Lessons  (that  should  be)  Learned:  
Case  Note  on  “How  a  City  Slowly  Drowned”    
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Michael  Walter  
January  27,  2010  
PSAA  634  Public  Management  
The  George  Bush  School  of  Government  &  Public  Service  
Texas  A&M  University  
Dr.  Scott  Robinson
 Walter  1  

 
Introduction  and  Key  Decision  
  Hurricane  Katrina  was  the  worst  natural  disaster  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  

causing  over  1,000  deaths  and  costing  over  $90  billion  in  damage.  (Federal  Commission.  2006)    

While  compelling  arguments  can  be  made  in  regards  to  the  slow  action  from  on  all  levels  of  

government  in  the  immediate  aftermath,  it  does  not  negate  the  lack  of  proper  preparation  and  

mitigation  necessary  to  prevent  the  flooding  of  New  Orleans.  Perry  and  Lindell  (2007,  5)  define  

mitigation  as,  “activities  [that]  try  to  eliminate  the  causes  of  a  disaster…  [by]  either  reducing  the  

likelihood  of  its  occurrence  or  limiting  the  magnitude  of  it’s  negative  effects.”  One  of  the  most  

evident  failures  was  that  of  the  inaction  in  creating  the  infrastructure  necessary  to  protect  the  

city  against  a  category  3  (or  higher)  hurricane.  

  The  previous  attempts  at  mitigating  the  hazard  of  river  flooding  from  the  Mississippi  

may  have  contributed  to  the  lack  of  action  to  minimize  the  effect  of  storm  surge  on  the  city.    In  

fact,  the  Army  Corps  of  Engineers  used  techniques  that  would  lessen  the  impact  of  an  800-­‐year  

river  flood  as  opposed  to  a  200-­‐year  hurricane.    This  coupled  with  the  building  of  infrastructure  

for  economic  purposes  and  the  failure  to  take  into  account  their  effect,  either  positive  or  

negative,  during  a  hurricane  may  have  led  to  more  deaths.    Grunwald  and  Glasser  cite  the  

example  of  the  Mississippi  River  Gulf  Outlet,  which,  during  a  hurricane,  became  a  “storm  surge  

shotgun”  into  the  heart  of  New  Orleans  (2010,  231).  

  While  these  two  factors  significantly  contributed  to  New  Orleans’  demise,  one  of  the  

most  telling  and  manageable  effects  was  the  lack  of  political  will,  on  all  levels  of  government,  to  

adequately  identify,  and  mitigate  the  effect  that  a  category  3  hurricane  with  a  base  as  large  as  

Katrina’s  would  have  on  the  city.    Grunwald  and  Glasser  cite  examples  ranging  from  local  
 Walter  2  

officials  not  wanting  to  participate  in  mitigation  practices  so  that  they  wouldn’t  have  to  pay  

their  half  of  the  project  (2010,  227),  to  Congressmen  pushing  for  projects  to  create  navigable  

rivers  in  upstate  Louisiana  while  the  threat  of  a  disastrous  hurricane  was  imminent.    (2010,  231)  

Recommended  Action  

  In  order  to  address  the  issues  expressed  above,  I  recommend  that  the  following  action  

should  have  been  taken.    The  notion  that  New  Orleans  could  be  destroyed  by  a  major  hurricane  

was  not  unknown  in  Louisiana  or  Washington,  DC  (Grunwald  and  Glasser,  2010,  227)  and  even  

as  early  as  1956,  the  Army  Corps  determined  that  a  “Standard  Project  Hurricane”  could  flood  a  

major  swath  of  the  city.    After  hurricane  Betsy  in  1965,  it  became  apparent  that  the  disaster  

scenario  was  realistic.    At  that  time,  Congress  should  have  used  the  “window  of  opportunity”  

that  follows  a  disaster  (Perry  and  Lindell,  2007,  402),  which  allows  for  easier  passage  of  disaster  

preparedness  policy,  to  direct  the  Army  Corps  of  Engineers  (ACE)  to  evaluate  the  threat  of  a  

hurricane  larger  and  stronger  than  Betsy;  and  to  create  a  systematic  plan  that  identified  

weaknesses  and  provided  ways  to  reduce  the  hazard.  Alongside  that  commission,  a  

congressional  evaluation  led  by  both  governmental  entities,  constituency  groups,  and  private  

