Ken Reid, Executive Director of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), saw this in the EWRI electronic newsletter and sent it to me. I decided to post it after attending the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR)/National Institutes of Water Resources (NIWR) 2007 Annual Meeting in Boise, ID, where one of my engineer colleagues reported "almost zero progress" in restoring New Orleans. Another colleague related how he had told his students for over 20 years that in the USA, great devastation could be caused by a "water natural disaster" if 1) a "megaflood" inundated a large city; or 2) a powerful hurricane struck a coastal metropolis. He said New Orleans was a "twofer".
I also heard Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) speak last February on the devastation and suffering she saw by helicopter a few days after Katrina struck. She couldn't bear to see the people trapped on roofs, some with the bodies of friends and relatives, desperately signaling for help that was far too long in arriving.
Hurricane Katrina and the Impact of Engineers
From Lopez, John A., 2006. The Multiple Lines of Defense Strategy to Sustain Coastal Louisiana. Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, Metairie, LA (at www.saveourlake.org).
The Thoughts of Stephan Butler, P.E., M.ASCE
Office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
2007 ASCE Congressional Fellow
Note: Stephan Butler is a participant in ASCE's Congressional Fellowship program, which since 1996 has given engineers the opportunity to spend a year's term working in the U.S. Congress.
In April’s Congressional Fellow Report I touched on the importance of access and proximity to our elected officials and briefly described my job function and the policy proposals on which I’ve been working. This month I would like to drill deeper into those topics, illustrating the discussion with stories from my visits to Louisiana.
When I arrived on Capitol Hill I made visiting Louisiana my first order of business, on the belief that I would be better able to consider federal policy matters and their implications on Louisiana if I understood the problems being faced by its citizens while rebuilding and recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. With this goal in mind, I met with some of the citizens and professional groups involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans. I was especially touched by my meetings with representatives from the grassroots groups Levees.org, the Episcopal Relief and Development Office of Disaster Response, Jericho Road (Episcopal Housing Initiative) and All Congregations Together. These groups represent the residents of New Orleans who, acknowledging a present leadership vacuum in the local community, have banded together to reconstruct their own neighborhoods and communities. Jericho Road, for instance, aims to be the catalyst that will bring displaced families home by providing quality housing opportunities for low income families. They hope their efforts will lead to long term housing collaborations throughout the city and in that way empower individuals, rehabilitate neighborhoods and transform communities.
I also met with Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal, whose group is advocating for an independent bipartisan Levee Commission to investigate the failure of the federal flood protection in metro New Orleans. The grassroots group, which now numbers over 12,000 members, was recognized as a “powerful force” by Congressman Bobby Jindal, who stated the following: “The voice of Levees.org members over the past year has been a powerful force in helping members of Congress and the White House see the importance of providing South Louisiana with Category 5 hurricane protection and giving Louisiana a share of offshore energy royalties so that Louisiana can begin to rebuild its coasts."
Also, I was fortunate to get a personalized tour of the Port of New Orleans with Deborah Ducote Keller, P.E., Director of the Port Development Division, past president of the ASCE’s New Orleans Branch and resident of St. Bernard Parish. During the tour of the facilities and the adjacent neighborhoods, I found myself overwhelmed and in shock. As a World Trade Center first responder after 9/11, I thought I understood devastation, but the impact on New Orleans stretches for mile after square mile. Vast regions of the city and surrounding parishes are obliterated. The houses continue to be safety and health hazards, as they still need to be gutted and demolished; the roadways have lost their top courses, are buckled, and have sink holes; other crucial infrastructure is similarly destroyed.
Seeing the scope of the problem confirmed my belief that I made the correct decision by coming to work on Capitol Hill, which has allowed me to bring engineering ideas, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation’s work on multiple lines of defense and better land use practices, to Washington, D.C., for consideration by law makers.
More broadly, I believe that the USA’s infrastructure systems have deteriorated to the point where this country’s future economic competitiveness is in jeopardy and our elected officials, who are entrusted with safeguarding our nation’s future, have ignored the warnings. Reversing or even arresting the decline of infrastructure systems will require creative solutions and visionary leadership from the engineering community.
In this context, there are two readily-apparent ways for engineers to affect change. First, engineers need to position themselves better by seeking public office, which would provide them with proximity and access to the legislative process. Second, in order to help Congress to better understand technology transfers and complex scientific principles before implementing new policies, the engineering discipline should actively recruit and pitch its professionals for placement on lawmaker and committee staffs. This second tactic is likely to require a cultural shift in the engineering profession. Talented engineers will not readily pursue alternative but important career paths if they think that their work will be dismissed or devalued by the profession, including its societies and licensing boards. Likewise, lawmakers and committees are unlikely to understand the benefits of having engineers on their staffs and deferring to their judgment on important social issues without a significant public relations campaign by the profession. The stakes are high enough, however, that extreme measures are necessary.
I firmly believe that engineers must get involved in the political process in order to affect change, and I urge every engineer who reads this article to consider competing for an appointment to the Congressional Fellowship or support an employee who would like to do so. The Fellowship provides one of the best ways to share your expertise and experiences with our country’s top decision-makers. Also, it allows you to learn new approaches to communication, managing, problem-solving and advocating for vital public works projects.
"And Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." -- George W. Bush, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, 2 September 2005.
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