New Orleans

[GMan]

Todd is correct it will survive and rebound. I have heard so many optimistic reports from the residents, that I am uplifted.

[Dreadbelly]

Rebuilding a city below sea level?

I am not sure that is a good idea. What if it happens again next year? Or the year after? With global warming, storms are increasing in ferocity and frequency.

Rebuild, but fill in the land somehow.

[macwilkin]

Rebuilding a city below sea level?

I am not sure that is a good idea. What if it happens again next year? Or the year after? With global warming, storms are increasing in ferocity and frequency.

Rebuild, but fill in the land somehow.

It's been done since 1718. This isn't the first Hurricane to hit the city, or the last. By that logic, San Fransico would not have been rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake & fire -- or Charleston after Hurricane Hugo, South Florida after Andrew -- or the countless towns in Tornado Alley.

I'm all for making improvements in the levees, and making sure that something of this magnitude never happens again, but nature is nature. We all live on a bull's eye in a sense. Folks down there believe in living life to the fullest, and to not rebuild would not be living.

Make those comments to my mother and father-in-law, both "Nawleans" natives, and I doubt you'd like their response.

My money's on New Orleans.

Louisiana Tojours!

Todd

[Graham]

Good attitude Tod, we don't have tornadoes here but we are in danger each year of bushfires.
We lost our home some years ago and had to rebuild completely, you just keep going, but NO is on such a grand scale, the mind boggles.

[Dreadbelly]

Headline ripped from Fark.com

Efforts to fix the levees have ended, pumps are expected to fail soon ( ? ), and nine more feet of water is expected in 12-15 hours. Residents told to evacuate the east bank of New Orleans. Also, the prisoners are rioting and taking hostages.

Now, as to comparing New Orleans to San Francisco, apples and oranges. You can build earthquake resistant buildings. It is not a very good comparison.

As for oranges and oranges, Andrew in Florida was not below sea level. It is not a bowl that is easily filled with water. So it is an entirely different circumstance and situation. So in this case, we are dealing with navel oranges vs regular oranges, and there the comparison fails.

Building a major city below sea level is just asking for disaster. I don't care what you do with the levees and the pumps and all that stuff, does not change the entirely logical fact that it is a major metropolis build below sea level with over a million people. Water WILL come in. It is a statistical probability. And there will be a catastrophic loss of life. With other disasters, you can prepare for and build around them. You can greatly reduce the damage done. With a city below sea level sitting on coastal waters, there isn't a whole heck of a lot you can do.

[Mike n NC]

Good line of thinking Dread but you forgot or left out a couple of things. While I would make a wild guess, based on what I grew up with in south FL, that the flood control sysetm they have doesn't help as much as it hurts...Corps of Engineers is good at that. Now that the problems have been identified, they can be fixed, heck it only took FL a little over 60 years to make the center of the state safe. But NOLA has always come back. Why?
Several reasons, 1) ideally located to the center of the shipping trade in the gulf and on the Mississippi, 2) those crazy cajuns, 3) a quirk in human nature that makes us find the least hospitable places the most attractive to live in and finally... 4) human spirit. That part of us that won't accept defeat.

NOLA has been there for a long, long time and my guess is that it will be there for a long time to come.

Mike

[davedove]

I don't think we will have to worry about the people of New Orleans in the long run. Yes, there is a tragic loss of life and property, and we are saddened by this. Of course, most of what we see in the news is the tragedies.

But there is and will be such a large humanitarian response to this. Already, rescue teams from neighboring states have arrived and more are coming from all parts of the country. People all across this country will donate money, time, and blood to aid in the effort. And you will see a tremendous surge in the will of the people affected to get back to their lives.

It's a horrible event, but we will be fine, because these things bring out the best in people.

[macsim]

While I would make a wild guess, based on what I grew up with in south FL, that the flood control sysetm they have doesn't help as much as it hurts...Corps of Engineers is good at that.
Mike

That's exactly what has been discussed in the news. The levee system actually may hinder more than it helps. The swampy area that once diffused incoming storms (I don't know the technicalities but I'm guessing it's maybe like suddenly driving off the road into deep sand and getting bogged down?) is rapidly disappearing. All the silt that once collected at the mouth of the river is now washed out to sea. I guess we've destroyed the balance and I hope we can fix it. I hope that doesn't amount to leaving the city under water and moving on. We've had similar debates in NC over the Outer Banks and beach erosion. They actually moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse back from the shoreline but you certainly can't do that with a whole city. It will be interesting to see what solutions come out of this and if those solutions actually help or make it worse in the long run.