9 Weeks to Pump Out New Orleans?

Cr0w T. Trollbot asks: "It looks like New Orleans is going through something very close to the worst case scenario right now. This somewhat prescient study, written well before the hurricane, describes some of the challenges (engineering and otherwise) facing New Orleans. 'In this hypothetical storm scenario, it is estimated that it would take nine weeks to pump the water out of the city, and only then could assessments begin to determine what buildings were habitable or salvageable. Sewer, water, and the extensive forced drainage pumping systems would be damaged. National authorities would be scrambling to build tent cities to house the hundreds of thousands of refugees unable to return to their homes and without other relocation options.' The hypothetical is looking awful close to reality right now. What can be done about draining and rebuilding New Orleans in light of the massive flooding, and what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"

Water City

[fembots (753724)]

I know this sounds crazy, but given its bowl shape terrain, instead of pumping out the water and rebuild, why don't they rebuild over the water?

Otherwise, try asking Dutch how they have been living with large parts of Netherlands below sea level.

Re:Water City

[FireballX301 (766274)]

New Orleans has been living the way the Dutch have, through a system of pumps and levees.

The Dutch don't get hurricanes.

A couple of factors against simply rebuilding over the water are excessive cost and safety issues, historical purposes, and once the water drains away everything will be on stilts, since the sea level there fluctuates depending on the outflow of the Mississippi and the tides.

And the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes suck.

Re:Water City

[by Anonymous Coward]

But the Dutch have had way more fatalities due to flooding:
from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

In years past, the Dutch coastline has changed considerably due to human intervention and natural disasters. Most notable in terms of land loss are the 1134 storm, which created the archipelago of Zeeland in the southwest, and the 1287 storm, which killed 50,000 people and created the Zuyderzee (now dammed in and renamed the IJsselmeer - see below) in the northwest, giving Amsterdam direct access to the sea. The St. Elisabeth flood of 1421 and the mismanagement in its aftermath destroyed a newly reclaimed polder, replacing it with the 72 km Biesbosch tidal floodplains in the southcentre. The most recent parts of Zeeland were flooded during the North Sea Flood of 1953 and 1,836 people were killed, after which the Delta Plan was executed.

Here is a map [minbuza.nl] of Netherlands showing the areas under sea level:

Re:Water City

[ben_white (639603)]

What makes more sense, is what was done in Gavelston after it was wiped off the face of the map in 1900 by a hurricane. They dredged the surrounding inland waterways and raised the entire island by some 17 feet. In areas of New Orleans that require existing structures be razed could have this done.

cheers, ben

Re:Water City

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

Even more importantly, they let Galveston become a cute little tourist town, and they moved all the important stuff like the seaport inland to Houston. (Before the storm, Galveston had been one of the most important cities in Texas.) That makes things go much more smoothly when they have to completely empty Galveston Island every few years due to a Hurricane warning.

IMO, they ought to do the same here. Build ultra-stout levees around (or raise by 25 feet) the French Quarter and a few other attractions, and rebuild the rest of the city farther inland.

Re:Water City

[sessamoid (165542)]

Even more importantly, they let Galveston become a cute little tourist town

Having lived there, I've heard Galveston called a lot of things. I've never heard it called "cute". The prevailing nickname for many of us was "Galvetraz".

Re:Water City

[DCowern (182668)]

The problem isn't that it's below sea level, it's that the entire city is sinking. Without the seasonal overflow of the Mississippi, there's no new silt being built up to replace the silt that's settling. Backfilling won't help much because the fill will eventually settle, too.

In fact, this problem isn't unique to Louisiana, it's affecting most of Southern Louisiana. It's the reason why wetlands are disappearing and why there's so much coastal erosion. When the Army Corps of Engineers tried to control the Mississippi, they met limited success at great cost to the ecosystem in the region.

New Orleans, and Louisana as a whole, is facing a very severe environmental problem with complex geologic issues. Filling the area is a very temporary solution and saying "don't live there" would render nearly half a state uninhabitable (not to mention destroy nearly the entire Cajun culture). There isn't really an "easy" answer.

