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height of 23 feet.]] Hurricane and flood preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of the city's location. Much of New Orleans was built on a Delta Marsh and sits below sea level. The city is surrounded by the Mississippi River to the south, Lake Pontchartrain to the north, and Lake Borgne to the east. The parts of New Orleans and the surrounding communities first settled in the colonial era through the 19th Century were and still are above sea level. However flooding was long a threat, from the periodic high waters of the Mississippi and more occasional severe storms which would push the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into settled areas. Construction of the levees along the River began soon after the city was founded, and more extensive river levees were built as the city grew. These earthen barriers were originally erected to prevent damage caused by seasonal flooding. On the lakeside, much of the land was undeveloped Swamp and only small levees were constructed in the 19th century. A much larger project to build up levees along the lake and extend the shoreline out by dredging began in 1927 . As the city grew, there was increased pressure to develop lower areas. A large system of canals and pumps was constructed to drain the city. Flooding containment efforts until the mid-20th century primarily focused on floods from the Mississippi River . The heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 brought concerns regarding flooding from hurricanes to the forefront. There were many predictions of hurricane risk in New Orleans before .'' October , 2004 . Just a few months before Katrina, the FX docudrama '' Oil Storm '' depicted a category 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans and forcing residents to evacuate and hide out in the Superdome, and speculated about a national economic meltdown caused by the decreased oil supply. There have been various plans to mitigate or prevent catastrophies, but none was implemented before the time of Katrina and the city, like many others, heavily relied on evacuation in case of a category 5 storm. The inadequacy of evacuation plans was shown up when no provision was made in time to evacuate the very many people who could not leave by their own means. Blame for lack of preparedeness has been leveled at all levels of government. New Orleans Mayor .'' September 4 , 2005 . ASSESSMENTS In early .'' September - October , 2004 . Hurricane Pam Hurricane Pam was a hypothetical hurricane used as a disaster scenario to drive planning for a 13-parish area in Southeastern Louisiana, including the city of , 2004 . Developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency , the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security, Emergency Preparedness, the National Weather Service , and Innovative Emergency Management, Inc., the mock hurricane scenario and its projected consequences were the focal point of an eight-day exercise held at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge in July , 2004 . Hurricane Pam was a slow-moving Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 120 Mph . It brought with it up to 20 inches of rain to some parts of Southeastern Louisiana and caused levee-topping Storm Surge . The consequence assessment for Hurricane Pam indicated that more than a million people would be displaced and that 600,000 buildings would be damaged, with some completely destroyed. Follow-on Hurricane Pam workshops were conducted in November / December 2004 , July 2005 , and August 2005 . The Hurricane Pam scenario and the level of attention that the federal government paid to it were discussed following the catastrophic effects of , 2005 . LSU studies The Army Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with the , 2002 . On , 2005 . LEVEE PREPARATIONS AND FUNDING ISSUES
While no detailed proposals had yet been made to augment the New Orleans levee system to be capable of withstanding a .'' October 8 , 2004 . Whether or not such additional funding might have been capable of preventing the extensive flooding in New Orleans caused by Katrina, is a matter that has yet to be determined. Starting in .'' September 2 , 2005 . From .'' September 1 , 2005 . Even as the Bush administration was cutting the Army Corps of Engineers budget, many were criticizing the administration for not cutting the budget more. The '', 2005 . Just after Hurricane Katrina hit, there was some concern expressed that government officials have placed an overemphasis on disaster recovery, while neglecting the process of pre-planning and preparation.Walsh, Bill; Alpert, Bruce; McQuaid, John. " Feds' Disaster Planning Shifts Away from Preparedness ." ''Newhouse News Service.'' August 31 , 2005 . In .'' November 30 , 2005 . LOUISIANA'S SINKING COAST When the Army Corps of Engineers started systematically leveeing the river in the 19th century, it cut off the region's main source of silt, the raw material of delta-building. The weight of large buildings and infrastructure and the leaching of water, oil and gas from beneath the surface across the region have also contributed to the problem. Following the great floods of 1927 , the Mississippi River was surrounded by a series of levees meant to protect the city from such floods. In 1965 , New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Betsy , which caused tremendous amount of flooding in the New Orleans area. The federal government began a levee-building program to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane (the same strength as Betsy). These series of levees were completed in recent years before Hurricane Katrina. However, an unintended consequence of the levees was that natural silt deposits from the Mississippi River were unable to replenish the delta, causing the coastal wetlands of Louisiana to wash away and the city of New Orleans to sink even deeper. The Mississippi River delta is subsiding faster than any other place in the nation. And while the land is sinking, sea level has been rising. In the past 100 years, land subsidence and sea-level rise have added several feet to all storm surges. That extra height puts affected areas under deeper water; it also means flooding from weaker storms and from the outer edges of powerful storms spreads over wider areas. The marshes that ring New Orleans have sunk the quickest. The problem with the wetlands was further worsened by salt water intrusion caused by the canals dug by the oil companies and private individuals in this marshland. This erosion of the wetlands not only caused Louisiana to lose 24 square miles per year of land annually and 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930 s, but it also destroyed Louisiana’s first line of defense against hurricanes. Hurricanes draw their strength from the sea, so they quickly weaken and begin to dissipate when they make landfall. Hurricanes moving over fragmenting marshes toward the New Orleans area can retain more strength, and their winds and large waves pack more speed and destructive power. Scientists working for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources measured some of these effects during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 . Andrew's surge height dropped from 9.3 feet at Cocodrie to 3.3 feet at the Houma Navigation Canal 23 miles to the north. For every mile of the marsh-and-water landscape it traversed, it lost 3.1 inches of height, sparing some homes farther north from more flooding. Currently Louisiana has 30% of the total coastal marsh and accounts for 90% of the coastal marsh loss in the lower 48 states. The engineering of the river has basically brought the Gulf of Mexico right to the doorstep of New Orleans, making it more vulnerable to hurricanes. The combination of sinking land and rising seas has place the Mississippi River delta as much as 3 feet lower relative to sea level than it was a century ago, and the process continues. That means hurricane floods driven inland from the Gulf have risen by corresponding amounts. Storms that once would not have had much impact can now be devastating events, and flooding penetrates to places where it rarely occurred before. The problem also is slowly eroding levee protection, cutting off evacuation routes sooner and putting dozens of communities and valuable infrastructure at risk of being wiped off the map. State and federal officials have recently pushed a $ 14 Billion plan to rebuild wetlands over the next 30 years, to be funded by oil and gas royalties, called Coast 2050. " Coast 2050 ." Accessed April 2 , 2006 . Louisiana will receive $ 540 Million under the energy bill enacted in August 2005 . More money for this program is likely to come with aid from Hurricane Katrina. Wetlands have the capacity to absorb storm surges at the rate of 1 foot per 2.7 miles. However, due to the systemic, long-term nature of wetlands loss, and due to the fact that it will take decades to remediate wetlands loss,Schleifstein, Mark. "[http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/futureofcoast_1.html Coastal Resuscitation]." '' Times Picayune .'' June 23 - 27 , 2002 . it is not possible to pinpoint blame on any specific Congress, legislature, president, or governor. SEE ALSO
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