CHAPTER VI
The water wasn’t high enough to overflow I-walls further to the west in two city drainage channels- the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. But as the floodwaters rose in the canals, the telltale gaps opened up. Wall sections soon collapsed in three places, and there was no stopping the water from inundating central New Orleans. Problems ranged from errors in designs of individual structures to the system’s basic architecture.
The levees, walls and floodgates were supposed to act in concert to repel flooding. The geography of New Orleans exposes it to the vagaries of nature. The city sits in a low-lying river delta mostly below sea level in a dangerous hurricane zone. It is surrounded by water, nestled in a curve of the Mississippi River, with Lake Pontchartrain immediately to the north and Lake Borgne and Chandeleur Sound to the east.
All of these bodies of water are, to varying degrees, open to the Gulf of Mexico. But when a hurricane strikes, chaos ensues. The whirlwinds, forward motion and low pressure of a hurricane generate enormous storm surge waves. When one comes ashore near New Orleans, it rises up and can flow inland for miles. Even weak storm surges can inundate hundreds of square miles.
The New Orleans levees could repress floods only from relatively weak storms- most in Categories 1 and 2, and only some in Category 3, with wind speeds up to 130 mph. Worse, the levee system going up around the city was turning it into a set of shallow bowls that would trap water that got inside. If a powerful storm hit and the levees were breached or overflowed, the water would remain inside. In short, it would turn the city into a lake.
The Mississippi River Delta, on which New Orleans sits, is gradually sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, some areas by as much as 5 feet in the past 50 years. As the ground sinks, the height of levees and floodwalls built on top of it falls, reducing the protection they provide. The soil beneath New Orleans is notoriously soft and squishy.
When the storm died down, it was sunrise. Once the water receded, frightening images of dead bodies on deserted streets, crowds of people dying slowly of hunger and dehydration, and people fainting and thrashing about in pain for want of desperately needed medication for chronic illness.
Scores of people took to the streets dotted by deserted shops and restaurants, scavenging for food, water, and clothing. The hordes were multiracial in orientation, but the overwhelming majority of the displaced and disinherited were black. The truth was that Katrina was not about a hurricane or a nature disaster. Katrina is about the failures of the levee system around you and the failed politics before, during, and after Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina was more than a natural disaster; it exposed America’s social disaster, or our Dirty Secrets. The hurricane moves upriver for nearly sixty miles, leaving catastrophe in its wake. It passes right over New Orleans, and as it does, the storm tilts nearby Lake Pontchartrain like a teacup and dumps it into the city.
A quick rush of brackish water drenches New Orleans and leaves it sitting in as much as twenty feet of water. And then the hurricane is gone, and everything lies in ruins. The floodwater is the worst of it-it collects in the lower parts of the city and takes weeks to pump out.
Too often bad things happen to good people for seemingly unjust reasons. It is also clear that unjust horror is imposed upon good folks, and they must deal with it and move on as best they can. Life is not always fair, as we have been told. Sometimes we are dealt a bad hand, and we either bluff our way out or we just fold.
In a broken world, crazy things and scary things just happen. Perhaps Katrina is one of those bad moments in life that we just have to process, work through, and move beyond as best we can. We will look into this possibility as well as we chase the implications of this storm.
Scripturally, we are taught that as a result of the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden the entire world is groaning in pain due to the rift between God and His creation. Was Katrina little more than one big earth pain? Maybe. We are also taught in scripture that evil plans are brought to fruition by the enemy of God. Satan does have an agenda of destruction. Even in those circumstances, however, the plan of God shines through, and His purposes are not thwarted. Is it possible that Katrina was birthed in the belly of God’s archenemy? We will consider this possibility.
Whatever conclusions we arrive at or fail to find, one thing is clear already- Katrina has left a scar upon our cities, our nation, and our hearts. She must be dealt with, and we must have some understanding of where we go from here and how we get there. Whatever the cause or causes for the carnage we have seen, there are lessons to learn from it. Whether we blame God, nature, or our leaders, the lessons remain. The lessons are many, they are wide in scope, and they are vitally important to our personal, communal, and national future.
Amidst the hard questions Katrina raises, heard in the whisper of her winds, is her message of restoration, hope, and reconciliation. Katrina has gotten our attention, and she is forcing us to take a long hard look at who we are, where we have been, and where we are going as “one nation under God.” The city had so much, but it’s all gone now. It’s all been lost. It will never be the same. Or will it? Is it all really lost? Are we done in like some mythic city lost beneath the waters of fate? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it depends upon our response. That is to say that no one escapes disaster in this life. Storms do and will come. We will all see them, every one of us.
The difference in our future depends on how well our lives are constructed prior to and despite the storms that assail us from time to time. Some people endure the storms and become healers for others. Others are ravaged by the storms and turn to bitterness, addictions, and all kinds of destructive patterns. Many are crippled by the winds and waves and choose never to get up and try again. Some wait until the intensity of the squalls of life die down and then make every attempt to return to life as usual. Those who build their lives upon principles that have endured from generation to generation weather the storms of life. It is not fantasy to suggest that this may, in fact, be our greatest opportunity to move on to bigger and better things than we could have dreamed.
Have we realized through this disaster just how fragile our existence is? It is time to plan and dream about rebuilding not only our cities but also our nation for a better way, both physically and spiritually. Therefore, the first step toward rebuilding a life, a city, a nation, or a soul, is to recognize that when all appears lost, all is not lost. Everything here on earth is temporary.
Should New Orleans choose to build on the same foundation that existed before, the consequences could be severe. There is a better way to build our city and our nation. Disasters of any kind present us with opportunity to reassess who we are and what our lives are about. What do we do when life saps us of all our resources, ups the ante on our misery, and seemingly mocks us?
One day everything is light, and then the next day darkness falls and remains. So much changed, in just one day, for the inhabitants of the city of New Orleans. Katrina, like all major disasters, has put many lives seemingly on hold. So many of us, during the weeks and months following the storm, felt as if everything were moving in slow motion.