Engineer talks about the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and Rita

GHN News Editor - As the fifth anniversary of
Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans, many are talking
about lessons learned, including a professor of engineering who
underlines the human element.

Knowing now then on what to do next
time.  He says the biggest lesson from Katrina is that municipalities
and citizens should take orders to evacuate much more seriously.



James N. Jensen, Ph. D and
professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering at the
University of Buffalo,  was one of those researchers who visited the
Gulf Coast soon after Katrina hit as part of a multidisciplinary look at
"extreme events" and disaster responses.  This is what he says now.

“By the time Hurricane Rita hit not long after Katrina, there was
something like a 95 percent evacuation rate,” Jensen recalls. “People
had really gotten the message.”

At
the time of the original New Orleans visit October 2005, Jensen and
colleague Pavani Ram, MD, UB assistant professor of social and
preventive medicine, met with public-health officials and with managers
from wastewater treatment plants. 

Jensen said that drinking water was restored by about 10 weeks after
Katrina, but one persisting problem was caused by loss of pressure from
water distribution systems that led to contamination of the pipes.

“They
estimated that as many as 1,000 or more breaks occurred in the water
distribution pipes due to the damaged fire hydrants,” says Jensen, “and
the loss of pressure that resulted lead to contaminating the water in
those pipes.”
Another issue, one that could complicate hurricanes this season, is the
problem posed by the potential loss of vegetation in wetlands due to the
Gulf oil spill. 

“If oil kills the vegetation in those wetlands, then you lose the buffer that that vegetation provided,” Jensen explains.

Jensen said one surprising comment was made during his original visit following hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“Pretty
much to a person, once people found out I was from Buffalo, they all
expressed the same sentiment,” he says: “Even though they were living
through the aftermath of these two horrible hurricanes, they told me
they could never live in a place that has blizzards.”

While Jensen's view is important
when it comes to the people's response, a grassroots organization called
Levees.org proclaims gives a message back to engineers, the Army Corps
of Engineers responsible for the construction and maintenance of the
levees, that their poor work on the levees failed the City of New
Orleans and they hope it doesn't fail them again.