Senator Bill Cassidy: The infrastructure bill better prepares us for future hurricanes

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy

Guest Columnist

Editor's note: Following is a guest column submitted to Louisiana's USA Today Network from Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Hurricane Ida, one of the strongest storms to ever hit the U.S., pummeled Louisiana’s coast on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. Ahead of the storm, bumper to bumper traffic jammed Interstate 10 as Louisianans attempted to evacuate. Ida knocked out power across the state, including the entire City of New Orleans. The storm brought intense flooding that took lives and devastated communities.

Hurricane Ida gave us a harsh reminder that we need to strengthen the infrastructure that protects us from the worst of these storms — improving highways and evacuation routes, hardening our electric grid and investing in flood mitigation. As Louisiana works to rebuild and recover, we need supplemental disaster aid. We must also take steps to prevent this level of devastation in the future. The bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which passed the U.S. Senate 69-30, does so much to prepares us for future storms and complements federal aid efforts.

Louisiana will receive $6 billion over the next five years for roads and bridges. There is an additional $8.8 billion available nationwide to transportation infrastructure, including evacuation route and at-risk coastal infrastructure grants. In Louisiana, this money can help extend Interstate 49 south from Lafayette to New Orleans, providing critical alternative evacuation routes for areas like Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. It means six-laning Interstate 12 and a new Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge. It shouldn’t take hours to go through a 10-mile stretch in the capital region when a storm is on the way. These projects would have made a difference in the lead up and aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Investing now can make a difference before the next storm.

There were more than 1 million Louisianans without power due to Hurricane Ida. The entire city of New Orleans went dark. The 150 mph winds knocked Entergy’s main transmission tower into the Mississippi river. These power outages combined with a heat index of above 100 degrees created life threatening conditions. We cannot let this happen again when we have the opportunity now to pass legislation to help Louisiana.

In the bipartisan infrastructure bill, there is $26 billion specifically to strengthen our nation’s electrical grid and prevent these kind of widespread power outages. This funding includes $5 billion directed at enhancing the resilience of electric grids from extreme weather and natural disasters, $12.5 billion increase power transmission to maintain reliable access to energy and $9 billion to develop and deploy new technology to strengthen grid reliability and resiliency.

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Once again flooding created the largest danger. When it comes to storms, Louisiana understands how important flood mitigation and coastal restoration are. We have developed strategies that have become a model for communities around the world. After Hurricane Katrina, we developed a federal levee system that protected New Orleans from the severe flooding seen elsewhere in southeastern Louisiana.

We need to build on that successful effort. The bipartisan infrastructure bill does just that. Of the $17 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in this bill, $2.55 billion is specifically for Coastal Storm Risk Management and Hurricane and Storm Damage Reduction projects targeting states such as Louisiana that have been impacted by federally declared disasters over the last six years. There is another $5.5 billion in disaster mitigation, coastal restoration and flood mitigation assistance.

Ecosystem Restoration projects like Southwest Coastal Louisiana and flood mitigation projects like Morganza to the Gulf, can help us prepare for future storms. The funding in the bipartisan infrastructure bill Louisiana stands to receive can make it happen.

If anything highlights the importance of evacuation routes, hardening the grid, improving sewer and water, flood mitigation, coastal restoration — of infrastructure — it’s a storm like Hurricane Ida. Let’s ensure access to safe evacuation routes by investing in our roads and bridges. Let’s use natures forces to divert storms through coastal resiliency and restoration. Let’s prevent our homes and businesses from flooding in the first place with mitigation. Let’s protect our electric grid from extreme weather.

This doesn’t happen in lieu of supplemental disaster aid, but in addition to it. We can do this with the bipartisan infrastructure bill.