Katrina Lessons Help Water Company Weather Louisiana Flood

Water managers kept tap water flowing at many Louisiana homes despite disastrous flooding thanks to lessons from Hurricane Katrina over a decade ago and other storms in the area.

“After the large power outages in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Baton Rouge Water Company invested in generators, its own fuel tanker and made agreements with fuel facilities along the river to keep the pumps going,” The Advocate, Louisiana's largest daily newspaper, reported.

For Baton Rouge Water Company, the summer flooding provided a need to use generators, enabling the utility to keep groundwater flowing while managers addressed flooding at various locations. The response is a sign the company has an effective crisis management response in place since the flooding came on in a matter of hours, the report said.

The worst U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Sandy four years ago, the Louisiana flooding took 13 lives and damaged more than 100,000 homes, ABC News reported, citing Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.

The flooding has had an impact on drinking water management.

“Out of the 110 water wells the company has in East Baton Rouge Parish, the company is down about 10 wells, as some area got flooding or where equipment was damaged. No service was impacted by those few down wells,” The Advocate reported, citing the utility.

Hays Owen, senior vice president and chief administrative officer at the private Baton Rouge Water Company, explained how his company learned to handle storm events.

“During (Hurricane) Gustav, we were without power through most of the parish for 10 to 14 days and we didn’t miss a lick,” he said, per The Advocate.

Baton Rouge residents say Hurricane Katrina provided some background knowledge as they confront this latest disaster.

“The big thoughts and small details constitute a grimly earned expertise here and particularly in New Orleans, which sits just 75 miles down the road. It is a know-how that will now be drawn on considerably, with wide-scale devastation across 20 parishes ... and the long and often exasperating road to recovery just now beginning,” The New York Times reported.

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