Disclaimer: IANAGOOES (I am not a geologist or other environmental scientist) but I did take some geology classes at Tulane!

Re:Water City

[Kelson (129150)]

The Dutch have the advantage of being on the northwest coast of a continent in the northern hemisphere, where hurricanes move from southeast to northwest. While hurricanes do sometimes turn northward (remember the one last year that ended up near Iceland?), the Netherlands generally don't have to deal with storms of this ferocity.

Re:Water City

[Freexe (717562)]

The wall around the Netherlands is longer than the Great Wall of China and is thought to have cost 1.5 trillon dollers to build.

(Source: The Guardian Newspaper, Monday 29th August)

Re:Water City

[apoc.famine (621563)]

If they don't want to rebuild *above* sea level, they can just rename it Atlantis and sell tours.

Re:Water City

[DiveX (322721)]

Why not rebuild over the water? Well, it has been tried before.

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get."

King of Swamp Castle

Let's blame Congress

[i_like_spam (874080)]

Congress cut the fiscal year 2006 budget to the US Army Corps of Engineers in the New Orleans district by $71 Million, [findarticles.com] the largest single year cut ever.

Ironically, a study to determine the effects of a Cat 5 hurricane was also shelved.

Moreover, the New Orleans district imposed a hiring freeze back in June, the first time in 10 years.

Congress may be partially to blame for the failed pumps and the long clean-up time.

Re:Water City

[Trailwalker (648636)]

The New Orleans problem is somewhat man made. The lower Mississippi has changed course many times. The Atchafalaya river has often been the outlet for the Mississippi. If a change of course were to reoccur now, New Orleans would loose much of its commercial value.

The Corps of Engineers has for many decades built dams and levees to prevent the lower Mississippi from changing its course. Among other effects, this has resulted in the river bed raising because of siltation. This required more levees to contain the river in its present embankments.

It has become a question of time until the efforts at forcing the Mississippi into the present channel end in disaster.

Hurricane Katrina is just one more factor in what is an unstable riverine enviornment.

Re:Water City

[Bi()hazard (323405)]

The only way to deal with this problem on a long term basis, other than giving up the city, is to create a system that can't be knocked out by hurricanes. Barriers and pumps can always fall because the forces of nature are against them. We, the people of New Orleans, need to harness nature to protect ourselves. Work with it. Make it our bitch, if you will.

I propose digging a vast reservoir somewhere away from the city, in one of those barren rural areas nobody cares about. This is the US, we have plenty of those. Dig the largest reservoir the world has ever seen, larger than the second largest by an order of magnitude, thereby enlarging our national "infrastructure" by a similar degree. Think of all the new jobs! Connect this reservoir to n'orleans via underground aqueducts. Flood water will drain through the aqueducts and out of the city. This underground system, powered by the laws of physics, would be immune to hurricane and flood damage as long as the reservoir functions.

Now, the obvious problem is reservoir capacity. Luckily, the reservoir is out in the middle of nowhere, allowing us to build huge water holding tanks, pumps, and so forth to empty it out. This system will be outside the hurricane/flood zones, and since it isn't within a populated area it can be much more robust than a city pump system. Furthermore, an array of voodoo priests and druids from n'orleans will periodically bless the reservoir with charms and wards to protect it. The natural power of hundreds of voodoo rituals will guarantee the system's smooth function during crises. In addition, some of these voodoo rituals require large amounts of energy to complete, so we'll have to have massive orgies on the site to reinforce the system. Who could argue with that?

Entrance fees to the ritual orgy will cover a large portion of the costs of the project, and the remaining funding can be gathered by using it as a Sea World. It would be the largest man-made aquarium in the world! Think of the tourism potential. (cue the slashdot trolls with that dolphin link)

It's a brilliant plan. Protection from floods, protection from droughts, new tourism revenue, jobs, hot sex, awesome voodoo powers, and enlargement of the national "infrastructure." What more could you ask for? That's pure New Orleans, baby.

Re:Water City

[jcr (53032)]

It's a brilliant plan.

No, not really. You can't build a reservoir with enough capacity to deal with a breach that leads to the ocean.

