New Orleans is a city of bowls, but some bowls are deeper than others. If you lived in the Marlyville - Fontainebleau area back in 2005, you probably thought you were on relatively high ground. People called it "The Island" or "The Ridge" for a reason. Parts of Broadmoor were already under eight feet of water while folks on Fontainebleau Drive were still watching the rain. Then the pumps failed. Then the canals gave way.
The Marlyville - Fontainebleau flooding Katrina event wasn't just a natural disaster; it was a mechanical and engineering collapse that changed the geography of Uptown New Orleans forever.
It's weird. You’ve got these beautiful, oak-lined streets and Mediterranean-style homes that look like they’ve stood for centuries without a scratch. But the water doesn't care about architecture. When the 17th Street Canal breached, the water didn't just stay in Lakeview. It pushed. It followed the low points. It crawled up through the drainage pipes and backflowed into neighborhoods that hadn't seen a flood in generations.
Honestly, the scale of it is still hard to wrap your head around even twenty years later.
How the Water Actually Got In
Most people think the flooding in Marlyville - Fontainebleau came directly over the top of the levees. That’s not quite right. It was a "backdoor" flood.
The neighborhood sits in a precarious spot. To the north, you have the I-10 corridor and the Metairie Ridge. To the south, you have the Mississippi River. The area acts as a transitional zone between the higher ground of St. Charles Avenue and the deep sink of Broadmoor. During Katrina, the failure of the 17th Street Canal and the London Avenue Canal created a massive inland sea.
Because the Sewerage & Water Board's (S&WB) Pumping Station No. 1 and Pumping Station No. 6 were overwhelmed or lost power, the water had nowhere to go. It basically sat there.
Imagine a bathtub where the drain is blocked and someone left the faucet running. That was Marlyville. The water rose slowly. It wasn't a wall of water like the Lower Ninth Ward saw with the industrial canal breach. It was a creeping, oily, brown tide. You'd wake up and the street was damp. Two hours later, your car tires were submerged. By evening, it was in the living room.
The Role of the 17th Street Canal Breach
The 17th Street Canal is the big one. Everyone talks about it because it was the most catastrophic engineering failure in U.S. history. When the I-wall breached near Bellaire Drive, billions of gallons of Lake Pontchartrain poured into the city.
Marlyville - Fontainebleau is miles away from that breach.
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You’d think it would be safe, right? Wrong. The water leveled out. Physics is a jerk like that. The water kept flowing until it reached the same elevation as the lake. Since much of the Marlyville area sits at or slightly below sea level, the water simply moved south until it hit the "high ground" of the Claiborne overpass and the river ridge.
Some houses saw three feet. Others saw six. It depended entirely on which side of the street you were on and how high your foundation was built.
The Pumping Station 6 Crisis
You can't talk about Marlyville - Fontainebleau flooding Katrina without mentioning Pumping Station 6. Located on the 17th Street Canal at Orpheum Avenue, this is one of the most powerful pumping stations in the world. Or it’s supposed to be.
During the storm, the station was at the heart of the chaos.
As the canal walls started to groan under the pressure, the operators had a impossible choice. If they pumped at full capacity, they risked blowing out the walls of the canal by increasing the water level. If they stopped pumping, the city would drown from the rain. They eventually had to shut it down when the canal breached because they were essentially just pumping water in a circle—pulling it out of the city and throwing it back into a canal that was leaking right back into the streets.
When PS6 went quiet, Marlyville was done for. Without those massive wood screw pumps moving hundreds of thousands of gallons per second, the neighborhood became a stagnant pond.
Life in the "Silver Lining" Zone
There’s a bit of a misconception that the whole neighborhood was wiped out. It wasn't. This is where the nuance of New Orleans topography gets really interesting.
If you walk down Fontainebleau Drive today, you'll see some houses that are original and some that are clearly rebuilt or raised. The "Sliver by the River" stayed dry, and the edges of Marlyville that touched the higher ground near Tulane and Loyola Universities fared better than the sections closer to Broadmoor.
But for the thousands of residents who did flood, the experience was a nightmare of "the mold." Because the water stayed for weeks, the humidity inside these closed-up, 100-degree houses created a literal jungle of black mold.
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You've probably heard stories of people returning to find their refrigerators upside down or their furniture moved to the other side of the house by the currents. In Marlyville, it was more about the rot. The plaster walls in those old 1920s raised basements acted like sponges. They sucked up the toxic soup—a mix of lake water, sewage, and gasoline—and held onto it.
The Aftermath and the "Green Dot" Map
After the water was finally sucked out (which took weeks of portable pumps and Herculean efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers), the neighborhood faced a second threat: the city's recovery plan.
You might remember the infamous Bring New Orleans Back Commission map. It had green dots over neighborhoods that were deemed too low or too damaged to be worth rebuilding. Marlyville - Fontainebleau and neighboring Broadmoor were heavily scrutinized.
The residents didn't take it lying down.
The recovery of this area is a masterclass in grassroots organizing. Neighbors who had never spoken to each other before the storm were suddenly meeting on street corners, gutting houses together, and marching on City Hall. They refused to let their neighborhood be turned into a "green space" or a drainage park.
They won. But the cost was years of living in FEMA trailers.
Why it Could (or Couldn't) Happen Again
So, where are we now? The Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions on the HSDRRS (Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System).
They built the "Great Wall of Louisiana" (the IHNC Surge Barrier) and massive closure gates at the mouths of the canals. In theory, the 17th Street Canal will never again be subject to the kind of storm surge that caused the 2005 breach. The gates stay closed, and the pumps move the rainwater into the canal behind the gates.
But there’s a catch.
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The system is designed for a 100-year storm. Katrina, by many metrics, was a 400-year event. And then there's the issue of the pumps themselves. The S&WB of New Orleans still struggles with aging infrastructure. Just a few years ago, in 2017 and again in more recent summer storms, the city saw localized flooding because the turbines that power the pumps failed.
The Marlyville - Fontainebleau flooding Katrina history serves as a constant reminder: the levees might hold, but if the pumps don't spin, the bowl still fills up.
Actionable Steps for Residents and Property Owners
If you are living in or looking to buy property in the Marlyville - Fontainebleau area, you can't just ignore the history. You have to be proactive.
Check your elevation certificate. Don't guess. Know exactly how many feet you are above or below sea level. This determines your flood insurance premiums and your risk profile. Even two feet can be the difference between a dry house and a total loss.
Maintain your local catch basins. The city is supposed to do this, but they often don't. If the storm drain in front of your house is clogged with leaves and Mardi Gras beads, the street will flood in a standard afternoon thunderstorm. Grab a rake. It takes five minutes.
Invest in "Smart" flood defenses. Modern flood vents for crawl spaces allow water to flow through the foundation rather than pushing against it, which can prevent the entire structure from shifting or collapsing under hydrostatic pressure.
Have a "Get Out" plan that isn't dependent on the I-10. During Katrina, the overpasses became parking lots and then islands. If a major storm is coming, leave 48 hours early. The Marlyville area is beautiful, but it's a trap if the pumps fail and the water starts rising from the drains.
Document everything for insurance. Take photos of your home's interior, your appliances, and your sub-flooring now. If you ever have to file a claim, having "before" photos is the only way to prove the extent of the damage to adjusters who are looking for any reason to deny a claim.
The reality of living in this part of New Orleans is a trade-off. You get the history, the shade of the oaks, and the incredible community spirit. But you also live with the ghost of 2005. Understanding the mechanics of why the neighborhood flooded is the first step in making sure it stays dry next time.