Angelle Bergeron/ENR A presentation of a film about New Orleans area hurricane protections past, present and future produced by the U.S. Corps of Engineers was set to loop all day.

At the epicenter of the worst hurricane disaster the U.S. has ever suffered, it’s still a struggle for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to attract public interest in risk and how every citizen has a responsibility to help with mitigation.

In mid-June, in what could have been a model for similar outreach efforts all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the New Orleans District of the Corps hosted its first emergency preparedness day at a city park with a mix of information resources and fun attractions.

One goal was to apprise the public of the status of the local hurricane protection system and its planned improvements. Another goal was to raise awareness about the risk that remains, despite billions of dollars of improvements made to levees and other flood protection structures in the New Orleans area since Hurricane Katrina.

Also joining the Corps and participating were the U.S. Coast Guard, Louisiana Army National Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), Society of American Military Engineers, Small Business Administration, Louisiana State Police and area offices of emergency preparedness.

But the planned, all-day event started at 10 a.m. and was over by noon, as lightning and rain shut it down. Attendance was very light in the two hours before the storm, but Corps spokeswoman Amanda Jones was sanguine about that, and about the Corps’ unabated determination to continue its hurricane risk awareness outreach efforts at every chance. “We expected that slow start, since it was a Saturday morning,” she says. “And I don’t think there is anything more we could have done to publicize this event. We are not rescheduling, but we hope to find other venues we can join in on with a booth or something like that.”

Angelle Bergeron/ENR The grills were hot and the face paints mixed, but the show folded before the crowds arrived.

 “The commander, he is all for getting out there as much as possible,” adds Jones.  “That’s one of the things he said—‘find out whatever is drawing the people and go there.’”

Col. Alvin Lee, the district commander, stresses the need for risk awareness, as well as acceptance that sometimes people must evacuate. “Even when we get finished with the 100-year system, there will be residual risk. We don’t want people to get the feeling they are fully protected, because they are not.”

Ralph Simcox, FEMA’s resource manager for external affairs, says understanding the details of emergency preparation helps people avoid economic disaster. “By June first you should have a little ready-kit of insurance papers and other important documents,” he says.

Both the Louisiana State Police and the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness distributed updated evacuation guides. The guides have detailed information about evacuation routes, including schemes for reversing traffic direction on Interstate highways, called “contraflow” plans, as well as emergency phone numbers websites. The guides also have information on shelters

Efforts had been made to invite fun and public participation. There was face painting for kids and an opportunity to help “build a levee” in a huge sandbox. Visitors could explore the interior of a mobile emergency operations center called a “deployable task operations systems (DETOS) vehicle,” which features satellite communications, computer networks, telephone and fax.  All participating organizations had handouts in multiple languages, including Spanish and Vietnamese, and the information was tailored to specific populations, including the elderly, small children, pet owners and people with disabilities.

Booths also featured samples of flood protection elements and construction materials, coastal restoration literature and a display about the Mississippi River flood management system’s Bonnet Carré Spillway, which was opened in April to relieve pressure on the city’s river levees for the first time in 11 years.

There was a movie, too. The Corps set up an air-conditioned tent to show a film about the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS). Produced by the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss., it features a fly-over of the HSDRRS and conceptual flood levels pre-Katrina, then at current levels of improvement, and finally a vision of how it will look when 100-year protections under construction or in planning are all in place. “It also has some good risk communication messages, saying what the public needs to do,” says William Peoples, team leader of public risk communications for the Corps.

The film is one of several risk communication efforts that will be taken on the road by the Corps in an effort to educate the public. The latest flood depth analysis maps, which depict probable flood depths with particular protective measures in place, will also be part of the road show.

“One of the lessons learned from Katrina is that we didn’t do a good job educating people about risk before Katrina,” Peoples says.

Col. Lee notes that barriers to effective risk communication include a lack of appropriate tools and human nature. The old descriptive system for categorizing hurricane intensity based on wind strength alone, for example—the Saffir-Simpson scale—gives an example of both, he says. “We know the Saffir-Simpson scale is not fully descriptive of hurricanes, but culturally, people have grown used to it. Also, people make assumptions that if they survived one hurricane they can survive another.” 

Corps spokeswoman Jones says that while the district has no plans to reschedule the event this season, “we did hear from the public affairs people at Governors office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. They are considering doing something similar.”