What you could do though, is flood the Sahara, which would drop the world sea level by a few feet. It would basically create a second mediterranean ocean. All you need to do is convince Libya that it's a good idea.

-jcr

Re:Water City

[RGRistroph (86936)]

I don't think that place in Libya/Egypt that is below sea level is as big as the Mediterrean. It's more like as big as the Great Salt Lake or the Aral Sea.

I once tried to figure out how far sea water had to fall before you could get enough energy out of it to purify it. Is it possible that a canal to the depression, ending in a high dam, might make enough energy to run the water through a purification station before it goes down ? If so, we could have a man-made Great Lake of fresh water in the middle of the Sahara. That would be cool.

cities on floodplains?

[myowntrueself (607117)]

"what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"

Well what I do in Civ3 is to disallow building cities on floodplains and swamps. Helps heaps.

Re:cities on floodplains?

[_Sharp'r_ (649297)]

At the very least, stop taxing everyone else to subsidize flood insurance for people who insist on building in flood-prone areas.

If they want insurance, let them pay the real cost of it. If they don't, let them take the risk themselves.

Of course, we'd probably have to transition such a system into place by instead of banning existing structures from getting the current subsidized insurance, simply telling everyone who got flooded out that if they insist on rebuilding in their flood-susceptible location, they're going to have to do it without flood insurance. Otherwise, they can turn their property over for parkland and take it's pre-flood value to go rebuild somewhere else.

I know that a lot of not as wealthy people also live in flood-prone areas, but can't the taxpayers stop paying for rebuilding millionaires beach and river-front property over and over again in the same locations?

Re:cities on floodplains?

[vrmlguy (120854)]

This was done is several areas along the Mississippi River following the floods of 1993. The government bought out a lot of flooded land and turned it into parks and such. Hopefully, something similar will be done in N'Orleans.

Re:cities on floodplains?

[Phronesis (175966)]

At the very least, stop taxing everyone else to subsidize flood insurance for people who insist on building in flood-prone areas.

If they want insurance, let them pay the real cost of it. If they don't, let them take the risk themselves.

Get with the times. For almost three decades the federal law has specified that houses built after 1975 pay actuarial rates for federal flood insurance, so FEMA breaks even. There is no taxpayer subsidy on these houses.

The problem for older houses is more difficult. Suppose you built your house when an area was not flood-prone, but then the Corps of Engineers built levees upstream that channeled other people's floods onto your doorstep? Now you live in a floodplain because of someone else's action. Is it your fault that someone else built levees or paved over wetlands?

In the case of New Orleans, they have mostly themselves to blame for the flood hazard---the city has been subsiding because of the levees and pumping out ground water and has been perhaps the most active supporter of building levees and channelizing the Mississippi---but people living elsewhere, such as on the Bayous, are suffering from the environmental effects of the federal government's decisions about managing the river and thus deserve some relief.

Re:cities on floodplains?

[_Sharp'r_ (649297)]

One of the continual options the OMB lists at budget is to stop subsidizing insurance on repeatedly flooded properties at a cost of a couple hundred million every year.

See http://www.cbo.gov/bo2003/bo2003_showhit1.cfm?inde x=450-05 [cbo.gov]

You're right, they have started trying to charge more realistic estimates of insurance recently, but they still have all those grandfathered structures that they subsizide [cbo.gov].

They also keep rebuilding destroyed structures. That's the real loss, when they let people build their newly re-insured structure in the same place the last one got washed away and get the same insurance again.

one word:

[Tumbleweed (3706)]

SPONGES.

Really, just a massive airdrop of sponges over the city, et voila, your problem, she is solved!

I LIVE in New Orleans

[by Anonymous Coward]

I Live in New Orleans and I was just planning on staying at Taco's house. This membership is good for something, right?

One suggestion

[Toasty16 (586358)]

The Army Corps of Engineers [wikipedia.org] is working on better flood detection and protection [army.mil], and anyone with expertise in this area could contact them [army.mil] and lend a hand.

Prevent?

[JanneM (7445)]

Only way to really prevent something like this is to not build densely in high-risk areas in the first place.

