the hurricane chief? The bottom line is that Rita’s lingering threat is REAL.
All the folks cramming the highway out of the Keyes aren’t leaving because there’s a wonderful food festival in Boca Raton….
Note this LA Times report:
State and U.S. hurricane experts were closely watching Tropical Storm Rita, which was situated south of the Bahamas. Though a storm’s path is difficult to predict precisely, officials said, computer models suggest that the storm could pass between the Florida Keys, which are under a hurricane watch, and Cuba.
By Tuesday afternoon, it could be over the Gulf of Mexico, feeding on warm water and training its eye anywhere from central Mexico to the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Meanwhile, the LA Times piece has a quote from a Louisiana official that seemingly borders on NEGLIGENCE:
A Louisiana official called the storm “nebulous” Sunday. But Ivor L. van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and a leading weather modeler, said that even a peripheral brush with a major storm could flood the city again.
“We’re working on it feverishly right now,” he said. “Our concern is that the levees in New Orleans are in a severely degraded state. Right now, New Orleans is extremely vulnerable.”
The possibility of another storm was only one factor cited Sunday by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, head of the federal government relief effort, who said he would encourage Nagin to rethink his program for bringing residents back.
Allen cautioned that the east bank — the bulk of the city — had no potable water. Widespread problems remain with the 911 system, telephone lines and power, he added, and polluted floodwater also poses a threat to returning residents.
“Our collective counsel is for him to slow down and take this at a more moderate pace,” Allen said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The levees have been weakened to the point where if you’re going to bring a significant amount of people into New Orleans, you need to have an evacuation plan on how you’re going to do that.”
In an editorial, an exasperated USA Today asks who is in charge:
The clash Sunday was reminiscent of a conflict eight days ago over the opposite issue, whether everyone left in New Orleans would be forcibly evacuated. Nagin said they would be; Allen and another military officer said federal forces would do no such thing.
All of which prompts a question: Who’s in charge? The high-profile exchange suggests the relief effort is still suffering from confusion and lack of leadership.
Which man is right is not entirely clear. Some neighborhoods, including the French Quarter, survived the hurricane and flooding largely unscathed. Those will be repopulated first, according to Nagin. There has been progress restoring electricity and water service for sewage and fighting fires.
Even so, there is no drinking water. Traffic lights are out; electrical wires down. The 9-1-1 emergency system is shaky, and levees remain at risk if there’s another storm.
Nagin and Allen no doubt will work this out. But with so much at stake, you’d think leaders would get their act together before tossing out confusing orders.
Even so, as the Times also notes, there are increasing signs that New Orleans will indeed rise again because repairs are actually ahead of schedule in some cases:
The causeway across Lake Pontchartrain, a crucial thoroughfare connecting New Orleans to its northern suburbs, is expected to open this morning, Louisiana State Police Sgt. Cathy Flinchum said.
And a top Army Corps of Engineers official said that about 87% of te floodwater that entered New Orleans had been pumped out.
Immediately after Katrina, officials said it might take as long as six months to pump out the city. The corps then lowered that estimate to 80 days. If the current plan holds, the job will have been completed in 26 days.
In Orleans Parish, which includes the city of New Orleans, just 2,700 acres remain flooded, and part of that is an industrial pocket that has been kept wet deliberately for safety reasons. Immediately after the storm, 27,000 acres were flooded in the city.
Only three pools of water remain in the city, varying in depth from 2 to 4 feet. They will be pumped out in the next five days, according to Col. Duane Gapinski, the corps officer in charge of draining the city.
So with a little bit of luck (and mindboggling amounts of money) New Orleans will rise and hopefully not be submerged again. But the city hasn’t had luck so far.We’ll know how much it has as we watch Rita fairly soon, because she could be headed New Orleans’ way…
SOME MORE RELATED READINGS ON THIS ISSUE:
Hurricane Relief roundup via InstaPundit
Technorati “Hurricane Relief”
Relief Chief Warns Against Return
US Official: City Isn’t Ready
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.