June 8, 2024
By: Chris Pisz
What a great way to start the day, and by that I mean it is really hot! It reached 101 degrees.
We met up for our daily breakfast at 0800 before our morning lecture from Dr. Cheek that focused mainly on “Bonnet Carre Spillway”. He gave a brief history of how it was built, the meaning of it, its functions, and the time frame of it being built.
At around 0900, we ended up traveling out of town to the Bonnet Carre Spillway. Fun fact about the spillway: the main reason for it was built was due to a flooding in 1927. This flooding caused more than $400 million in losses and 250-500 deaths. We also learned that this Spillway helps control any sort of flooding that may be building up and ready to happen by the Mississippi River which protects the city of New Orleans from river flooding.
At about 1130, we arrived back at Tulane University for lunch. Not much to speak off but we did have a major conversation about jams. Then we got another lecture from the man, the myth, the legend…Dr. Cheek about the confederate monuments that were taken down in New Orleans a few years ago. He connected this to topics such as government involvement, diversity, and historical moments in NOLA and Louisiana as a whole.
At about 1300, we took to the road and visited three sites in New Orleans that once had confederate statues. After they were all removed years later, they all still had some sort of an indication to show where those statues once were. At each stop, once again Dr.Cheek gave us more lectures on the history of the statues and the conflicts they stirred up over time. We then analyzed the area around the former monuments from an emergency management perspective. In other words, if we were emergency managers when these protests were happening what kinds of issues would we concerned about?
To end our day, we gathered for a quick and delicious dinner at The Superior Grill on St. Charles. Oh, and in case I don’t see ya, “Good afternoon, good evening and goodnight”
