East of New Orleans, uniformed employees mill about the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier on the Intracoastal Waterway, making sure everything is working correctly. Giant flood walls made out of concrete and steel rise out of the swampy waters. In the center, a complex system of ramps and gates allows boats to pass, but can also be closed during a storm. The giant walls are dark grey and rounded, like two huge dams, that can move to make one big barrier and stop surge waters from inundating the city.
The 26 foot tall barrier protects the city from 100-year-flooding. Kenneth Ross works on the surge barrier in the maintenance department at the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, the organization responsible for operating and maintaining the levee system that protects most of New Orleans. He said they test and inspect the barrier every week.
“ We come and inspect to make sure we don't have no rust damage, nothing cracked, nothing broken. The fences that's on the gate, we gotta make sure that the screws are still in it, that nothing popped open or out,” said Ross.
The surge barrier is the largest of its kind in the world and the center piece of New Orleans’ $15 billion levee system built after Hurricane Katrina, and this system is what keeps the city safe from flooding as climate change increases the risk.
“ Katrina taught us a lot. Number one, take nothing for granted. Number two, be prepared. Number three, we're vulnerable. Number four, we are increasingly vulnerable,” said John Barry, a Mississippi River historian and one of the first board members after Katrina. “The responsibility of the board is to protect the territory from inundation.”
Hurricane Katrina was such a devastating disaster because of the catastrophic failure of the city’s levee system. In the storm’s wake, the federal government built an entirely new levee system — and the state created entirely new organizations to oversee it – to make sure another disaster of that scale doesn’t happen again. Now, changes to the board by Gov. Jeff Landry have led to infighting, board members resigning and staff turnover. Critics are warning that politics could be undermining the city’s most important protection against the next storm.
Before and after the levees broke
New Orleans’ levees date back more than 150 years. Before Hurricane Katrina, there was a series of smaller levee boards overseeing their small part of the system. Board members were politically appointed by the governor, and after the disaster, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times found evidence of reckless spending, poor maintenance and oversight.
“They were viewed as, you know, systems that could be run by maybe good hearted but unskilled individuals,” said Mark Davis, director of Tulane’s Center for Environmental Law and an expert on Louisiana’s coast and water management. “And we paid a price for that.”
Though the Army Corps of Engineers’ failures still take most of the blame for the horrors of Katrina – including in a 2006 report from the Corps itself – Louisiana voters supported a constitutional amendment reorganizing and consolidating the levee boards, with the goal of preventing such devastation from happening again. Only two boards remain today: The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authorities’ boards for the East bank and the West bank.
“ It was in many ways a civic revolution that led to the legislation creating those,” said Davis. “It was people demanding greater accountability and greater trust.”
The Army Corps built the massive, complex system of levees. But the flood authorities are the ones who maintain them – and actually operate the pump stations, valves and gates.
“ It does require that you have talented staff. It does require that you don't assume that just because somebody built it, that it will continue to operate,” said Davis.
Companion legislation also created professional requirements for the people who serve on the boards. Before the reform, members of the legislature nominated candidates whom the governor then appointed. Now, a nominating committee of flooding, coastal and engineering experts meets to select candidates and sends the names over to the governor, who then chooses the appointees and submits them to the Senate for final approval.
“ We’ll have one board that is reformed with people with expertise who have one focus: levee board safety only,” said Ruthie Frierson, the founder of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, a group that pushed for the levee board reform after Katrina.
Twenty years after Katrina, former board members, experts and community groups worry that the board is returning to an era of politics and favoritism, instead of focusing on preventing another disaster.
“We've become complacent after Katrina. This type of turnover would've been just completely inconsistent with our mission. Now it's just commonplace,” said Tim Doody, who was one of the first board members post-Katrina and served as president for 7 years. “So the government was supposed to have removed politics from board service, and it seems to me like that's exactly where it is right now. This is all about politics and nothing about flood protection.”
