Unsustainable Policies and Katrina
Unsustainable policies and responding after a calamity rather than taking precautions in anticipation of one made Hurricane Katrina more devastating for New Orleans than it might have been.
Craig Colten, author of Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature, says federal investment in over-built levees and drainage systems, intended to protect New Orleans from storms, actually caused the area to subside, or sink, leaving residents and property more vulnerable, and created a false sense of security. The National Flood Insurance Program, implemented in 1968 after Hurricane Betsy, also created a false sense of security, says Colten. The program was meant to discourage development in unsafe areas, but building codes were not been adequately enforced and development in flood-prone areas continued.
Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast face similar risks each hurricane season, and no policies have changed or been implemented since the hurricanes of 2005 to reduce the risk.
Houston and Harris County come in third and fourth for repetitive flood damage in the United States, just behind the Louisiana coastal areas. The possibility of ground sinking as a result of oil drilling along the Texas Gulf Coast, sea levels rising due to global warming and expanding development along the coast all add up to increased risks of loss of property and lives when the next hurricane comes.