Resiliency Lessons learned From New Orleans

Posted: September 10, 2019

Pictured, Winslow Hastie, second from right, with staff members from the City of Charleston and the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

By Winslow Hastie, President & CEO of Historic Charleston Foundation

When the project manager for the Army Corps “3 x 3” study of the Charleston peninsula voiced concerns about the impacts this massive potential infrastructure project could have on the historic district, it got my attention. He asked if HCF would consult with the Army Corps team, and perhaps even help connect them to officials in New Orleans where flood infrastructure and historic neighborhoods have intersected for generations. I jumped at the chance to help connect the Army Corps team from Charleston with preservation experts and other groups working on flooding work in New Orleans.

We developed a robust site visit and tour of New Orleans in partnership with Charleston city officials from the resiliency, stormwater, planning, parks and finance departments. We were eager to hear from a wide range of experts there to gain “lessons learned” and to see projects that have advanced post-Katrina. The team spent three days at the end of August touring sites, meeting with city leaders and officials at various regulatory authorities that exist in and around New Orleans, ranging from the city’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability to the regional Flood Protection Authority to the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans and then to the Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge.

One of the main goals of this trip was to learn how the flood walls and levees in New Orleans impact its historic fabric. It is looking more than likely that the Army Corps and the city of Charleston will ultimately recommend some form of perimeter protection around the entire peninsula, spanning from Magnolia Cemetery all the way around to the Magnolia development on the west side of the Neck Area. This could take the form of a wall, a landscaped berm or some combination of the two. Because most of the peninsula is a dense urban environment, there aren’t as many opportunities for nature-based solutions downtown. This doesn’t mean that we can’t pilot some projects that include bio-swales, enhanced wetlands and rain gardens, but for coastal protection from flooding, we are going to need something more substantial.

A few major takeaways:

• New Orleans is more like the Netherlands than Charleston. Fifty percent of the city is below sea level and they have had a byzantine system of levees and canals for over a hundred years. They have not had a strong connection to the river that flows through it. The visual access to water from the historic district is almost sacred in Charleston, therefore, we must mitigate the impacts of a wall or berm so that the water remains visible from key points.
• New Orleans and the state of Louisiana are about 10 years ahead of us in terms of resiliency planning and implementation of infrastructure projects. However, they have had two major cataclysmic events fairly recently—Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—which have catalyzed incredible amounts of federal disaster aid and investment as well as litigation settlement money from BP.
• Proper, holistic planning is paramount. I know that there is “planning fatigue” in Charleston, but the reality is that we’re just playing catch-up. We currently have the Dutch Dialogues Charleston project wrapping up, the Vulnerability Assessment, and updates to the Drainage Master Plan (last updated in 1984!) and the Stormwater Manual that governs development standards. And then, of course, we have the Army Corps study under way. All of these initiatives combined will put us in a much better place for securing federal money in the future. However, we will absolutely need to push for more regional/watershed-level planning from the state and county levels. Lowcountry constituents will need to push for comprehensive watershed planning to come out of the Governor’s Floodwater Commission