Board turnover
Last year, the Republican majority in the state legislature passed a law that allowed Gov. Jeff Landry to appoint the board president of the authority for the east bank, which is tasked with protecting most of the city. He quickly appointed Roy Carubba, a civil engineer who was recommended by Shane Guidry, a friend and advisor to the governor who has no official role with the government or the flood authority.
The Governor’s Office did not respond to requests for comment. Carruba declined an interview.
Carubba has said he reported to Guidry. He was appointed to the board and as president within a few weeks, so when he spoke at his first monthly meeting, he was introducing himself not only as a new member, but as the new president as well.
“Somebody very new to the organization, who hasn't even started going to meetings yet or learned anything, he's now the chair of the board,” said Blair duQuesnay, the current chair of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans.
Carubba’s tenure was controversial and full of upheaval, as he implemented changes which included more resources and an expanded role for the authority’s police force.
Former board member Barry worries the board’s current focus on the police force will overshadow maintenance projects.
“I could easily imagine a circumstance in the future where someone is just thinking about, should I spend more money on this maintenance issue for the levee system, or should I buy new police cars?” he said.
By April, four board members resigned under Carubba’s leadership. Three of the four — Roy Arrigo, Thomas Fierke and William Settoon — addressed their letter of resignation not to Carubba but to Guidry.
“We have observed the morale, readiness and focus on flood protection have been diminished during his tenure,” they wrote in the letter.
Derek Rabb, the fourth board member to resign, could not be reached for comment. Fierke and Settoon did not further explain their reasons for resigning. But Arrigo said he left because he felt the new president was making it difficult to make decisions to support flood protection.
“I could no longer come to the meetings informed on the issues because when I would ask questions of the department heads, they would say, ‘Well, you know, Roy, we've got an order that any inquiries, we can't answer it, and any inquiries, we gotta go to the board president,’” he said.
After this wave of resignations, the board was left with only five of nine members.
Carubba was unable to attend the next board meeting in May, so the board didn’t have a quorum to approve the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan before hurricane season started on June 1st. The plan, which outlines how the authority will operate during a storm, typically doesn’t change much, but duQuesnay, said it’s still important to have it approved every year, especially since the authority has also seen a lot of turnover over the past few months among staff.
“Each year when you put that emergency preparedness plan, you put which individual is gonna be required to do each step of the process, and there's all new names,” said duQuesnay.
The plan was approved later in June, but tensions boiled over between Carubba and remaining board members toward the end of the meeting, nearly getting physical. Carubba defended his actions and appointment.
“The governor put me here for three reasons: to make sure nobody floods, to make sure our police department was restored to its full capacity, and to make sure no one at this agency was doing what he called self-dealing,” Carubba said at the meeting.
Carruba made allegations of favoritism against board members and gave anecdotes about discrimination among the authority’s staff. He referred to a report from 2022 by the legislative auditor that found that around 30% of staff who responded said they experienced or witnessed discrimination in the past year. The authority said it has addressed and implemented the recommendations outlined in the report.
Board members and critics have pushed back on Carubba’s claims with duQuesnay describing them as exaggerated.
“Even if those accusations that he made at that meeting are true, they don't add up to massive catastrophe, in my opinion,” she said.
Carubba also alluded to a forthcoming report from the Attorney General’s office.
“Those are serious charges, and if he’s got evidence he should put it on the table, but that hasn’t happened,” said Tulane’s Davis. “Essentially, he's proposing a solution to a problem that hasn't been proven to exist.”
That same week, the nominating committee met to select candidates to fill the four open board positions, and two more board positions opened at the beginning of July. Clay Cosse, who reached his term limit, stepped down, along with Richard Duplantier, who said he didn’t expect to have to step down after this term. The governor did not submit Duplantier’s name to the Senate for reappointment.
Landry refilled some of the board positions with people who have little experience in flood protection. Just in time for the next meeting, he appointed three out of the six nominees recommended by the nominating committee. The governor’s selections have raised questions about his criteria for appointing board members. He chose Peter Vicari, a businessman and friend of Carubba’s who owns a vintage car auction, over Gianna Cothren, the chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of New Orleans.
