It is summertime, and the Gulf Coast region is going through its annual ritual of watching for storms roaring down hurricane alley, battening down the hatches and, in the case of Hurricane Gustav, fleeing from the area. The difference between this exercise and the chaos surrounding Hurricane Katrina, which hit landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, is that storm protection, though incomplete, has been built up and people took warnings seriously.

Storms in the region are not new, nor are the warnings. In 1929, ENR published an article by New Orleans consulting engineer A.M. Shaw that warned of the consequences of major storms, especially as storms of that era wreaked major havoc. These included hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 at Lake Okeechobee, Fla., and of 1909 in Galveston, Texas. Two storms of 1915, on Aug. 17 and Sept. 29, were unrecorded as calamities because they struck mostly rural areas. “Indeed, had a vagary of cyclonic fury swung the path of the last-mentioned storm a shade to the east, there might have been recorded at New Orleans another tragedy of nature,” said Shaw. “And tomorrow, or not for years, a tornadic wind may sweep up from the Caribbean and drive an inundating storm tide ahead of it.”

In an editorial in the same issue, ENR noted: “The facts disclose that New Orleans is wide open to inundation should storm come from another or eastern direction. Canals like sword thrusts extend to the very heart of the city, and they are not adequately kept up. The upper protection levee is even now squabbled about with the adjoining parish over right of way.” The editorial concluded: “Truly, New Orleans needs to look at its backyard defenses quite as much as at those more spectacular ones on the riverfront.”

Lessons are learned but often forgotten over time. Katrina memories are still fresh, especially of the 1,836 people who died and the estimated $81.2 billion of damage. While those memories are sharp, coupled with a refresher from Gustav, the Corps of Engineers, Congress and the people of the region should make sure the floodwater-protection systems are finished and effective.