Feature
Story
Lessons Learned
From Katrina:
New Orleans’ system
one year later
John E. Carlson, Director, District Energy Operations, Entergy Thermal LLC
Editor’s Note: Exactly one year ago, in the
first quarter 2006 issue of District Energy,
John Carlson shared Entergy Thermal’s
experience immediately following Hurricane
Katrina. Titled “Surviving Katrina: New
Orleans’ system rides out storm, gets back
to business,” the article was a candid
account of his company’s first-hand experience with the disaster. The following is
an update on how the New Orleans’ district energy provider is faring one year
later. IDEA’s 20th Annual Campus Energy
Conference in Houston Feb. 27-March 2,
2007, will feature a special pre-conference
workshop on emergency preparedness
and response, addressing many of the
issues presented here.
It has been more than a year since
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005. I
wish I could say that things are back to
normal, but that is far from the truth.
People now refer to the ‘new normal’ to
reflect the changes that have occurred
and the way things will be for the foreseeable future.
Much of the city does not look much
different now than it looked immediately
after the floodwaters went down. Debris
has been removed, and houses have been
‘gutted’ with the removal of everything
down to the wall studs. These houses
now stand vacant, waiting for demolition
or reconstruction. The sheer magnitude
in terms of the number of square miles
of devastated houses and other buildings
is overwhelming to people.
Approximately 190,000 of the 450,000
residents have returned. A major factor
slowing their return is the lack of housing
– and no real direction on how to rebuild.
Issues facing returning property owners
include waiting for decisions by government on the proper floor elevations for
homes to qualify for flood insurance;
availability of homeowners’ insurance to
cover the repaired or replaced property;
and the lack of contractors and building
materials to rebuild. Even if you want to
rebuild, these factors may prevent you
from doing so.
Entergy Thermal is proud that we
were able to continue operating until customers were no long able to take chilled-water service. We’re also proud that we
were ready to provide chilled-water service
as they have put their facilities back in
operation. Only one customer education
building is still closed, and one other
hospital may not reopen. However, the
situation has also provided opportunities
to add new customers – such as the
Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Employee Situation
We were fortunate that all our
employees returned to work after the
storm. Many companies and organizations have seen 50 percent or more of
their workforce fail to return. Some workers have not returned because they have
no place to live, some just because they
don’t want to come back. Budget cuts at
the hospitals have also resulted in lower
workforce levels.
That is not to say that our employees did not have problems just like most
A number of our employees
lost everything they owned
and had to find new homes or
apartments and then start over
to replace what they had lost.
of the city. A number of our employees
lost everything they owned and had to
find new homes or apartments and then
start over to replace what they had lost.
Other employees had damaged homes
that required repairs. We had to work
with our employees’ schedules to make
this situation less difficult by providing
