Visit to the 17th St. pump station construction site

(Editor's Note: Please jump back a bit in time with us to New Orleans...)

On the way down to New Orleans, I had told the other bus riders about the cleanup work I had done with my company (Weston Solutions) after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and showed them the pictures I had taken of the city and Plaquemines Parish. Because Weston is now the General Contractor for installing two enormous pump stations to protect New Orleans from flooding (where the levies broke), I was excited to schedule a visit for the riders to see the site and meet a few of my coworkers.

On the morning of July 4th, six riders and our faculty representative from the University of New Orleans, Juana Ibanez, visited Weston’s work trailer at the 17th St. canal’s pump station. After being given a thorough safety orientation to the site and getting suited up in the proper safety apparel, Lee Duncan explained the background behind the levy breach and flood control measures while we were waiting out the rainstorm in the trailer.

Once the rain subsided, we walked over to see where the levy gave out (where the helicopters were dropping sandbags for immediate protection after the hurricane), and then took a look at the largest pumping station most of us will probably ever see – 7300 cubic feet of water per second, shooting into the Lake through pipes that are nine feet in diameter! What was hardest to believe is the cost and difficulty of putting in these structures on top of pretty weak soil; they had to erect a multi-million dollar temporary crane pad just to support a crane to be used for moving the equipment into place, and the pilings to support the station needed to go a little over one hundred feet down into the soil, since bedrock can not be reached.

After the tour, several of the riders drove through the areas of New Orleans that were hit hard by the storm. This pump station that we saw is just one of the many incredible costs associated with rebuilding New Orleans and protecting it from future storms. However, even with all these new measures, no one can pretend that the city is immune to hurricanes. For that reason, everyone (engineers, hippies, etc.) seems to have an opinion about whether New Orleans “should” be rebuilt, though I don’t think anyone has the right to make this judgment call. Every country, city, neighborhood, and home is built with varying degrees of risk, and almost everything constructed by man has costs associated with risk management and emergency planning. Obviously New Orleans was lacking adequate storm protection and emergency preparation, and is built in a high risk location, but I believe that anyone who wants to live there should be allowed to live there . . . it’s just important for individuals and organizations (ex. government and insurance companies) to recognize and take responsibility for the costs associated with their decisions, instead of expecting to pass costs on to others that had no interest in encouraging risk-taking in the first place.

By: Bret Strogen