| New Orleans's extreme flood risk is not entirely inherent in its physical site. Rather, the city's flood vulnerability has been manufactured over time via the efforts of its growth machine to expand the Port of New Orleans and the city's footprint via a series of drainage and shipping canal megaprojects. These canals were created largely at the behest of elite members of the Levee and Dock Boards, who sought to capitalize on New Orleans' strategic location during wartime---particularly World War II---in order to further their own business interests by creating an "Inner Harbor" facility out of the swampland between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. Unable to pursue their desired "improvement" projects with local resources alone, these elites lobbied for and eventually won authorization and funding for their projects from the state and federal governments, with help from allies throughout the Mississippi Valley. As a result, the city's outfall canals along with the Industrial Canal, the Intracoastal Waterway, and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet have repeatedly allowed flood waters to penetrate the city during hurricanes. While New Orleanians properly blame the Corps of Engineers for the levee and floodwall failures during Hurricane Katrina, the impact of this catastrophic storm cannot be completely understood without an acknowledgment of the role that local elites of decades past have played in continually putting economic growth ahead of public safety, a process which has created New Orleans' near-complete dependence on structural mitigation flood control projects that are never enough to truly protect the city. |
