Pumps sucking up toxic soup
2005-09-07 19:32
New Orleans - Huge pumps are sucking up the toxic soup that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but it will take weeks to empty streets that will probably have to be razed because of the health risk.
Two pumps set up on the levee near 17th Street are spewing out the putrid green liquid into a foamy deposit in Lake Pontchartrain.
Overhead, helicopters are still dropping concrete blocks, huge sandbags and sections of highway torn up by the hurricane into the breach caused by Katrina, that inundated the city leaving thousands feared dead.
As the water recedes, the scum from the filthy mix has been left on the nearby houses that will probably have to be torn down because of the health hazard.
"It will be weeks to get all of the water out," said Kenneth Crumholt of the army's corps of engineers.
'Long road ahead'
"What you see is just temporary, it's a small part of a bigger scenario," he told AFP.
"It will take time to figure out (long term plans), we have a long road ahead of us."
The concrete levees that have protected New Orleans for decades will not be permanently rebuilt straight away.
Major political decisions have to be taken over the future of the complex system of water protection, originally conceived in the 18th century to defend the city that is mainly below sea level.
The first levees were built in the 1720s to keep out the Mississippi river.
Progressive development of levees and pumping systems dried surrounding wetlands and marshes, opening the way for mass construction on low lying areas that made the city increasingly vulnerable.
In the Metairie district, where the breaches were repaired on Tuesday, the rupture was along a canal that has high walls on each side keeping out Lake Pontchartrain.
The wall cracked under the pressure of the floods and the zone was flooded.
Only the roofs of houses, church spires and the tops of lemon trees can be seen.
'Sitting ducks'
Crumholt said the system was designed to withstand a Category Three storm. Katrina was Category Four, one of the most powerful.
Along the canal, onlookers watched the diggers and cranes.
With the walls only 30cm thick and the concrete blocks only held together by rubber joints, some inhabitants expressed their relief at their narrow escape.
"We were sitting ducks, everybody knew it was a matter of time," said Monte Bains, who has lived next to the canal for the past 10 years with his wife Patty.
"It was common knowledge here that if the Big One ever happened we were going to be flooded, even if a lot of people were not ready to accept that reality," he added.
The Bains have sought refuge with relatives in San Antonio, Texas and came back to see if they could retrieve anything from their home.
Bains called the government's storm preparation plans "tragic".