Of course, the very features that makes for high risk - river deltas, earthquake areas, active volcanism - tend to produce really desireable areas to live in.

Move New Orleans

[Colonel Panic (15235)]

Maybe they should seriously consider moving the whole city to someplace more stable (not below sea-level and not sinking).
Yeah, that'll be very expensive, but if they don't do seriously consider the moving option now, they'll probably have to consider it some time in the next 50 years anyway. Given the location and parameters (below sea-level and below Mississippi level much of the time) it's amazing that NL has lasted this long. Perhaps we should consider NL to be the first victim of Global Warming (which produces stronger hurricanes and higher ocean levels).

Don't miss this Popular Mechanics article

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY (210370)]

Popular Mechanics also did a piece [popularmechanics.com] on the disaster that was just waiting to happen in New Orleans. Check it out. [popularmechanics.com]

My little voice about it

[by Anonymous Coward]

Let me put in here my (little) experience about floodings.

I live in Venice, well in the hinterland of it. As you may know, it's a city build "on" the water. Or, better said, on a group of islands (107, exactly) in a laguna, directly connected by three connections to the mediterranean sea.
The area suffers from geological bradyseism (sinking) of few centimeters per year.
It's an irreversible process, simply leading to a worse situation as time goes by.

The city suffers an average of 50 floodings per year, with peak heigth of the water of more than a meter in the lower zones.
"Just" 40 years ago, the count of floodings per year was less than a dozen.
Lots are the analysis, conferences and general discussion on which should be best ways to limit the effects of such situation.
Well, the most common answer is: there's no solution.
It is just possible to extend the agony, not to dry up the city.

So, I agree with the cynical comment red so far: if you consider it worth, go and rebuild some kilometers faraway.
Sad but true.

Back to New Orleans - which is not Venice indeed - surely it will be possible to clean the city, polish it up and recall it to normality, but nothing assures you another similar (or even worse) flooding won't occur again, vanishing every effort.

Good luck to whose are still there.

Re:I wonder...

[phatwuss (619909)]

Much to Mullah Robertson's dismay, the infidel Hugo Chavez has pledged aid in the form of food and fuel. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050829/pl_afp/usweat hervenezuelaoil [yahoo.com]

Re:I wonder...

[Colonel Panic (15235)]

Much to Mullah Robertson's dismay, the infidel Hugo Chavez has pledged aid in the form of food and fuel.

Robertson says: "Communism! You can't just go around giving away food and fuel like that! Another reason to get rid of Chavez!"

Re:I wonder...

[williamyf (227051)]

I am a venezuelan.

As per rules and regulations of foreign policy. The Aid will not be delivered until it is requested.

When we had our desaster here (Vargas 1999), Mr. Chavez was ofered aid from the USA, and he declined it because his administration feared that there would be spyes infiltrated in the relief personel.

I guess Mr. Bush will go by the same token. The only difference being that the USA is in a much better position to reject the aid than venezuela was in its time.

Think of it as just another outburst in an already agitaded foreign policy between the two countries.

If you all did not notice, I do not like Mr. Chavez, or Mr. Bush, albeit, for different reasons in each case.

Suerte a todos y feliz dia!

Re:I wonder...

[theolein (316044)]

Chavez is mainly pissed off by the way the US condoned the coup attempt in 2002. His policies inside Venezuela may be socialist but why don't you wait and see if they actually help people first before screaming communist all over the place?

Venezuela has a huge amount of poverty and he is actively doing something with state money to change that. If it works, good for him. If it doesn't then you can unfurl your anti-communist slogans and cry for war or something.

Re:I wonder...

[MKalus (72765)]

Besides,

since when is Venezuela a communist country?

Re:I wonder...

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

...how many foreign countries are sending aid to the US now?

I might take this opportunity to point out that all our troubles are the fault of the French. Yes, the FRENCH.
If those French colonists hadn't chosen such a poor location to found a city in 1718, we wouldn't be flooded right now!

Re:What can be done about it?

[grub (11606)]

We all know why this is happening to us.

Yep, because terrorists hate our freedom.

Re:This is a pointed quote right now.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Blaming it on Bush is a joke. The levees haven't been properly funded for decades.

