“In the last year, we’ve made tremendous progress, completing or executing on more than seventy-five percent of actions outlined in the Resilient New Orleans strategy.”
With these words, the Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, welcomed its partners Veolia, Swiss Re and the Rockefeller Foundation (100 Resilient Cities network) in September.
To mark the first anniversary of Resilient New Orleans, the city’s global resilience strategy, a conference entitled The Resilient New Orleans One-year Progress Update allowed Veolia and Swiss Re to present their joint project, which falls within the first worldwide public-private partnership for resilience.
The main aims are to optimize prevention costs and to reduce post-event losses along with the recovery time after a shock. For four months, 30 Veolia and Swiss Re experts, in collaboration with the city’s teams, analyzed 200 drinking water, wastewater and storm sewer facilities with the end purpose of determining their vulnerability and recommending suitable measures in terms of resistance to extreme events.
“We’re on our way toward becoming one of the most resilient cities in the world by 2018, our City’s 300th anniversary,” concluded Mitch Landrieu.
