Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.

The clock is ticking for Congress to extend the National Flood Insurance Program.

We'll show you what's at stake.

And 20 years later, after Katrina, we'll take a look at what's been done to protect Louisiana and what more is needed.

Plus, football season is here.

Victor Hall will have a preview of Louisiana's teams and a look at LP B's new sports show.

And meet Louisiana's own captain, Koby Bailey.

Fresh off his big win on PBS's Great American Recipe.

Let's get started.

All right.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen LeBlanc, and I'm Dorothea Wilson.

Much more on those top stories in a moment.

On this week's edition of Louisiana, the State we're In.

But first, Louisiana homeowners are facing skyrocketing flood insurance premiums as Congress prepares to decide the future of the National Flood Insurance Program.

Now, at the same time, new technology developed at LSU could transform the way we predict and price flood risk.

Here's more.

The flooded House Museum in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans serves as a grim and graphic reminder of the thousands of homes swept away by floodwaters from the catastrophic levee breaks in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

We really wanted this home to be reflective of the sorts of residents that were here, of the of the life of the residents in this neighborhood.

And this is what many of the homes really looked like in the aftermath of Katrina.

Yes.

This is very, very, very typical.

The artist it created that his own home actually had bloodline just like this.

Sandy Rosenthal is the founder of levees.org, a nonprofit organization calling for better flood defenses following Katrina.

The flooded House Museum is at the bridge site of the London Avenue Canal floodwall.

The canal runs along Gentilly western side.

The original bridge was right in front of you.

We're standing right in front of the original breech site.

And when the first one went, a couple more of these monoliths went with it.

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina storm surge entered New Orleans.

Three largest drainage canals 17th Street, London Avenue, and the Orleans Avenue Canals.

The 17th Street and London Avenue Canal was breached in several spots.

So the Army Corps of Engineers was looking for ways to save money.

Nothing wrong with that.

But they made a mistake and they determined that they only needed to drive steel sheet piling into the ground 16ft instead of about 50.

And when Hurricane Katrina's storm surge arrived, which wasn't that high, these walls broke.

When they were four feet from the tops of the walls.

In fact, these walls broke on both sides about a block down the open air levee exhibition and garden located next to the flooded House Museum, invites the public to reflect on the historic flood that affected more than 1 million people.

From here, you can see the new and improved canal flood wall, which held up against Hurricane Ida in 2021.

A category four storm.

Hurricane Katrina's storm surge pushed Lake Bourne over the banks of the Mississippi River Gulf outlet known as Mr. Go, causing levee breaches in 19 locations and drowning Saint Bernard Parish, which sits downriver from New Orleans.

We are at the confluence of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at a spot known as the Surge Barrier, which is kind of at the tip of what was the funnel and Hurricane Katrina.

And this was built after Hurricane Katrina to help protect the city as part of the city's levee protection.

The 76 mile Mr. Go opened in 1965 as a navigation shortcut from the Mississippi River to the Gulf.

The resulting saltwater intrusion eroded wetlands and coastal habitat.

In fact, what we know now is that it degraded over a million acres of coastal habitat that surrounds New Orleans, protective habitat that create a storm surge buffer when it was healthy.

What happened because of that, Mr. Go, is that we lost a lot of that protection.

And unfortunately, in Hurricane Katrina, we saw some of the most catastrophic flooding and storm surge inundation happen along the Mr.. Go.

And these degraded wetlands, and the channel itself had eroded so much that waves were able to regenerate in the channel and just decimated, that earthen levee system, that was there.

So you see these communities like the Lower Ninth Ward and Saint Bernard Parish that got really catastrophic damage.

From Hurricane Katrina in 2009.

The Army Corps of Engineers closed Mr. Go and Coastal Habitat began regenerating.

Advocates are calling on the corps to assist with wetlands restoration in the aftermath.

The Corps built a two mile, $1.2 billion surge barrier as the first line of defense.

People call it the Great Wall of Louisiana.

It was one of these keystone features of the historic system that was, redone after Hurricane Katrina, to better protect the communities and the city and the storm surge barriers actually meant for overtopping is it's a really interesting structure.

But it will help reduce the wave action coming into the city.

Since 2005, we restored, the entire Barataria Basin shoreline all the way from Bayou Lafourche and Port Fourchon over to Grand Isle, West Grand Terra, all the way into Plaquemines Parish.