industry  should  have  evaluated  and  made  a  final  recommendation  for  appropriations  to  move  

forward  with  the  projects.    In  essence,  the  recommended  course  of  action  reflects  Lindbloom’s  

rational-­‐comprehensive  or  root  method  of  decision  making  rather  than  the  disastrous  use  of  the  

incremental  or  branch  method  (Lindbloom,  2010,  215).      By  identifying  the  problem  (in  this  

case,  the  fact  that  in  a  strong  enough  hurricane,  the  city  would  be  inundated  with  water  from  

both  Lake  Pontchartrain  and  Lake  Borgne  as  a  result  of  storm  surge,)  they  could  create  

infrastructure  to  guard  the  city  against  the  effects  of  the  storm.    
 Walter  3  

  “The  Corps  is  America’s  water  resources  agency.  But  American  does  not  have  a  water  

resources  policy.”  (Grunwald  and  Glasser,  2010,  227)    The  fact  that  our  nation  does  not  have  

comprehensive  water  resources  policy  contributed  to  the  disorganization  that  led  to  the  Katrina  

disaster.    Another  recommendation  would  be  that  a  body  of  law  be  adopted  to  reorganize  the  

preexisting  pieces  of  water  and  environmental  policy  into  a  central  piece  of  governmental  

authority;  whether  that  be  a  piece  of  legislation  or  the  creation  of  an  agency.    

Justification  for  Action  

The  action  described  above  would  have  benefited  the  people  of  New  Orleans  and,  

arguably  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  numerous  ways.      First  and  foremost,  by  identifying  

the  issues  ahead  of  time  and  creating  a  singular  plan  for  defense  against  storm  surge,  an  

inherent  fiscal  efficiency  would  have  taken  place.    The  cost  of  mitigating  storm  surge  near  Lake  

Pontchartrain  vastly  exceeded  what  the  original  budget  allocation  was,  by  over  1,000  percent  

between  the  late  1960s  and  1982.    Had  the  project  been  evaluated  ahead  of  time,  with  

interested  parties  as  part  of  the  discussion,  and  been  properly  allocated  appropriation,  then  the  

project  may  not  have  encountered  the  legal  and  organizational  hurdles  that  it  did.    One  former  

aid  to  Sen.  J.  Bennett  Johnston  Jr.  even  said,  in  regards  to  the  money  spent  on  mitigation  in  

New  Orleans,  “  They  could  have  built  the  Hoover  Dam  around  New  Orleans  with  the  money  

they  brought  home,…  But  they  always  pissed  it  away  on  politically  attractive  projects.”  

(Grunwald  and  Glasser,  2010,  231)    

  Undoubtedly,  by  creating  a  singular  approach  to  storm  surge  and  hurricane  protection,  

the  city’s  defenses  would  have  been  heightened.    The  piecemeal  plans  that  were  executed  in  

the  forty  years  between  hurricanes  Betsy  and  Katrina  resulted  in  the  expression  of  numerous  
 Walter  4  

approaches  to  flood  and  storm  surge  mitigation.      What  you  had  were  numerous  types  of  

mitigation  techniques,  such  as  levees  and  storm  gates  that  were  not  necessarily  designed  to  

work  together  to  prevent  or  diminish  the  impact  of  storm  surge.    In  fact,  there  were  some  

projects  that  had  been  deemed  to  negatively  affect  the  city’s  ability  to  resist  waves  of  ocean  

water  during  a  hurricane.    An  example  of  this  is  the  Mississippi  River  Gulf  Outlet,  which  

provided  a  path  of  least  resistance  for  surging  ocean  water  to  inundate  parts  of  Eastern  New  

Orleans,  the  Lower  Ninth  Ward,  Holy  Cross  and  St.  Bernard  Parish    (Grunwald  and  Glasser,  

2010,  229).    By  involving  community  organizations  and  private  industry  into  the  discussion  of  

protection  procedures,  the  ACE  could  have  foreseen  conflicts  and  created  mutually  beneficial  

responses  to  their  concerns.    

