Word: coasts
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...arrived in Louisiana as a relatively mild Category 2 storm, not the Category 4 nightmare forecasters had feared, and it missed New Orleans. The fatal failures of Hurricane Katrina were not repeated: levees and flood walls didn't collapse, pumps didn't break down, and most residents fled the coast before Gustav's landfall. There was much better preparation and cooperation, much less finger-pointing and obfuscating. And for all the TV footage of downed power lines and uprooted trees and windblown reporters, there were just a few reported deaths, and probably just a few billion dollars in damages...
...brunt of the storm passed directly over the coast's best-preserved barrier island, Grand Isle, which sapped its power; Gustav also seems to have passed over another speed bump in the form of a rare swath of healthy marshes. "It's really incredible; a slight variation of the track either way could have meant six more feet of storm surge," says Louisiana State University coastal scientist Robert Twilley, who studied Gustav's track. "I hope nobody gets a false sense of security." The barrier islands that once protected New Orleans have eroded, and most of the city's nearby...
Then there's the rest of the coast, a Cajun country of farm towns, fishing villages and oil ports that are even more exposed than New Orleans. For decades, Louisiana's southern parishes have clamored for a series of gigantic levees across the coast--a kind of Great Wall of Louisiana--starting with a 72-mile (116 km) Morganza-to-the-Gulf dike for the city of Houma and some exposed bayou towns. Keith Luke rode out Gustav in his shrimp boat; his hometown of Dulac, once nestled behind cypress swamps and marshes, is now surrounded by open water...
...million Morganza-to-the-Gulf levee that Congress approved last year would include Dulac, but it would also cut off 135,000 acres (55,000 hectares) of wetlands. Scientists believe it would make the coast even less safe by ravaging storm buffers, amplifying storm surges and encouraging complacency. And a preliminary Corps analysis suggests that building the levee to real 100-year standards could cost $10.7 billion, a 1,200% increase. Before Gustav, Jindal had convened a science panel to review Morganza-to-the-Gulf, and momentum has been building for an alternative alignment that would protect Houma without cutting...
...Corps was spending more money in Louisiana than in any other state, but it was wasting most of the funds on navigation boondoggles that had nothing to do with hurricane defense. Louisiana's political establishment is pushing hard for coastal restoration, but it is also pushing for the coast-killing Morganza project as well as port deepenings and other make-work projects that benefit special interests...