That entire reach of barrier islands, what we call the Barataria, reach.

Every one of those islands has seen beach, dune and marsh restoration since 2005.

20 years later, Louisiana's coast continues to recover from Katrina and a succession of storm sets battered coastal communities and wetlands.

The challenge is finding a consistent and stable source of funding and consensus on how to shore up Louisiana's first line of defense.

From hashtags to headlines, here's what's trending this week.

Louisiana country music superstar John Foster is back in the spotlight.

Yeah, I'm so excited about this.

He took the stage Thursday night at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

Wow.

So foster performed at the Opry Country Classics night alongside several other big names in country music.

He sure did.

Now, another Louisiana performer stepped into the spotlight this week on America's Got Talent.

Yeah, so Jordan Blue took the stage.

Get this despite being sick and he wowed the judges and got a standing ovation from the audience.

He sure did.

And Jordan secured his spot on the show by getting the golden buzzer from Howie Mandel during his auditions.

Well, he's got stamina, so.

Well, if you remember, was raised in Ponchatoula and then became a street performer in New Orleans, where he sang everything from country and pop, and R&B.

Yeah.

And because of that, he has a huge following on social media.

And get this, he's the grandson of one of our former engineers right here at LTV.

That's right.

So that means we know his secrets.

That's the inside story.

Yeah.

All right, well, moving on.

A 12 year old girl from New Orleans is among the first ever group of time magazine's girl of the year.

Yeah.

Naomi Dewberry turned her family's ordeal into a children's book to help other kids.

Her dad needed a kidney transplant.

And to help deal with the challenges the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency recommended the Naomi write about her experiences, which is what she did.

Yeah, how cool is that?

And she wrote my daddy Needs a gift to help other kids not feel so alone or confused if their families are going through similar situations.

So Time's Girls of the year honors ten young leaders who shaped their communities courage and purpose.

Now, this includes ten young artists, athletes and educators from around the world.

Not just the nation, the world.

That's a big, big honor.

Huge.

All right, moving on to some good news.

Two decades after Hurricane Katrina, the scars are still visible.

And so are the lessons in New Orleans Gentilly neighborhood.

A house frozen in time tells the story of the floodwaters that inundated the city.

I revisited the sites of the catastrophic levee failures and $1 billion barrier guarding against the next storm, to see how far Louisiana's defenses have come and why the work is still far from over.

To achieve this on the supercomputer it need, it requires 500 computers working together for more than 15 minutes to achieve a 72 hour forecast.

But for my model, this is only one laptop and within four seconds.

Doctor George Schuette demonstrates a powerful new flood forecast system that predicts storm surge and inland flooding with remarkable speed and precision.

The technology models gulf and inland water movement under storm conditions, delivering a 72 hour forecast in seconds.

So this kind of AI program can be used by all of the, like, disaster managers.

So that will help to save lives.

And also, if we put this in the like future, more or less likely to try to tackle this on a climate scale, which is a longer time scale.

This can also help us to identify in the future which area is more prone to these kind of hazard and which areas are not.

And also in that regard, that kind of help the insurance underwriters to better understand the risk associated with flood in terms of different regions and a different like property, location, neighborhood.

Graduate researchers have spent six years developing this prediction to map system.

The technology models compound flooding by accounting for both ocean surge and inland runoff.

This complex interaction is one of the toughest challenges for forecasters and the system provides a powerful new tool for more accurate flood risk prediction.

This is a sea surface temperature of, the, Gulf of Mexico.

Whenever you see the warm color that is, warm water, and if you see a bluish color, that is a coat of water.

So for this system, we have a 72 hour ocean forecast, not only for sea surface temperature, but for all the important variables.

For example, sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, the movement, the velocity of the water, the surge, the wave, the new change, the carbon oxygen condition.

We have all that integrated into this system.

But again, this is still a supercomputer system.

We use a huge amount of a computational resource to provide these, forecasts.

The debut of the AI powered technology comes at a pivotal moment.

The national flood insurance program, known as in FIP, is up for renewal.

How realistic is it that Congress will let the National Flood Insurance Protection, program expire September 30th?

Is there's a real concern?

I think we can actually get it renewed, but we want to do more than renewable.

We want to actually improve it.

We want to actually make it more affordable, more accountable, more sustainable.

U.S.

Senator Bill Cassidy is pushing to reform FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0 system, which sets premiums.