Re:Leave it alone

[LWATCDR (28044)]

Gee no practical value. I guess the whole port thing is useless now that we no longer use ships. Oh and the oil and gas terminal is also useless now that we have Zero Point Modules at every WalMat
There are some real practical reasons for New Orleans to exist.
There are some things that can be done to reduce the impact of hurricanes like this. The biggest one is to restore the delta and the wet lands. The messing with the Mississippi caused a lot of this damage.
Building codes can also make a big difference. My home got hit by TWO hurricanes last year. I had no damage. Lots of older homes near me get a lot of damage.
BTW if we are going to condemn cities that are could be damaged by natural disasters lets start the list with most of California and let's face it New York is just a giant target for terrorists. How many Billions did 9/11 cost the US? Oh and Seattle is next to a chain of volcanoes.
Cities tend to be where they are for a reason. Lots of cities tend to be on rivers and the Ocean because water transportation is so useful. New Orleans would have done just fine with a CAT 2 or CAT 3 Getting hit by a CAT 4+ is a very rare event for anyone location.
Saying that these people should "just" move on is uncaring, mean, and stupid

Re:Leave it alone

[Geoffreyerffoeg (729040)]

New Orleans would have done just fine with a CAT 2 or CAT 3 Getting hit by a CAT 4+ is a very rare event for anyone location.

Dude. Hurricanes. Not network cable. No need to uppercase CAT.

Re:Leave it alone

[cosmic_0x526179 (209008)]

Like most cities with a long and distinguished history.., the folks that got there first (i.e. in the french quarter) took the high ground... FOR THE OBVIOUS REASON ! Now we have folks being sold condos and split-levels all over the city and while they know (somewhere in the back of their mind) that they (and their house) are below sea level, it usually never occupies that much thought... until the shit really hits the fan. It just hit the fan... big time.

Some reports are saying that the govenor wants the entire city evac'ed. I am *guessing* that they may have to let the bowl fill up before they can get decent repairs on the levee. The only event I can even imagine of this scale is for the San Andreas to let loose right under LA (and I reallly hope that does not happpen in my lifetime). This is way beyond a catastrophe. This is functionally (if not literally) the destruction of a major US city. Other than the act of god bit, it would take a nuke to equal what just happened. How would you like to flee your home, then get told that it may be months before you are allowed back, and then to see what all that water did to the carpets, drywall, etc.

Folks, it doesn't get much worse than this.. except for death... and some folks bought that ticket.

Re:Sinking

[gvc (167165)]

The Tragically Hip are correct. New Orleans is sinking, and will continue to sink.

The land is a flood plain. It depends on annual Mississippi flooding to deposit silt and moisture to maintain the land mass. The river levees cut off this replenishment and the land sinks.

The problem will only get worse, and there's no obvious solution.

America "chernobyl". Just walk away

[DigiShaman (671371)]

I say we just abandon New Orleans if the damage is too extensive to rebuild. Basically, call it Americas "chernobyl" and move on. Ya, there are fond memories in that city...but sometimes it's best to not fight nature. Just leave it be. But up a memorial, rebuild refineries in other areas...but slowly, just walk away from it.

I doubt this will happen, but it would be better in the long run then supporting a city BELOW see level.

Re:My .02

[DerekLyons (302214)]

Long term: I think a massive public works project will come out of this. Something along the lines of the Netherlands Delta Works Project. Only on a much more massive scale.

There has been such a massive public works program going on for over a century. The Mississippi is constrained by a massive system of levees, dams, flood control channels, etc... etc... The Netherlands Delta Works Project is little more than a scale model of this system. (In total volume, the levees along the Mississippi river and it's tributaries considerably exceed that of the Great Wall.)

Something along the lines of a massively huge dike between New Orleans and the ocean.

Such a dike would be a waste of time and money - as the main threat to New Orleans is the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. (It's breaks in the levee that protect the city from the latter that are currently flooding the city.)

