Post-Katrina Rebuilders Hug Ground, Trust Levees

Leonard McKeel, left, and Edward Dorsey repair the roof of a house in New Orleans's Ninth Ward. Many residents are rebuilding their homes where they sat before Hurricane Katrina. (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)

Before World War II, planners and historians said, home builders in New Orleans took extra precautions against potential inundations from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

Some of the oldest portions of the city, such as the French Quarter and the Garden District, are built on higher ground, and many older New Orleans houses are built high enough that the front door is as many as 10 steps above the sidewalk. Many of these fared best during the Katrina floods last summer.

"Prior to the '50s and '60s, most of the housing in New Orleans was built raised above the ground," Tulane's Kroloff said. "The regular flooding of New Orleans didn't threaten them."

Newer sections of the city experienced some of the worst flooding, including New Orleans East and Lakeview, where the ground is lower and houses were built on concrete slabs at ground level, Kroloff said.

In recent decades, the required building elevations for new and rebuilt houses have been set by FEMA, which issues maps for cities participating in the federal flood insurance program. The elevation requirements are supposed to reflect the height a house must be to stay dry in a flood likely to happen once in 100 years.

Under the FEMA rules, new houses -- and those that have suffered more than 50 percent damage -- must conform to the maps' requirements. Those rules are expected to become even stricter after federal flood regulators recalculate the safe elevations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

To avoid having to meet whatever the new requirements might be, hundreds of homeowners have descended on City Hall to appeal city damage estimates that showed their houses were more than 50 percent damaged.

A few days ago, Nadine Martin, 47, wore a broad smile after city officials agreed to lower the damage assessment for her house in New Orleans East, which was flooded with six feet of water.

The decision meant that she could rebuild the house without elevating it.

"I can't afford to raise it -- I'm unemployed because of the storm," she said. She had been working for the city schools as a buyer before the widespread post-Katrina layoffs.

Isn't she worried about the flood risks?

"Life is a gamble -- I could walk outside and get shot," she said, still beaming with the news that she could soon start rebuilding. "What else can I do?"

John Potts, 52, who owns a woodworking shop, was outside the Lakeview house he intends to rebuild -- but not elevate. The area is one of the lowest in the city, and after Katrina, the water reached seven feet above the floor. But like many others here, he hopes that the new levee system will hold in the next hurricane.

"If it floods again," he said, "I'm out of here."