It doesn’t take a hurricane to flood the homes in Holly Grove and Carrolton communities in New Orleans’ Orleans Parish. All it takes is a bit of heavy rain, and folks who still are trying to rebuild after the 2005 Katrina devastation are forced again to look for higher ground, residents say.
The predominately black communities border the Palmetto Canal, which has no levee or flood wall on the Orleans Parish side. However, there is flood protection on the Jefferson Parish side, says resident Joe Sherman.
On Saturday at 10 a.m., he and others, organized by the Association of Communities for Reform Now (ACORN), will form a human levee along the unprotected section of the Monticello Canal to draw attention to what they say is another example of injustice toward blacks in New Orleans.
“We’re hoping for at least 500 people. The state, the Corp of Engineers and the Water and Sewerage Board have all been pointing fingers at each other. We need to get their attention so they will do something about this problem,” Sherman told BlackAmericaWeb.com.
Residents of Holly Grove and Carrolton turned out in force to voice their concerns at the city planning meetings for their community, said New Orleans ACORN leader Stephen Bradberry.
Flood protection for that area was first listed as an immediate concern, then it was bumped to a mid term plan, which means it will be addressed in five years, Bradberry said.
AP Video
Earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers released a report maintaining that large areas of New Orleans, including sections that are being rebuilt, remain at risk from flooding despite more than $1 billion in work to fix and upgrade the hurricane protection system.
The corps released risk assessments on a block-by-block basis in the form of maps showing the estimated threat of flooding each year from hurricanes.
But the corps did not release much-anticipated technical data accompanying the risk assessment, leaving many independent experts unable to assess the accuracy of the agency's assumptions on risk.
The mapping was based on extensive modeling and statistical analysis. For example, in a flood that has the likelihood of occurring at least once in 100 years, many neighborhoods in the central part of the city that were inundated during Katrina are now less likely to flood because of levee improvements.
By comparison, other areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly and St. Bernard Parish have not benefited greatly from levee work done since Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005 storm and could see as much as eight feet of flooding.
However, nearly every part of the city, except for a sliver along the Mississippi River where the French Quarter sits, would flood under current levee conditions in a flood that has the likelihood of occurring once every 500 years. Katrina was a storm that happens once every 400 years, according to the corps.
"What we're doing here is showing people what the magnitude of the risk is," said Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the Corps' chief engineer, after the report was issued.
"The whole purpose of providing this information is so people can make a personal decision" about the risk they face, he said.
While many Orleans Parish residents want to return to their homes, they still live with a fear of what could happen without flood protection.
“Whenever there is any rain event, very heavy rain, or another hurricane, the risk increases because there is protection on one side, and no protection on the other,” Bradberry told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “How can you say the community not at risk when you have protected one half of the community and not the other? This is unacceptable.”