He argues it unfairly ignores protections provided by levees certified by the Army Corps of Engineers or built by local communities.

For example, the Army Corps of Engineers can or will certify a levee differently than does FEMA.

We're not getting credit for levees that the Army Corps say provides protection.

We're also not getting credit for levees, which have been built by local communities.

And they'll say, well, wait a second.

You can't withstand a 1000 year storm.

Guess what?

That happens roughly one every thousand years.

But what it can protect against is a ten year storm and a 25 year storm.

And that provides significant protection.

So we need FEMA to do a better job and take into account everything that a community has done and has to protect it against flooding.

Cassidy's report, the flood insurance crisis shows Nfip premiums in Louisiana jumped 234%, causing 52,000 households to drop coverage.

80% of policyholders saw increases.

Even those who never flooded.

If you look at people who've never flooded, people have taken measures to mitigate the risk of flooding.

There's suddenly seen tremendous increases in their premiums.

Senator Cassidy is taking the lead on a comprehensive nfip reform package that caps premium hikes, strengthens mitigation and streamlines claims.

In addition, his Flood Insurance Affordability Tax Credit Act would provide a 33% refundable credit for low and middle income households.

Second, in our proposal itself, among the provisions we have is we require an affordability survey.

You can't just increase premiums because we know that if you increase them too high, people drop their coverage.

That actually makes the insurance pool riskier, if you will, and more expensive and more people drop their coverage.

For over 50 years, Nfip has been the backbone of U.S. flood protection.

Often the only option for homeowners, new technologies like prediction to map could shift the program away from outdated flood zone maps, making insurance more accurate and fair.

Next week marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Louisiana, and we're looking back in a one hour special.

We'll look at LP's role in showing the world what was happening on the ground, and speak with Lieutenant General Russel Honoré about his memories.

We'll also sit down with Governor Jeff Landry to talk about how far Louisiana has come in the years since Katrina.

That's next Friday on Louisiana, the state we're in.

Now, here is something that I personally am excited about.

It is that time of year again in Louisiana when the sounds of bands, tailgates, and roaring crowds fill the air.

Football season is underway, and LPB is launching a new show to bring you highlights from every corner of this state.

LPB sports correspondent Victor Howell and former New Orleans Saint Scott Shanley have more.

This is a lot of fun to have this man here that we can talk about our new show, Game Notes.

This is Scott Shanley.

For those who have not met Scott before, started his college career in Nebraska, played with the Cornhuskers into the NFL, and made his way to New Orleans, where you might know him as a Super Bowl champ.

It's great to see you, Scott.

How are you?

It's great.

Great being here.

I'm looking forward to to this fall.

Yeah, it's game notes.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

We've had the opportunity to work together for years covering the Saints, but really excited about this because of the the chance to tell stories in this day.

Look, you've played on the college level.

You've played at the highest level in the NFL.

You've seen the athletes that come from Louisiana and they start in the college ranks.

Absolutely.

You go back to my playing days.

Reggie Wayne, Ed Reed, you can go down a long list of great Louisiana football players and they're still here.

And they just keep pumping them out.

It's a great tradition rich state when it comes to football programs at the high school level, the college level on the NFL level and that's just got to be so much fun telling those stories here on game those as we will focus on the 11 major colleges in the six major conferences here in the state of Louisiana.

Look, there's a lot of storylines.

Let's start with the biggest one because of the biggest game they start the season with, and that's LSU.

And that's because they're going to open up against Clemson one of three top ten matchups.

And we know they've struggled in season openers.

A lot of pressure this year.

On Brian Kelly.

There's a lot of pressure.

I give Ellis a lot of credit.

There's not a lot of programs that go out and play these games.

First of all, they don't go out and play the Clemson in the USC, so I give them credit for doing that.

It is going to be the college game marked on a lot of people's calendars.

They want to know what are where are these programs at in the college football landscape, because both these programs have high playoff hopes.

And of note, they haven't won a season opener in five years.

So you're behind the eight ball if you lose this.

And before you get out of the month of September, you're playing a ranked Florida team at home on a ranked Ole Miss team on the road.

So you can see where it could be.

Tough sledding if you don't take care of business to kick things off.

There's no doubt about it.

It's always important to start fast.

You start fast in these games.

It makes going and watching film a little easier, lifting weights a little easier.

So you want to get out of the gate starting fast, get that confidence up as a team.

So it is like I said, this is a big game and it has playoff expectations throughout college football.

