Storm Warning
An Investigative Series by John McQuaid
Mother Jones
August 26, 2007
Eroding coastline, sinking land, rising seas; failing levees, poor evacuation planning; a city that would fill like a soup bowl if its flood defenses were breached. In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John McQuaid coauthored a series in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where he'd worked for more than 20 years, that predicted the fate that would befall New Orleans 3 years later. Now, in a three-part series for Mother Jones, McQuaid reports that the initial surge of attention to strengthening the Gulf Coast's defenses has ebbed, once again, to complacency. And residents of the Gulf Coast are not the only ones who should be worried. As McQuaid reports, it's not just the levees that are broken—it's the entire political system by which we create disaster defenses. Climate change will bring more storms, floods, fires, and tornadoes, but Washington has done very little to get us prepared. Will it take another Katrina before the government acts?
—The Editors
Part 1: The Unlearned Lessons of Katrina The Gulf Coast is a petri dish for the effects of climate change. What's happening there will show up in your neighborhood sooner than you think.
Part 2: What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Weathering the Next Katrina A 1953 storm that killed 1,835 people forced the Netherlands to change the way disaster protection is done. The same can't be said of the U.S., where innovation has been stymied by pork-barrel politics.
Part 3: Never Again? The Politics of Preventing Another Katrina The Bush administration's lackluster response to one of the largest natural disasters in the nation's history has been to rely on stopgap measures and incompetent contractors, rather than devising a national plan to protect the U.S. coastline. Will it take another Katrina for the government to act?
See also:
A Hundred Katrinas: Climate Change and the Threat to the U.S. Coast Broken: The Army Corps of Engineers Windfall: How Conservatives, Contractors, and Developers Cashed In on Katrina Mother Jones' Full Coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its Aftermath
Mother Jones
August 26, 2007
Eroding coastline, sinking land, rising seas; failing levees, poor evacuation planning; a city that would fill like a soup bowl if its flood defenses were breached. In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John McQuaid coauthored a series in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where he'd worked for more than 20 years, that predicted the fate that would befall New Orleans 3 years later. Now, in a three-part series for Mother Jones, McQuaid reports that the initial surge of attention to strengthening the Gulf Coast's defenses has ebbed, once again, to complacency. And residents of the Gulf Coast are not the only ones who should be worried. As McQuaid reports, it's not just the levees that are broken—it's the entire political system by which we create disaster defenses. Climate change will bring more storms, floods, fires, and tornadoes, but Washington has done very little to get us prepared. Will it take another Katrina before the government acts?
—The Editors
Part 1: The Unlearned Lessons of Katrina The Gulf Coast is a petri dish for the effects of climate change. What's happening there will show up in your neighborhood sooner than you think.
Part 2: What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Weathering the Next Katrina A 1953 storm that killed 1,835 people forced the Netherlands to change the way disaster protection is done. The same can't be said of the U.S., where innovation has been stymied by pork-barrel politics.
Part 3: Never Again? The Politics of Preventing Another Katrina The Bush administration's lackluster response to one of the largest natural disasters in the nation's history has been to rely on stopgap measures and incompetent contractors, rather than devising a national plan to protect the U.S. coastline. Will it take another Katrina for the government to act?
See also:
©2007 The Foundation for National Progress
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