‘The Storm’
-What Went Wrong and Why
During Hurricane Katrina-
The Inside Story from
One Louisiana Scientist
Written with the help of Mike Bryan, Ivor Van Heerden’s ‘The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why during Hurricane Katrina’ is a very controversial book that has been given a great deal of praise for its, sometimes disturbing, information on the causes of the New Orleans’ disaster. Van Heerden, Director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes, was the Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center before being dismissed by the university in 2009. He holds a doctorate degree in Marine Sciences and also was the former Chief of the state’s office of Coastal restoration efforts. Born, raised, and educated in South Africa, Van Heerden migrated to the United States in the early 1980’s by means of his own 35-foot sailboat.
After reading this book, it is blatantly obvious the extent of Ivor Van Heerden’s opinions on the Hurricane Katrina/New Orleans’ disaster. He blames multiple organizations for the disaster including, primarily, the Army Corps of Engineers for their ill-designed canal system which caused the levee failures in Greater New Orleans in 2005. Some of Van Heerden’s statements were in fact too controversial for his employer, LSU, that they ceased his position a few years after Katrina’s presence. Not even given a reason by Louisiana State University for his termination, it was obvious that the criticism (Ivor, a Geologist/Marine Scientist, offered ‘engineering services’ or had represented himself as an engineer publically without having a license) Van Heerden received from civil engineers made him a legal liability for LSU; therefore the cause of the firing. Strongly defended in the press, Van Heerden strongly believes that the firing occurred because Louisiana State University feared that his opinions/statements would jeopardize future grant money. Because of this, he has filed an injunction to reverse the decision.
Specifically, Ivor Van Heerden is trying to get the point across in his book that the majority of the New Orleans’ disaster was from levee failures. A point he explains that many of us do not understand; he says that a total of five segments of levees in the Greater New Orleans area structurally failed. A week after the arrival of Katrina, Van Heerden and some of his colleagues went out to investigate for themselves. They indeed concluded that some of the levees were never overtopped by water; instead, they were breached, meaning that the walls of some levees collapsed before the level of the water even got close to reaching the tops of these levees (about 18 feet above sea level I believe). If these levees would not have failed, some sections of New Orleans would have still flooded but it would have been minimal; able to have been pumped out of the city within a couple days. Instead, an area of 148 square miles of urban flooding took place; an estimated 22.4 million liters of water. The city of New Orleans was officially ‘dry’ on October 11th (six weeks after the landfall of Katrina). This was from the aid of 148 water pumps at 60 pumping stations.
Other than the levees undergoing structural failure, Van Heeden pointed his finger at other causes of the Katrina disaster; things that could have been done prior to the landfall of Katrina to help decrease the magnitude of the disaster. $52 billion was and is being spent on aid and to ‘restore order’ in the Greater New Orleans Area. A much smaller figure could have been spent to redesign the canal system around the city. This reconstruction would have taken a couple decades, but it would have ended up much cheaper and have cost nobody their lives. Van Heeden, having spent 3 months out of each year in the Louisiana wetlands since the ‘80’s, is a wetlands fanatic. He understands how important the wetlands are to the state, which contains 40% of the total coastal wetlands of the lower 48. The degradation of the wetlands within the last century, mostly due to oil extraction, has helped play a major role in the magnitude of this disaster. The shorelines of Louisiana retreat by an astonishing 40 feet each year while the wetlands are disappearing at a rate of 40 square miles per year. Wetlands are the most natural and cheapest buffer available to protect the country from storms; especially from storm surge. In fact, 3 to 4 miles of healthy marsh reduces storm surge by up to 2 feet. Cypress trees are also very important for this reason; species that Van Heeden has been trying to protect from being destroyed for years.
