More on rebuilding New Orleans: Lessons from Princeville, NC

Tim mentioned in a comment that we both experienced the last major hurricane to cause devastating flooding (to the right is a Greenville subdivision). Hurricane Floyd hit eastern NC and caused significant economic damage and human tragedy.

The major damage from Floyd was from unexpected flooding and those most affected were relatively low-income. Floyd caused nothing near the impact of Katrina but it does provide some lessons to help understand what is happening and what will happen in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm especially reminded of the effects of the flood on the town of Princeville:

When Hurricane Floyd devastated eastern North Carolina in 1999, perhaps no town felt her wrath so completely as the Edgecombe County town of Princeville.

Hurricane Floyd turned the town of Princeville into a massive lake and the hopes and dreams of its residents into tears.

All of the town's 2,000 residents had to evacuate to escape rising water. When the water receded, every structure in the town was damaged.

The town was founded by freed slaves in 1885. True to its roots, the town rose to the challenge of rebuilding homes and people's spirits.

Hurricane Floyd turned the town of Princeville into a massive lake and the hopes and dreams of its residents into tears.

FEMA officials thought that an obvious option for Princeville would be to buy out the town residents and for them to relocate to a safer location. The town, in a 3-2 council vote, refused FEMA's buy out efforts and most residents decided to move back. The unique cultural heritage of the town was cited in the decision to rebuild.

The town of Princeville is protected from the Tar River by an improved floodwall but the risk of inundation is still there. The town has been covered by water numerous times in its history and it will happen again.

Six years after Floyd the town is still rebuilding. Abandoned buildings and closed businesses characterize the main streets. Debates still arise with FEMA and other government agencies about rebuilding issues. The town is still not what it once was.

New Orleans faces the same long, drawn out rebuilding process characterized by bureaucratic red tape and intergovernmental squabbles. The magnitude of the economic impact and cost of rebuilding will exacerbate the problem. Instead of a 5-10 year rebuilding effort we might expect a 10-15 year rebuilding effort. Instead of a $30 million price tag we can probably expect something closer to $100 billion or more.

New Orleans is a unique place with its own unique cultural heritage. The benefits of rebuilding New Orleans are large. The costs are large too. A limited rebuilding effort, including the French Quarter, which is not covered with water, and other resources necessary to support the tourist industry, has been suggested. This strategy might maximize the net benefits of rebuilding while minimizing the future damages of hurricanes.

I don't know if this proposal, not original with me, makes sense or would work. Maybe the Southern Econ Association meetings will never return to the Fairmont Hotel no matter what direction the rebuilding effort takes. To me, though, it doesn't seem to be a triumph of the human spirit to rebuild a city with a population of a half-million with most of the residences under sea level. These seem like the worst sort of government subsidies.

Note:

For the long version of the Princeville story, see the Institute of Southern Studies report: Fear and Flooding in North Carolina. The piece concludes:

But the people of Princeville have not forgotten what happened five years ago, and they live in dread of the next big storm. As summer morning gives way to afternoon, the fog obscuring the town’s welcome sign lifts and the sun shines briefly. But as evening approaches, storm clouds once again begin to gather overhead, and children dash to the safety of home across gravel streets still pocked with deep puddles from last night’s downpour.

Inside her new white trailer on Tyson Street, Louise Latham — a senior citizen like almost half of the town’s residents — recalls what happened that day five years ago when she woke to find the river pouring into the trailer she had bought just a month earlier. Struggling through fetid, waist-deep water, she made her way to a nearby rooftop where she was rescued by boat, only to face living in temporary housing for months on end, until she was able to purchase a new home with insurance money. 

As Latham tells her story, thunder rumbles in the distance. She leans back on her sofa, pushes aside the curtain and nervously peers out the window.

“It was devastating,” she says in a quiet voice. “Now every time it rains, you start thinking.”

Comments

[Dave Schuler]

Precisely, John. If by “rebuilding New Orleans” we mean the French Quarter and a residence and support facility for the people who keep the Port of New Orleans functioning, I'm in favor of rebuilding New Orleans. I have little doubt that it could be done with a combination municipal bonds and private investment. If, on the other hand, we mean both of those things plus mile after mile of public housing enclosed by a seawall that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane and the attendant storm surge, that will definitely require federal funding and it's just plain nuts.

[Tim Haab]

Dave,

I'm in total agreement and almost simultaneously tried to make the same point over on John's other post on rebuilding N.O. (http://www.env-econ.net/2005/09/should_new_orle.html). Does 2 make a consensus?

[Jim Coomes]

Make that 3!

What makes common sence, maybe not economical sence, is to land fill the needed areas, (save, some way, most of the historical sites). That is, raise the ground level at least 3 feet above sea level. Pass a building code that requires that "ALL" new structures be built to withstand force 4 or force 5 huricanes.

By doing this, it would change the economic level of the avarage resident. The cost of buying into the area would be alot higher.

[vidkun]

Princeville is where it is because blacks were shunted onto flood-prone land after emancipation. That history is certainly worth remembering -- but as a recurring deluvian reenactment?

[David Sucher]

I think that the idea of filling part sof New Orleans tobring it up/above sea level is a good one: Floodproof New Orleans" by filling parts of it?.

[Jim]

I think it makes sense for house boats to be used, rather than single wide mobile homes. Both for FEMA supplied trailers and for homeowners wanting a safer design for the next time New Orleans fills up with water.

I was thinking that a houseboat with one or more strong anchor chains attached to it, the anchor chains cemented in the ground, and also a way to secure the houseboats by anchor chain higher up the chain near the top of the anchor chain, so that hurricane winds do not blow the houseboats over, but that you can then detach the short anchoring, leaving the long anchor lines in place, so that when New Orleans fills up with water, the house boats merely float at the surface, attached to their anchor lines so they don't float away, and when the water subsides they settle back down. Then they are put back onto their properties by cranes and the short anchoring is secured again.

The result is way less financial losses and disruption to homeowners and to the City. Property fences would need to be pretty low or nonexistent, so that when the house boats settle down, they are not resting crooked on a fence.