  The  lack  of  political  will  for  proper  protection  at  all  levels  of  government,  including  the  

Bush  Administration’s  reduction  in  ACE  and  hurricane  protection  funding  in  2002  (Grunwald  

and  Glasser,  2010,  235-­‐236)  is  demonstrative  of  a  culture  that  tends  to  not  think  ahead.      If  

political  forces  paid  closer  attention  and  expended  the  political  effort  to  establish  water  

resources  policy  and  include  that  with  already  preexisting  hazard  mitigation  policy,  the  

devastation  to  the  gulf  coast  would  have  been  less.    A  reorganization  of  governmental  agencies  

and/or  the  adoption  of  a  body  of  water  resource  law  that  took  into  account  public  safety,  

environmental  protection,  and  economic  development  may  have  been  able  to  coordinate  the  

necessary  forces  to  bring  about  responsible  hazard  mitigation.    

Drawbacks  to  the  Recommendation  

  The  recommendations  found  above  constitute  one  person’s  view  of  the  necessity  of  

protecting  human  life  and  property  in  hurricanes.    However,  the  political  realities  that  
 Walter  5  

accompany  any  policy  change  are  multi-­‐faceted  and  in  many  cases,  infinite.    The  interests  of  

business,  citizen  groups,  environmentalists,  and  even  personal  interests  of  elected  and  

appointed  officials  will  always  have  an  impact  on  the  policies  set  forth  within  a  representative  

democracy.    The  idea  that  a  single  plan  to  address  the  need  for  hurricane  protection  could  even  

be  created  still  leaves  room  for  both  error  and  political  meddling.    Any  plan  put  forth  by  the  ACE  

would  still  need  to  be  funded  by  Congress,  a  body  which  is  constituted  of  members  from  all  

across  the  United  States,  who  serve  the  interests  of  their  individual  constituencies.    Necessary  

funding  would  be  subject  to  the  scrutiny  of  individual  committees  and  would  be  compared  to  

what  “other  districts”  are  getting.    As  we  have  seen  over  and  over  again,  congressional  projects  

tend  to  be  underfunded  and  need  to  be  matched  by  state  or  local  jurisdictions,  which  involve  

their  own  tangled  web  of  political  wrangling.  

  The  singular  plan  would  also  need  to  be  implemented  in  the  window  of  opportunity  that  

Perry  and  Lindell  (2007,  402)  describe  as  the  time  after  a  disaster  where  public  opinion  on  

hazard  mitigation  and  preparedness  policy  is  positive.    The  reality,  as  they  describe,  is  that  plans  

need  to  be  preexistent  before  the  initial  disaster  in  order  to  be  adequately  executed  during  the  

window.  

  Another  drawback  to  the  recommendation  of  the  singular  plan  is  that  although  

intentions  may  be  positive,  we  are,  as  people,  not  blessed  with  omniscience  and  the  plans  that  

we  may  make  and  implement  may  not  be  the  best  for  us  in  the  end.    This  can  be  illustrated  by  

ACE’s  plans  to  create  floodgates  at  the  eastern  end  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  whose  construction,  

subsequent  research  has  found,  would  have  made  the  flooding  worse  during  Katrina.  
 Walter  6  

  While  hindsight  may  give  us  the  whole  picture  of  what  occurred,  and  the  lapses  in  

forecasting  the  damage  caused  by  Hurricane  Katrina,  it  is  important  to  note  that  failures  at  the  

political  level  caused  inadequate  preparedness  and  mitigation  to  take  place  even  after  the  

threat  was  known.    As  we  move  forward  in  our  nation’s  history,  let  us  not  forget  the  lessons  

learned  from  Hurricane  Katrina  and  create  and  adapt  policy  to  protect  future  generations.  
 Walter  7  

Bibliography  
 

Federal  Commission  on  the  Federal  Response  to  Hurricane  Katrina.  2006.  The  Federal  Response  

to  Hurricane  Katrina:  Lessons  Learned.  Washington,  DC.  <http://georgewbush-­‐

whitehouse.archives.gov/reports/katrina-­‐lessons-­‐learned.pdf>  Accessed:  25  January  2010.  

Grunwald,  Michael  and  Susan  B.  Glasser.  2010  “How  a  City  Slowly  Drowned.”  In  Public  

Management,  ed.    Richard  J.  Stillman  II.  Boston:  Wadsworth  

Lindbloom,  Charles  E.  2010.  “The  Science  of  Muddling  Through.”  In  Public  Management,  ed.    

Richard  J.  Stillman  II.  Boston:  Wadsworth  

Perry,  Ronald  W.  and  Michael  K.  Lindell.  2007.  Emergency  Planning.  Hoboken,  NJ:  Wiley