Permanently Abandon New Orleans

[PatrickHenry]

I was thinking along these lines at work today. The city is beset with geographic problems that include subsidence, a ground surface below the nearby sea level, ancient and dilapidated housing, and now a 100% evacuation for many months. The current disaster was predicted as a certainty last year, prognosticators only struggled with the WHEN...

Then I heard some allegations about a reference by a US pol saying the rebuilding effort might want to be reconsidered. My research turned up this: http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakin...09.html#075833
(aside: the Times Picayune electronic edition is at ground zero and full of stories on this situation if you are intent on researching it...)

Thursday 01 September 2005 Washington - House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. And it's a question that certainly we should ask." Hastert's comments came as Congress cut short its summer recess and raced back to Washington to take up an emergency aid package expected to be $10 billion or more. Details of the legislation are still emerging, but it is expected to target critical items such as buses to evacuate the city, reinforcing existing flood protection and providing food and shelter for a growing population of refugees. The Illinois Republican’s comments drew an immediate rebuke from Louisiana officials. "That’s like saying we should shut down Los Angeles because it’s built in an earthquake zone,” former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said. "Or like saying that after the Great Chicago fire of 1871, the US government should have just abandoned the city.” Hastert said that he supports an emergency bailout, but raised questions about a long-term rebuilding effort. As the most powerful voice in the Republican-controlled House, Hastert is in a position to block any legislation that he opposes. "We help replace, we help relieve disaster," Hastert said. "But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it... we ought to take a second look at that." The speaker’s comments were in stark contrast to those delivered by President Bush during an appearance this morning on ABC’s "Good Morning America.” "I want the people of New Orleans to know that after rescuing them and stabilizing the situation, there will be plans in place to help this great city get back on its feet,” Bush said. "There is no doubt in my mind that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city.” Insurance industry executives estimated that claims from the storm could range up to $19 billion. Rebuilding the city, which is more than 80 percent submerged, could cost tens of billions of dollars more, experts projected. Hastert questioned the wisdom of rebuilding a city below sea level that will continue to be in the path of powerful hurricanes.

Rep. Hastert apparently retracted his statements saying he was misinterpreted. But I think it may be a damn good idea to consider pulling out of New Orleans altogether. It was founded before the modern era as a means of controlling the Mississippi River. Not an issue anymore... It seems obvious it is in an unfortunate location, regardless of its historic significance. Hastert and I aren't the only ones thinking along this track either: http://www.courant.com/hc-wby-editor...ostemailedlink

An alternative to pulling out entirely might be something like an arcology: Arcologies: Wave of the Future?
With a foundation able to withstand flooding and storm surges.

So which is it volconvo,

• Bulldoze New Orleans and turn it into a park that can flood when it needs to?
• Drain, rebuild and renovate historic New Orleans?
• Think big and build an arcology on the site of New Orleans? You could call it "New" New Orleans, heh.

[Mia]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Drain, rebuild and renovate historic New Orleans?

How can you even think of removing such a city? Not to mention the inhabitants. They shouldn't be permanently displaced.

Where will I take my top off for beads? KIDDING - I never did that.

But seriously, who cares what the insurance companies have to pay out? That's why they collected all those premiums all these years....

[PatrickHenry]

I am not sure New Orleans will recover or even if it can...
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_08_31_05ng.html

Will New Orleans Recover? Weak and struggling before Katrina, the good-time city now teeters on the brink. | 31 August 2005 It would be uplifting to write today of how the brave people of New Orleans will come together and help each other after Hurricane Katrina—and of course many are doing just that. Volunteers are navigating their boats around downed power lines and burbling gas mains to rescue fellow citizens still hanging onto rooftops in the water. Even as floodwaters still engulf the city, evacuees eagerly seek to return and rebuild their storied city—though they may not be able to do so for months. But to anticipate what the city must go through now, after damming up its broken levees and pumping the floodwaters back into Lake Pontchartrain, is heartbreaking. No American city has ever gone through what New Orleans must go through: the complete (if temporary) flight of its most affluent and capable citizens, followed by social breakdown among those left behind, after which must come the total reconstruction of economic and physical infrastructure by a devastated populace. And the locals and outsiders who try to help New Orleans in the weeks and months to come will do so with no local institutional infrastructure to back them up. New Orleans has no real competent government or civil infrastructure—and no aggressive media or organized citizens’ groups to prod public officials in the right direction during what will be, in the best-case scenario, a painstaking path to normalcy.

[tinybear]

If Anchorage recovered after the 1964 earthquake, so can New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

[Nono]

Quote by: PH So which is it Volconvo?

Well, sea level is rising. Anything on the coast but below that level promises an increasing battle in future.

I guess it isn't emotionally or politically correct to broach the subject at the moment, but it's going to take a while before any reconstruction could begin anyway.

