Levee director tells SCIA its time to get serious about Morganza

A 10-foot levee could have saved southern Terrebonne Parish from all flooding caused by Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurricane Ike in 2008, said Windell Curole last week at a meeting of the South Central Industrial Association.

Curole, the longtime director of the South Lafourche Levee District, completed a stint as interim Terrebonne levee director in July.

“We have to get serious about a levee system between the Gulf of Mexico and where we live,” Curole said. “We are at risk. We need to ask, ‘Are we doing the best we can do?’ Unless we get a levee between us and the Gulf, I don’t know about telling people to invest here.”

The first lift of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane levee protection system under construction by the Terrebonne levee district is being built to 10 feet.

Congress authorized Morganza in 2007 without appropriating money for the project. The Army Corps of Engineers said the anticipated cost of the storm system has risen far past original estimates.

This month, Terrebonne Levee Director Reggie Dupre said the earliest the corps could start work on Morganza is probably 2014.

During Hurricane Ike, the levee between Pointe-aux-Chenes and Montegut was barely overtopped, flooding the area.

“Six inches makes a big difference,” Curole said. Environmentalists believe levees are not good, he said, but Curole displayed a photograph of a local levee holding up during a storm.

Debris remaining on one of Lafourche Parish’s hurricane protection levees from the crest of Ike’s floodwaters shows the levees had 7 feet of water to spare.

Curole pointed out that pump stations located on levees are in an especially vulnerable spot, partly because of the vibrations resulting from operating the pumps. “Every foot of levee has to be effective,” he said.

Ike only skirted the coast of Louisiana and Hurricane Gustav in 2008 fell apart before hitting Houma. Curole said Hurricane Katrina in 2005 would have devastated any place it hit. “If it had gone to the west of us, we might not be here today,” he said.

Curole also noted that levees in New Orleans along canals leading into the city breached during Katrina causing the flooding, but the levee on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway north of St. Bernard Parish held. That structure was overtopped.

“(Katrina) pushed Lake Pontchartrain into the canals. … The walls in New Orleans were a failure,” he said, but higher areas along the Mississippi River like the French Quarter stayed dry.

He said the ridge along Bayou Lafourche must be maintained. According to Curole, the four-lane highway in Golden Meadow is 2 feet below sea level.

Curole said going back to 1870 and projecting to 2090, the Louisiana coast will have lost an amount of land equal to the states of Rhode Island and Delaware.

In 1951, the area around Leeville at La. Highway 1 contained 80 to 90 percent marsh. Now the area is mostly open water.

Curole said state and local money together needs to be used for flood protection. “Morganza is our best chance for protection,” he said.