Katrina's national security impacts: a hint of dreadful possibilities.

• Author: Cheatle, Julian

The Patriot Act of 2001 contains the U.S. government's most recent definition of critical infrastructure: "Systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters."

By this measure, New Orleans and nearby areas along the Gulf coast easily qualify as locations of critical infrastructure--a fact reflected in the toll of damage done by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, estimated at nearly $100 billion by the U.S. government and even more by others. That is a substantial amount of damage, roughly equal to the GDP of New Zealand or the combined GDPs of the 69 poorest countries in the world. Adding to this toll were the economic costs incurred indirectly from lost oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, and trade and consumption losses from the complete or partial closures of seven major ports on the coast.

In New Orleans, situated strategically at the junction of one of the world's major inland waterways, the Mississippi River, and the international shipping lanes of the Gulf of Mexico, the environment has long been right for the concentration of several components of U.S. critical infrastructure. Energy, chemicals, agriculture and food, transportation, and shipping services are all listed in the Bush administration's National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets. In one way or another, New Orleans is a core location in the production, distribution, or facilitation of them all.

One year ago Katrina hinted at what effect a major disaster--natural or human-caused--could have when such assets are put at risk. The implications applied not only to the United States; a comparable disaster could happen nearly anywhere. And in a world where national economies are linked so closely by trade in energy, food, and many other commodities, a collapse of infrastructure in one country can be felt across the globe.

Energy

Not surprisingly, Katrina dealt a heavy blow to U.S. oil and natural gas extraction and processing, with swift and headline-generating effects on prices. The Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico is the source of 25 percent of U.S. crude oil extraction and 20 percent of natural gas output. Over 43 percent of total U.S. oil refining capacity is clustered along the Texas and...