Draining New Orleans: The 300-Year Quest to Dewater the Crescent City

by Richard Campanella

In Draining New Orleans, the first full-length book devoted to “the world’s toughest drainage problem,” renowned geographer Richard Campanella recounts the epic challenges and ingenious efforts to dewater the Crescent City. With forays into geography, public health, engineering, architecture, politics, sociology, race relations, and disaster response, he chronicles the herculean attempts to “reclaim” the city’s swamps and marshes and install subsurface drainage for massive urban expansion.

The study begins with a vivid description of a festive event on Mardi Gras weekend 1915, which attracted an entourage of elite New Orleanians to the edge of Bayou Barataria to witness the christening of giant water pumps. President Woodrow Wilson, connected via phoneline from the White House, planned to activate the station with the push of a button, effectively draining the West Bank of New Orleans. What transpired in the years and decades that followed can only be understood by examining the large swath of history dating back two centuries earlier—to the geological formation and indigenous occupation of this delta—and extending through the colonial, antebellum, postbellum, and Progressive eras to modern times.

The consequences of dewatering New Orleans proved both triumphant and tragic. The city’s engineering prowess transformed it into a world leader in drainage technology, yet the municipality also fell victim to its own success. Rather than a story about mud and machinery, this is a history of people, power, and the making of place. Campanella emphasizes the role of determined and sometimes unsavory individuals who spearheaded projects to separate water from dirt, creating lucrative opportunities in the process not only for the community but also for themselves.

Genres: History, Geography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, United States

584 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 3, 2023

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Campanella has written a unique and insightful geographic history New Orleans. Perhaps the defining characteristic of the city’s social, political, economic, racial, and geographic organization has been determined by one overriding dilemma: managing the water. Is there anywhere else in the world where runoff must be pumped up into drainage canals – that are higher in elevation than the surrounding neighborhoods – to be ejected into lakes and rivers that are also higher in elevation than the surrounding city? It’s almost madness to consider, yet this is how the people of New Orleans shaped (and were shaped by) their geography for 300+ years.

How did we possibly get here?

Campanella takes us on that journey through the history of the city as various “drainage kings” attempted to wrestle with the natural landscape – often working against it more than with it, leading to the infamous subsidence that defines the city to this day – in order to settle marshland that, quite frankly, should never have been settled. I learned surprising facts about the city and its landscape in every chapter. I even gained a more nuanced perspective on the oft-maligned NOLA Sewerage & Water Board. By the time I reached the section on Katrina, I had a greater understanding of events on a sweeping historical level and how certain fateful decisions in the 1890s, 1910s, and 1950s would directly impact my life in 2005.

Being a ninth-generation native of the New Orleans area (Poydras, to be exact), I can attest to the struggle of “keeping out the water,” as my great-grandparents (and grandfather, aged 5) lost their house when the levee was dynamited at Caernarvon in 1927; my grandfather (again), mother, and father (living in Plaquemines) all lost their homes in Hurricane Betsy; my mother (again), father (again), and I lost my childhood home in Katrina due to the flooding from the MR-GO; and my high school was destroyed when the Industrial Canal flooded the Ninth Ward, also during Katrina. Four generations having their homes wiped out in floodwater, in some cases multiple times. (My grandfather passed away two years before Katrina, sparing a third home lost for him.) It’s part of the reason why I no longer live in New Orleans: I don’t believe the city can possibly survive much longer. Nature will one day reclaim it.

Pardon that personal aside, but this is the kind of book that helps one ponder the "hows" and "whys" of geography, history, politics, and fateful decisions converging to shape our lives in very direct ways. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand both the history and the geography of New Orleans.

[David Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of books about New Orleans. This may be the most informative book about the city that I’ve ever read.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

True to form for Campanella, this book is exceptionally well-researched. Even though I spent the first 22 years of my life in New Orleans and continue to visit there from time-to-time, I learned a heckuva lot from reading this book. I'm particularly intrigued by the "Dutch Dialogs".

The first part of the book has excruciating detail. And so the first part of the book was tedious to me. It becomes easier to read the farther into the book one gets.

The book raised many questions in my mind. For example, is there a theoretical limit to the amount of subsidence that can happen in New Orleans based on the geologic characteristics of the region? If so, this bears heavily on the future significance of the problem. Likewise, the current efforts on wetlands restoration by Mississippi River diversion are unaddressed in the book, even though they seem pertinent.

[Jordan Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 Stars - This book was very well-researched. The level of detail in the history of New Orleans draining system was dense which made this a difficult read. However, if you want a deep dive into the history of New Orleans, then this is the book for you.

I will say that the section on Hurricane Katrina single-handedly made this book worth reading.

[Andrew Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the most interesting books I’ve read this year. The history of NOLA is so intertwined with water, and a history of drainage is in one sense the history of the city.

I never thought a book would make me sympathetic towards SWBNO, but this book helped me understand the scope of their task and how it got to be so complicated.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biggest takeaway: New Orleans is a man-made city from a swamp over a long period of time - perhaps too long that the residents today don't know it anymore. Precisely because of this, there’s a limit towards the water the city can handle based on the artificial drainage, which means that the city - especially the low-lying areas - are prone to flooding and more natural disasters to come.

[Missy · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 Stars (Excellent)
Setting: New Orleans, Louisiana

[Edward ott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of new orleans is the history of draining new orleans. Excellent book. A must read for everyone in NOLA.

[Kimberly Alowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating history of NOLA

[Steve Sylvest · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with all of Richard Campanella's works, he connects many separate yet related facets to carefully explain the history of how things came to be as they are today. As he typically does, it includes a fascinating collection of maps and figures.