Gov. Landry later appointed two more board members. Kerwyn King, an engineer in New Orleans, was appointed without being recommended by the nominating committee. King attended one board meeting in August then resigned after state lawmakers questioned whether the governor skirted the law by appointing him.
Now, Carubba has been demoted. In July, Landry replaced him with Vicari, who had attended one meeting before becoming board president.
All this turnover makes former board president Doody nervous. The board often has to approve maintenance and repair projects, and Doody worries they aren’t actively pursuing ways to improve the system with new technology.
“ I mean, 100-year-level of protection we all agreed was not what we all desired,” he said. “So let's try to get it to a higher level of protection.”
Staff turnover
There are more than 200 staff employed by the Southeast Flood Protection Authority East who operate and maintain the levee system. According to documents obtained by WWNO, there have been more than 25 staff departures at the authority since Carubba started as board president. That includes the critical action team, four out of the five people who are essential during a storm situation: the regional director, the chief engineer, the director of engineering and the regional maintenance director.
Perhaps the most important position to refill is the regional director. Kelli Chandler stepped down in January after conflict with Carubba and Guidry over levee police. Chandler declined to provide a comment for this story.
“I've seen what, in my opinion, are some really bad mistakes, we were being led into hurricane season not having a [regional] director. The [regional] director position is extremely, extremely key and important,” said Arrigo.
The regional director’s role during a storm is to lead the agency and make final calls, and the agency’s most important task is to close and reopen the hundreds of gates in the system. That has to be coordinated with other agencies, companies and parishes that rely on the gates, and the timing is important, according to Ryan Foster, the new director of engineering.
“We try to have everything closed up before tropical storm force winds get here. That way our personnel are back here and safe shelter when the storm comes,” he said.
The regional director also leads tabletop exercises to plan for events and help revise the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
“Just like an umpire in a baseball game, if they do a good job, no one notices them. If they do a horrible job, everybody notices them,” said Doody, former board president.
At first, the board appointed Chris Humphreys, the former director of engineering, as the interim regional director, but he took an early retirement at the beginning of June, leaving the authority once again without a regional director during hurricane season. In July, Carubba announced to the board that he had hired Jeff Williams, an engineer from outside the organization with experience working at the Army Corps, to be chief engineer, so that he could be appointed as interim director.
“ I'm just a little tenuous about it because the idea behind having the in-house requirement of an interim director is the fact that they have experience with the team,” board member Deborah Settoon said at the meeting in July. “As you know, we have a lot of new people in and out of this organization, so I would be cautious about bringing somebody new in and directly appointing them as interim regional director.”
Because Williams is new, Foster has taken on the role the regional director would normally have during a storm.
”The general message for me is that regardless of the board turnover and people in leadership positions. The confidence that the citizens of New Orleans and your listeners should take from all of this is the continuity,” Williams told WWNO. “And the confidence should come from the continuity of the career professionals that remain. At the end of the day, those are the people who are actually doing the work.”
Williams also wrote in a statement to WWNO, the “board has budgeted to fill any vacancies quickly.” Still, the hiring process for a permanent regional director has dragged on over the past few months, causing conflict between Carubba and other board members.
“We are not as well prepared due to the fact that we have not had your cooperation in hiring a regional director,” board member Deborah Settoon told Carubba during the June board meeting.
Blair duQuesnay of Concerned Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans is mostly concerned about the loss of expertise. All this turnover comes as budget cuts under the Trump administration have created uncertainty over how often the Army Corps of Engineers can do its inspections of the levee system, making the authority’s staff and their inspections all the more important.
While the board’s turmoil affects flood protection indirectly, critics are concerned the loss of experienced staff and deprofessionalization could weaken New Orleans’ levee system—especially as storms get more intense and devastating due to climate change.
“You’re losing decades long experience in key positions, multiple positions. It’s gonna have an impact for a long time… And that's why it's so hard. We want to get people engaged because we see a coming disaster from this, but it's not today, right? And that's hard to get people thinking about,” said duQuesnay.
