Man must share blame for New Orleans disaster

LONDON - The worst has happened in New Orleans and not everyone is surprised. For years, specialists warned that the city, built partly below sea level in an area of radically depleted wetlands, was a disaster waiting to happen. When it did, they said, we could only blame ourselves.

That the Crescent City is where it is does not make sense in the first place. But the first European settlers, in 1718, made the same calculation that generations have made ever since - the site was right for commerce, and money. In the battle between dollars and nature, you know who wins.

What has happened in recent decades has made matters worse. Not just in New Orleans but all along the Gulf Coast, human encroachment has accelerated without pause. This has meant taming natural water flows - including the gradual straightening of the Mississippi itself - and draining wetlands.

Among those lamenting past mistakes is John Barry, the author of Rising Tide, a book about the Mississippi flood of 1927.

"People have said for a long time that we can't continue to do the things we were doing, but the reality is that we don't take natural disasters seriously until they happen," he said.

Arguments are breaking out over the link between global warming and Katrina. Most agree rising sea levels and temperatures may have contributed to the damage it caused.

But many scientists say the real problem is what has been wrought on the ground in the Gulf Coast region itself. Most serious of all may be the loss of the wetlands.

Wetlands, along the edges of rivers and near the coast itself, are vital for absorbing and storing floodwaters. As such, they gave New Orleans a natural defence against storm surges.

But, according to the US Geological Survey, Louisiana has lost 5000sq km of wetland in the past seven decades - an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.

The draining of the wetlands to make way for roads, malls, beach communities, marinas and condominiums has also meant shrinkage of the shoreline. Louisiana loses 65sq km of coast every year.

General Robert Flowers, head of the US Army Corps of Engineers until last year, is concerned about the loss of a "natural storm protection" along Louisiana's coast.

"With that loss of wetlands, we had to build hurricane protection. A longer-term solution to replenish wetlands will better serve us"

The levees and dams built along the Mississippi have normally done a fine job of protecting New Orleans from floodwaters. But they carry a bad side-effect.

The millions of tonnes of silt that flow down the river would once be deposited along its edges and in the flood plains when it broke its banks.

They once replenished the Delta but their absence now means the region, and New Orleans, is sinking. Barrier Islands that once served as protection are also shrinking.

More people live in hurricane areas than ever before. That means more people to be hurt and more property to be damaged.

Professor Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "We have to put stuff in harm's way for there to be a disaster, and we're good at doing that."

- INDEPENDENT