Vernon
of the local people. If they don't do it, why it doesn't get done, and they suffer the
consequences.
The Corps will do the main levee for them and some of the major collection facilities or
the major items right at the line of the levee. But getting all that water down to the levee
and to this major facility is another problem. In New Orleans, the
water level on
the Mississippi River is above the land within the levee. So you've got to pump
everything. You can't drain it by gravity. There's no place to drain it, too. So it costs
a lot of money to get rid of all that water.
The parishes down there have a tough time convincing FEMA that they`re doing
something to reduce future damages. Part of being in the flood insurance program is that
the community is taking strides to reduce future damages in their area and preventing
development in the floodplain.
Well, if the whole area is floodplain, how do you prevent future development in it because
people are going to develop and there's no place else to develop. They re actually
developing in the floodplain and so FEMA says, "Hey, this is against our policy to let
anybody develop in the floodplain. The parish says, "Well, that's all we have. We're
all floodplain.
Anyway, they've had some court cases about what they need to do. They have some
agreements. We've got some in the
now that we're reviewing where the community
or the parish has started working on future facilities to take care of local and interior
drainage. But that is probably the worst city in the country as far as maintaining a flood
free area.
Q ..
A city that shouldn't be?
A ..
Well, a lot of people think so. They talk about the
flood as the basis for the
floodplain, you're talking about half the state of Mississippi or Louisiana, you know. If
you spread the
flood, most of the state is going to be under water.
Q ..
Yes, and an awful lot of money is spent down there to keep that river from going where
it wants to go.
Oh yes. Well, you see there's so many complex problems there. They build levees to
A
protect against hurricanes and the main river flow. Then the doggone levees, the ground
Previous Page
