Alabama Gulf Coast not prepared for storms, other environmental threats

Water from the Hurricane Katrina storm surge surrounds the GM&O building in downtown Mobile in 2005. (file photo)

SPANISH FORT, Alabama -- The Alabama Gulf Coast reacts well after hurricanes and other disasters, but does not do as good a job preparing for emergencies, participants in a regional environmental forum said.

As coastal development increases, hurricanes become more severe and sea levels rise, the area must be more prepared in order to avoid billions of dollars in increased damage, officials and environmental agency representatives said at the event Wednesday.

The latest conference in the "America’s Energy Coast Leadership" series took place Wednesday at the Five Rivers Delta Resource Center on the Causeway. The event was the seventh in the series of meetings in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas to discuss environmental protection and preparing for disasters. The series will conclude with a conference in New Orleans May 30, Valsin Marmillion, managing director of America’s Wetland Foundation, said.

Future disasters, whether natural or man-made, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, could have a more severe effect than those in the past, Sidney Coffee, senior advisor to America’s Wetland Foundation, said.

"We could be facing $350 billion in damage by 2030 if we don’t take action and change that," she said. "That actually outpaces the economy of the region."

A study of areas throughout the Gulf Coast found that Mobile and Baldwin counties rated high in disaster response and evacuations, but poorly in public awareness and government planning, Jeff Williams, director of climate strategy for Entergy Corp., the group that conducted the survey, said.

Susan Rees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the spill and storms of the last decade backed up those findings.

"We do a good job of reacting. We do a poor job of planning," she said. "We react to events. We don’t plan for them."

Williams said about $120 billion in investments throughout the entire coast could save money in the next 20 years and further into the future. Projects needed include beach renourishment, stricter building codes, wetland reconstruction, levees around refineries and improvements in offshore drilling procedures, he said.

"It’s much more cost effective to make these investments up front than to spend money picking up the pieces," he said.

Some state governments, such as Alabama and Texas, do not consider the coast a priority, even though the Gulf region in both areas contribute a huge amount to the economy, Marmillion said.

"They think of themselves as states with a coast rather than coastal states," he said.

Rep. Randy Davis, R-Daphne, one of the chairmen of the Wednesday event, said state legislators are working to implement some preparations, such as building code requirements. He said tornadoes in north Alabama last spring and earlier this month have shown the need for preparation statewide.

Williams said global warming will increase the risk on the Gulf Coast.

"It’s not a question of if man’s activity is warming the planet, 97 to 98 percent of scientists absolutely believe that it is," he said. "The question is how much impact is it going to have and when will it happen."

On a local level, rising sea levels could flood the Mobile Bay Causeway and facilities such as the new sewage treatment plants in Mobile and Bayou La Batre, Rees said.

Additional meetings are planned in Orange Beach on March 22 as well as South Padre Island, Texas, on March 8, and St. Mary and Iberia parishes in Louisiana on April 11.