Katrina, New Orleans, and the Limits of Government

The flood protection system that was designed to protect New Orleans was big government at its finest, or at least its biggest. The people in the flood zone could not possibly afford to build the system themselves so the federal government (the rest of us) paid for most of it. This allowed developers to build cheap housing in areas that were below the natural water level.

What we got for our money was incomplete and sub-standard. Flood walls were anchored with local mud instead of more expensive clay brought in from out of state. Levies were inconsistent. Inspectors either failed to do their job or were bribed to ignore irregularities. The flood control "system" was not a real system. Instead it was a series of make-shift barriers that failed to stop even the moderate remnants of Hurricane Katrina that actually hit New Orleans. A lot of money went to graft and corruption.

It was recognized forty years ago that a hurricane coming up Lake Pontchartrain could overwhelm the flood barriers. There was a proposal to construct a giant flood wall at the mouth of the lake. This was stopped by environmentalists.

This is the reality of big government. Projects that start out with good intentions turn into excuses for the well-connected to line their pockets.

The response from the big government progressives as been to blame President Bush for problems that existed for decades. When he spoke at New Orleans, I doubt that President Obama ever gave a thought to how government had failed those people. Instead he was congratulating himself for how government was helping them.

The fact is that the government cannot do everything. There are limits on what can be accomplished. Even given things the government can do, it will not always be successful. Sometime it will fail in epic proportions and disastrous results.

Consider - without the government flood protection, the 9th Ward would have never been built. Without that, the flood damage would have been moderate. The disaster was caused because the government made a promise that it could not keep.