Skip to main content

New Orleans Protection Plan Nearly Identical to Scientific American s 2006 Plan

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.


Six months after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, Scientific American published an article I wrote, called "Protecting New Orleans." It explained the options that were likely to best protect that city and the entire Mississippi Delta region against future storms. I interviewed many scientists, engineers and local, state and federal politicians, and although they were not necessarily communicating with one another, it sounded like they had similar ideas. I then asked some private engineering firms that were also studying the situation if they would give me a peek at what they would propose, which they did. Their schemes were similar, too. The options seemed to boil down to three leading plans. I asked Len Bahr, who was the head of coastal restoration in the Louisiana governor's office, if the three blueprints made sense to him, and he said they did. The first option was a "ring plan" that would guard New Orleans, though not the rest of the delta. That plan included higher levees along certain city boundaries and a series of new floodgates in critical places to hold back storm surges from the Gulf of Mexico and from the huge Lake Pontchartrain on the city's north side. The two other plans would protect increasingly larger parts of the surrounding region. To show the three proposals, Scientific American obtained table-sized maps of the topography and bathymetry of the region, and our head of graphics, Jen Christiansen, morphed that information with mine into a large, illustrated map that became a centerpiece of the article. The spread included a detailed map of the ring plan for the city itself. The article appeared in our February 2006 issue. As it turns out, New Orleans is completing construction of a ring plan that closely resembles the detailed map we published. So closely that it's hard to find differences between the two (see our map, below). I just discovered this on Friday, to my great delight. What's most gratifying is that city planners and elected officials listened. Not to what we said in the article, per se, but to what the scientists and engineers were recommending, because those people, of course, continued to advise officials and publish reports and papers. So often, especially in public works, decisions are made on the basis of politics or budgets rather than science. So hurray for New Orleans. And hurray for its decision makers. They heeded the call we make so often in Scientific American's pages: Listen to the data. Listen to the scientists!

Mark Fischetti has been a senior editor at Scientific American for 17 years and has covered sustainability issues, including climate, weather, environment, energy, food, water, biodiversity, population, and more. He assigns and edits feature articles, commentaries and news by journalists and scientists and also writes in those formats. He edits History, the magazine's department looking at science advances throughout time. He was founding managing editor of two spinoff magazines: Scientific American Mind and Scientific American Earth 3.0. His 2001 freelance article for the magazine, "Drowning New Orleans," predicted the widespread disaster that a storm like Hurricane Katrina would impose on the city. His video What Happens to Your Body after You Die?, has more than 12 million views on YouTube. Fischetti has written freelance articles for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Fast Company, and many others. He co-authored the book Weaving the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which tells the real story of how the Web was created. He also co-authored The New Killer Diseases with microbiologist Elinor Levy. Fischetti is a former managing editor of IEEE Spectrum Magazine and of Family Business Magazine. He has a physics degree and has twice served as the Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College of Louisiana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2021 he received the American Geophysical Union's Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism, which celebrates a career of outstanding reporting on the Earth and space sciences. He has appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CNN, the History Channel, NPR News and many news radio stations. Follow Fischetti on X (formerly Twitter) @markfischetti

More by Mark Fischetti