President George Bush officially declared a national emergency on Saturday August 27th, 2005 after the multiple levees in New Orleans were breached. Beginning slightly before this declaration, about 75% of the Greater New Orleans’ population evacuated the area. This meant that about 400,000 of the population stayed behind; most not having any means of transportation besides their own two feet. Residents of the city were forced to climb to higher grounds including trees and roofs of their own houses as the water levels rose. At first the rescue effort was slow, but as the media spread the news, rescuers swarmed the area. As for some numbers: an estimated 600 rescue boats were in the water during the disaster, 10,000 tarps were in the city (most covering bodies), 3.4 million pounds of ice were brought for food, more than 2 million people were evacuated, and half a million were in shelters in the first two weeks.
Just a few days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall and the levees were breached, Ivor Van Heerden was on the Larry King Show for three consecutive nights spreading his knowledge to the world. As he said time and time before, he was one of several experts to predict the disastrous consequences, including levee failure, if a large hurricane were ever to hit the New Orleans area. In 2004 on the PBS program ‘Nova’, he stated that ‘Louisiana is a terminally ill patient requiring major surgery.’ Indeed Van Heerden was correct; not only was New Orleans a terminally ill patient, it now was about to get the plug pulled. On one of the nights of his Larry King interviews, Van Heeden shared the show with Anderson Cooper, who had some motivating statements to say to Ivor. Cooper earlier that day came ‘famously close to blowing his editorial objectivity’ while reporting from Mississippi; speaking of how he was frustrated with politicians saying how they understood the people’s frustration. He stated that “It’s not that people are frustrated; it’s that they’re dying”. On the Larry King show that night, Van Heerden told Cooper how he respected and admired him for speaking out and saying what needed to be said. Then the motivating words followed; Cooper told Van Heerden that he thought of him as “one of the only honest, sane, and knowledgeable voices out there.”
Overall, I thought ‘The Storm’ was a very interesting read which provided me with a few different points of view on the Katrina disaster. The book was filled with a vast amount of facts and of Ivor Van Heerden opinions. Some of what Van Heerden said was very opinionated and was a little too much for me, but overall, I would have to say I agree with the majority of what he had to say and I respect him for standing up and criticizing organizations who dearly deserved it. He wasn’t in New Orleans until about a week after the hurricane’s landfall, so it was easy for him to point fingers; some of which was probably a little too radical for my taste. He quoted something that John Kerry had said, for example; “Blast the failed federal response to Katrina as the rotten fruit of a ‘right-wing ideological experiment” and went on to say that this disaster is proof that “the government simply isn’t capable of performing at the necessary level.” Once again, it is easy to point fingers when you are not the one in those peoples’ shoes whom are deciding on which actions should and should not be taken which will affect thousands of peoples’ lives. I also would have to say that Van Heerden came off as being a little arrogant with a hint of narcissism.
It was interesting and at the same time disturbing, to find out that Hurricane Katrina was not even a very big hurricane whatsoever when it hit the Louisiana coast. Katrina was massive as it was way out in the ocean; spending most of its time as a category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 130 mph then going up to a category 5 with sustained winds of 175 mph as the storm was about 3 days from landfall. As Katrina journeyed across the Gulf of Mexico she generated energy equivalent to one hundred thousand atomic bombs; a power that could be amplified by the energy equivalent to one million atomic bombs per just a 1 degree Fahrenheit increase of temperature in the Gulf. So Katrina was a beast way out in the ocean but as it ventured towards shore, it lost its power rapidly as shallower and colder waters were found. When she actually hit the coast, Katrina was only a category 2 hurricane; a storm that the levees should have been able to withstand. I understand that this category hurricane still produced a great deal of water, but the levees should have been able to hold it. The failed sections of levees (only a few sections totaling a mere 500 yards) resulted in letting in 87% of all the water that ended up flooding the greater New Orleans metro area. This, and the delayed evacuation of the city, caused an extreme disaster; one which could have been reduced in scale tremendously, or even avoided completely.
“In February, House Republicans issued a blistering report about the delayed evacuation and the failure of the Bush administration to act on the early reports of levee failures. The day Katrina hit, between twelve and fourteen hours after most of the breaches occurred, Secretary Chertoff and the White House had been informed. This bold denunciation was titled ‘A Failure of Initiative. I rest my case!”
-Ivor Van Heerden-
-Ivor Van Heerden-
