NOLA flood brings retirings, firings, finger-pointing

Residents of low-lying areas of New Orleans are watching the skies apprehensively following flooding August 5 that revealed the city’s legendary pumping system was either: (1) operating as designed and capable of removing runoff from rainfall rates of one inch for the first hour and one-half inch each hour afterwards, (2) operating with some of the pumps operating at slightly less than full capacity, or (3) operating at a fraction of capacity with some of the pumping stations unmanned.
The choices above come from the unfolding of information that followed the extensive flooding from the August 5 thunderstorms that swamped the low areas at the bottom of the bowl that is New Orleans where up to nine inches of rain fell in a few hours. Though the volume of rainfall was greater than the pumps can handle at capacity, ensuing revelations of incompetence at the Sewer and Water Board that manages the pumping system have led to retirings, firings, finger pointings and gnashing of teeth.
Among those gnashing teeth are parents of school-age children whose schools closed for most of last week from an abundance of caution in the face of daily forecasts of more thunderstorms possible.
The scandal taints the waining administration of Mayor Mitch Landrieu who is term-limited and not seeking re-election. Meanwhile, each in a stable of would-be mayoral replacements is trying to posture to the best political advantage his or her outrage at the state of the city’s pumping system and what must be done to remedy it.
I was sitting here feeling pretty smug about the location of our home about two blocks from the Mississippi River. I’ve got an elevation app that shows our house at 8.94 feet above sea level. Then in the coverage of the brouhaha over the pumping stations debacle, I read in the Times-Picayune that the average level of the Mississippi River at New Orleans is 14 feet above sea level.