Yeah no doubt.

Let's stay in Baton Rouge and go to the other side north side of town on the bluff.

Because I saw the Jaguars one year ago.

They won the Swac West.

They won the Bayou Classic, which is huge for them.

But then you got to play that Swac championship game afterwards.

They fell short to Jackson State.

Terrance graves now wants to turn things around so they can try to get over that hump.

Yeah.

Winning winning the West.

Getting to that conference championship game is always a good feeling.

That's a lot of teams goals, but you want to finish it.

So they had opportunity to finish it this year and there's something about those powder blue accents in the uniforms.

There's something about you know it's football time and it's fall time when you see that powder blue.

Yeah.

Southern Jaguars defense is going to be outstanding.

They got to replace some people on offense and we'll fall on them all season long.

Hey let's go a couple of hours west down I-10 and stop in Lake Charles.

Because he swore the athletic director at McNeese state he brought in will wait for basketball.

Two years ago, we saw what will get two straight NCAA tournament appearances.

Won a tournament game this last year.

Then he goes and hires Alexander from southeastern for his women's team.

South and conference champion also going to the NCAA tournament for football.

He won of the football program to return to what he called the standard.

So he went out and hired the coach that set the standard.

Matt Vitter is back for his second stay in McNeese.

What does that do for a program?

When you bring somebody back like Vitter, who's the one that took them to Southland Conference tournaments and playoffs, and now he's back as a head coach?

I think it's important whenever you want to get back to being what you were, what's your identity?

I think that's the big thing a lot of people look for when they bring guys back into the program who had success.

You want your identity back.

And for me, when I think of McNeese football, I think of toughness, just smash mouth football, tough playing, tough defense, and they want to get that identity back.

And I know you played in an NFL under coach.

You talked about culture.

And that's one of that's been one of Coach Theater's big thing about bringing the culture back and getting the players to accept that culture.

Yeah, yeah.

As soon as you can get a player a locker room, really, it's not just a player.

So the entire locker room to buy into a culture.

And for me, culture is the expectation is already set.

A coach doesn't have to tell a locker room what to do.

It doesn't have to tell a player what to do.

That expectation is built into the locker room.

So once you get that culture established, it's much easier to win games.

Tulane Green Wave had an outstanding season last year as we transition down to New Orleans, but they ended a little soft.

They lost to Memphis and then they lost to the championship game to Army.

And then they lost in the bowl game as well.

But John Summerall has things going in Tulane.

It wasn't all that long ago.

They were two and ten like four years ago.

Now they are a team outside of the power conferences.

Scott does being named as one of those teams that will make the playoffs.

That's a lot of expectations.

Things have changed in downtown New Orleans.

Yeah, absolutely.

Winning creates expectations and that's a good position to be in.

Not many returning starters, but there's an expectation around the Tulane program that it's about winning, that you can win and you can go back.

And a lot of people point to that USC game a couple of years ago.

That was kind of a turning point for the national landscape.

Looking at Tulane football like these guys are a player in the grand landscape of college football playoffs.

So many storylines to talk about Frank self or what he's doing in southeastern, going in the year eight.

Northwestern State looking to crack the win column for the first time in two years.

But they have momentum and all the players in place.

And even up in north Louisiana, Sonny Cumbie in Louisiana Tech, a lot of experience coming back for the Bulldogs.

But even the bigger news, they're getting ready to say bye bye to their conference.

They're in conference USA.

But as we heard over the summer, they're now headed to the Sunbelt Conference, which brings them back home for rivalries as well.

A lot of conference realignment in college football at every different level, every commit landscape.

You always want to leave on a high note.

You always want to go with the conference you were playing in and say, you're going to miss us when we're gone.

So conference USA is a big year for for the Bulldogs.

They want to exit on a high note just like a lot of teams would.

We will see what they can do.

As you can see we have lots to talk about here.

That's a shorter version, but you can join us for game notes.

We'll be doing it all season long, Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. for game notes, and then Sunday nights we will wrap things up with post-game notes, 6 p.m. replaying again at 10 p.m. and it's all right here on LPB.

Scott, it's great having you on board and look forward to all season.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

You bet.

We'll see you there.

Kick off with us on Game Notes.

First football now good food at Louisiana.

Chef is now a hometown hero in Lafayette.

Captain Colby Bailey was crowned the winner of PBS is Great American Recipe.