Re:My .02

[BenFranske (646563)]

Scientists will tell you that the leevees caused the problem in the first place. The Mississippi is supposed to flood naturally which builds up the marshes that protect the city from the ocean. Settlers have been building leevees to stop the flooding for hundreds of years, this is just what happens when you do that. It's the cost of doing business when you mess with nature.

Not a global warming issue.

[LWATCDR (28044)]

These storms are part of a natural Hurricane cycle. These cycles have been seen going back centuries. Not really a case of Karma. If so wouldn't it have been more far for a massive hurricane to have hit California and New York where lots if this oil and gas is burned?
These poor people need help just a bunch of morons judging them and making stupid comments.

Re:The future....

[SpaceLifeForm (228190)]

You forgot that the 'soil' is constantly sinking. It is just silt from the Mississipi River that must be replenished. The levees prevent that re-silting which could maintain the elevation. New Orleans will eventually either disappear or have to be maintained in a different manner.

In the long run, it probably would be best to abandon the city entirely, but that won't happen, so, all the taxpayers in the U.S. will have to pay for it even if they don't live there.

Re:The future....

[ben_white (639603)]

A) Don't live by a freaking ocean. Oceans have hurricanes. B) Don't live in a city that is 8 feet below sea level. Flooding WILL occur. Problem solved.

Nice if you plan cities in the 21st century based on an information economy with satellite recon of all flood and tidal basins. Not realistic in the real world where cities appear and evolve over centuries, and ocean side locations were vital to the economy, as they still are (check out this link from the la times [latimes.com] and see if you still think it is reasonable to think that costal areas can be sparsely populated).

I do agree that most people who flock toward the coastal areas now do so for reasons other than that they make their living from the sea, but expecting people to suddenly see the light and move to Oklahoma is not realistic (besides tornados suck too).

cheers, ben

why did all the pumps shut down?

[SuperBanana (662181)]

Don't live in a city that is 8 feet below sea level. Flooding WILL occur.

...and if you do, build your pumping stations so that they can work submerged and without grid power, so that next time, they don't ALL FAIL. It's not like we don't have the technology- submarines, for example.

How much can it cost to build a solid foundation, and put a big diesel engine with a big fuel tank either in a sealed container with a snorkle, or put the engine bits up top a high tower (with substantial reinforcement)? This ain't rocket science.

Also, why don't the levees have anything but dirt in 'em? Why can't they have periodic concrete segments or something to stop breaks from spreading and to use as a base for emergency repairs?

Re:How about moving off the flood plain?

[spisska (796395)]

Or more to the point, does it bother anyone that our tax dollars will be used to pay for people who do have insurance, because the insurance companies will run to the government to bail them out when that $20 billion bill comes due?

It's not helping the folks who have no insurance that bothers me. It's helping out comapnies whose business is selling risk, but who end up short on cash when their policies have to be paid out.

Oh please!

[Luscious868 (679143)]

Typical American attitude. "Every man for himself!". No sense of community at all.

Get real. There is a differnece between donating your money to those in need and having your money taken from you. If I stick a gun in your face, take your wallet, but give 25% of it to a charity, I'm I not guilty of theft? That's the point the of the original post. I have no problem giving to charitys that will help the people of New Orleans get back on their feet. What I, and many others, have a problem with is that money is taken from us without our permission by the goverment and given to these people when their is a 100% chance that a similar event will happen in the future because of the location these people choose to live in and do business in. Theft is theft, no matter how good you believe the cause to be. Let those who wish to give, give. Let those who do not, keep their money. Nobody is entitled to anyone elses hard earned property or earnings under any circumstances, period.

I realize that's hard for you to wrap your liberal head around but I don't work 8 hours a day , 5 days a week so other people can decide how to spend my hard earned dollars. I work so that I can.

Re:Keep the national guard at home

[malakai (136531)]

Louisiana has 65% of their national guard troops at home. Only half of those will be activated for the relief effort (~3,500). The fact is, we're set up to handle two simulataneous wars at the same time and a natural disaster. No states national guard troop level is below 60% even witht he war in Iraq (and it's not just Iraq, troops are in 40 countries).

But bitch away anyhow, it's surely helping the situation.

(and Alabama has 70% available, Mississippi has 65% available. Far more than will ever be called upon).