In the US, plenty of people have been forced to relocate for urban renewal and large-scale infrastructure projects (and let's not talk about the Indians, eh?) and around the world various areas of human habitation routinely become uninhabitable. So relocation sounds heartless, but heartlessness has much to do with this disaster already, doesn't it.

Maybe a jazz theme park on stilts.

[Pooeypants]

Quote by: tinybear If Anchorage recovered after the 1964 earthquake, so can New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

If given the chance, why shouldn't we take this opportunity to relocate people to a safer area? Why continue building in an established danger zone? It's not like all the people depend on living by the coast.

[SteveA]

I'd already thought the same thing, before reading this article. It make little sense to repair the levies, drain the land, let things dry for months and then begin building effectively a new city in an area that is still below sea level and in the path of hurricanes. I mean it's fine if people there want to do this but from the point of view of national assistance, it wouldn't make much sense to encourage a repeat of this same scenario. At a minimum, the levies will still require constant maintainence and there's still always the possibility a rogue hurricane will set a new record in power and still swamp things again. It's just tempting Mother nature and homeless people there could be given raw materials to begin building immediately, instead of waiting for the place to be drained.

[tinybear]

Quote by: Pooeypants If given the chance, why shouldn't we take this opportunity to relocate people to a safer area? Why continue building in an established danger zone? It's not like all the people depend on living by the coast.

How's about letting the people decide?

[Mr.Vicchio]

Would you say the same thing when the big earthquake hits San Fran or LA?

[Pooeypants]

Yes, I would. It beats me why people would live in an established danger zone. If you know that a catastrophe is coming, that it is a matter of "when" and not "if", why not move to a safer area if you could?

[SteveA]

Quote by: Mr.Vicchio Would you say the same thing when the big earthquake hits San Fran or LA?

I don't think the magnitude of damage would be nearly the same. You might lose a bridge and have some buildings effectively destroyed but people wouldn't need to be evacuated, have them wait for months and then rebuild from close to nothing.

Of course anyone building right on top the San Andreas fault line is asking for trouble and I don't think I'd suggest using government resources to rebuild such a structure if it were destroyed in the quake. That would be irresponsible and create a persistant danger to the occupants in the future as well. Given the option, I'm certain plenty of people would prefer help to be toward some different site.

They should still repair the levy and pump the place dry, so people can recover any non-perishable items but I'm saying I agreed that any national assistance for reconstruction should be done in an area above sea level.

[Chris]

Drain, rebuild and renovate historic New Orleans


Re enforce the levys. Isn't Amsterdam under sea level as well?

[njlemire87]

I would have to say I feel that it will be a massive waste of federal oney to rebuild this city. If the city and state want to rebuild, fine. Let them work it out with the insurance companies. However, I do not believe that the federal government should fund it with tax dollars. The rescue effort is well and good, but billions to rebuild a city that will eventually be destroyed again anyway is a waste.

[Chris]

njlemire87, I would hate to see your opinion if a similar disaster would happen in your hometown.

[Lilith]

Why don't they make it like Venice, Italy? Or is that a stupid thing to say?

[Nono]

Quote by: Lilith Is that a stupid thing to say?

First of all, what do you mean?

Venice, like Bangkok, is sinking. Meantime, the sea level is rising. Sooner or later...

[Cephus]

Quote by: tinybear If Anchorage recovered after the 1964 earthquake, so can New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Until the next hurricane. And the next. And the next. It just makes no sense to keep rebuilding a city with major inherent problems over and over again. It isn't like Katrina was the only hurricane they'll ever get, they get slammed regularly and the levies break all the time. The problem is that the city was built below sea level and so long as it remains below sea level, they're going to face getting wiped out over and over and over again.

At the very least, they need to vastly improve the system to withstand force 5 hurricanes. The old system was, at best, set up for a force 3, probably less with all the corruption that goes on. More realistically, they need to raise the entire city above sea level. Optimally, they need to get over this whole history nonsense and MOVE the damn thing.

[Cephus]

Quote by: |Chris| Drain, rebuild and renovate historic New Orleans Re enforce the levys. Isn't Amsterdam under sea level as well?

Amsterdam isn't in the constant path of hurricanes, is it?

[belverron]

I don't see the point of rebuilding it, unless it's for its significance as a port.

Quote by: Mia How can you even think of removing such a city? Not to mention the inhabitants. They shouldn't be permanently displaced.

By the time New Orleans is habitable again, all of the people capable of getting a job will have done so elsewhere. How many of them do you think will want to move back to that ruin of a city?

[ericsp23]

There is no way that New Orleans won't be rebuilt. We can talk about how it shouldn't be rebuilt all we want, but there really isn't anything anyone can do to stop it. Geographically, it is located in an area that is perfect for a major port city and that alone is enough to guarantee that it will be rebuilt. Maybe they could relocate to higher ground.