He showcased his passion with recipes rooted in family and Louisiana tradition.

Now here's a look at his story of heart, flavor and hometown pride.

I think we communicate best, in a lot of ways, but always with our food.

So thank you, Captain Kobe in.

And, congratulations.

Thank you.

It was my honor to represent Lafayette, Louisiana.

We're honor him today because he has taken our special sauce, his special sauce.

But we claim it to, And one, the great American recipe really showed the world what's so special about Lafayette and Louisiana and.

And our firemen and our farmers who are really good at food.

At Tuesday's council meeting, Lafayette Mayor Monique Blanco Boulet helped celebrate one of their own fire captain Kobe, who turned his Cajun cooking into a national spotlight moment.

I competed against seven other different cooks from around the nation and really from around the world.

They represented Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Philippines.

So, it was up to me to hold it down for, south Louisiana and, to compete against all those.

And they would they were truly, great cooks.

But, in the end, you know how we eat over here.

So, Cajun food prevailed in the end from small town Louisiana.

Cajun cooking on the national platform.

Captain Kobe, a Lafayette firefighter by day, says he never imagined that a friendly competition with his firehouse brother would spark a cooking career.

You do the cooking video and I'll do mine, and we'll see.

Know who gets better traction.

And, well, let's just say I got more traction.

And, this little opportunity, I did get a phone call from a lady.

I think she was with PBS.

Yeah, she was like, you interested in going on a cooking show and being a prankster as a fireman?

I kind of know.

Who's this I was just talking about.

Okay, so anyway, ended up being true.

I'm so glad that it was.

And, what an awesome experience.

And from there, from YouTube.

A star was born.

Now for three weeks in Nashville, Captain Coby battled through long days of competition.

14 hour days, sometimes 15 hour a day.

Yeah.

Wow.

So how many weeks total were you there?

I was there for three weeks.

Okay.

And they film a few, like, two episodes a week.

And they give you interview time after that, and then they usually give you the weekend off.

Not everybody made it to the three weeks.

That one hour, I was I lucky enough the way you did?

Yes, ma'am, I did, he says, representing Lafayette, the state of Louisiana, and his family made every hour worth it.

But his biggest gratitude goes to his firehouse family, where his cooking skills really took shape.

I'll say this in my cooking journey.

You know, your parents teach you.

There's a lot down here in south Louisiana.

Parents teach you?

Your grandmother may have taught you some things, but I didn't really become a well-rounded cook until I got to the fire station or to the fire department.

Because next year, you might have a new captain.

And you're going to learn from what he learned from his parents.

And, you know, you get a new driver and he's showing you some new things.

So my cooking was good, but it didn't get to what it was until I became a fireman and brought me to the good that I am today.

I love it.

So you were in you were able to incorporate, you know, your work with your cooking and when you were able to kind of practice on those, got out.

Right?

Absolutely.

And pride was on full display at City Hall, especially from Council Chairman Kenneth Boudreaux.

How proud Kenneth Boudreaux is of that guy.

Extremely proud.

I mean, I get to call him brother.

I get to call him friend, right?

I get to do this interview.

Right?

So that's at a whole nother level.

That's that's special to me.

And it just makes me so happy.

I think this is right in his wheelhouse.

This is who he is, right?

You know, feeding people, feeding America, making people the happiest that they've ever been.

Once they taste that flavor and at the same time, just enjoying the space that he's in, that's what he does.

What he's doing is his fireman's capacity.

Whether he's in his family capacity, whether he's in his community capacity.

You're going to always see joy around him.

And I think it's just brings more joy.

Now.

While the community, city and state celebrated Captain Coby, he says his greatest joy was putting Cajun food in the national spotlight.

I've seen some cooking shows.

There's been some people from Louisiana on, and I know in my heart we had the best food on the planet.

Amen.

And I never see him at the end.

I never see him in the finale.

I never see him win the show.

So for me to come out on top and really show what Cajun food is all about, that was my most proud moment.

As for what's next, Captain Coby says, first, a trip to Costa Rica to celebrate his 30th anniversary with his wife, Tony.

Then it's back to the kitchen with a cooking event already lined up in Colorado.

And now, if you missed the finale of Great American Recipe, it will re-air Sunday afternoon at 430 right here on LPB.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app here and you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen LeBlanc.

And I'm Dorothea Wilson.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Mary Bird Perkins, cancer Center.

Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.