9 Weeks to Pump Out New Orleans? 2153
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise, try asking Dutch how they have been living with large parts of Netherlands below sea level.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Here is a map [minbuza.nl] of Netherlands showing the areas under sea level:
Another reason this won't work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever seen one with 165 MPH sustained winds, gusts over 200 MPH, and a 20-ft storm surge? New Orleans has sustained many storms of the intensity of a North Sea gale. This storm was very different.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that we need sustainable energy now. So that we might curb this problems like this in the future with, renewable energies and more decentralization of energy.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Insightful)
There's been quite a bit of discussion on this subject in the news outlets. On the one hand, it seems like the global warming hand wringing is being done by, to put it nicely, non-scientists, while the oceanographers, geographers and meteorologists have pointed to the fairly meticulous statistics that don't show a causal link to hurricanes and global warming - yet.
Also, the whole oil refinery issue could have been avoided if not for the NIMBY problem. Don't want an oil refinery in your area? Suffer the consequences.
-h-
Re:Water City (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, bright, clear skies can be a real hazard. We don't need more refineries. We need more alternatives. I shouldn't have to put up with dangerous machinery in my back yard just so you* can enjoy a three hour commute every day in your* monster truck. There are many here that are telling content producers to find another way of doing business. The same goes for the rest of us. It's time to find another method of transporting our bodies from here to there. The present method is obsolete, just like their business model. Why we continue to cling to and fight wars over this, is disturbing at least.
*editorial
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
In the Netherlands, the height of the dykes has been determined based on the requirement to withstand a superstorm coinciding with high tide (the lunar type, not the daily ones). Therefore, depending where you are in the Netherlands, the height of those dykes is between 5m (16ft) and 10m (33ft) above sea level, depending on the probability of being breached (must be less than 1:10000 years).
So, if New Orleans had followed a similar approach, it would have been clear that their defenses were woefully inadequate given the level of the risk.
Global warming has nothing to do with it, this is pure risk management and making informed choices. I do pity the folks in New Orleans and the general area and wish them good fortune in getting their lives back together.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
That would be because "Orkaan" is the dutch word for "Hurricane".
And no, the Netherlands doesn't really get that many hurricanes. The Netherlands greatest problems with flooding tend actually not to come from the sea but from the Rijn [wikipedia.org], one of the biggest rivers in Europe, which exits to the sea via the Netherlands. It floods regularly.
The way the dutch cope with this is through dijks ('dykes' in english?) and, more recently, through controlled flooding: as it's simply become impossible to fully contain the Rijn, the thinking is now to let it flood as much as possible into farmland and hence reduce the strain on dijks around more important inhabited lands.
The atlantic threat is there too, while not near hurricanes in power, atlantic storms are far more frequent. It seems easier to contain though. There are barriers in place around the entrances to the Zeeland tidal estuaries [deltawerken.com], which you can see in the map [minbuza.nl] the previous poster gave as blue lines, and there's a truly gigantic floating set of metal arms, which are rotated into place and then sunk, to protect the mouth of the Rotterdam waterway [msn.com]. (To consider how huge these must be, Rotterdam Europoort, the busiest shipping port in the *world* apparently, can just be seen in part to the right in the picture above, with a ferry sailing down that large channel..)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Funny)
At which point the Dutch, recognizing the importance of dykes to their society, becoming the first nation to legalize gay marriage, giving dykes all the same legal rights and privileges as straits.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
cheers, ben
Re:Water City (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
(Source: The Guardian Newspaper, Monday 29th August)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Funny)
"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
Re:Water City (Score:4, Funny)
Let's blame Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Let's blame Congress (Score:5, Informative)
Funny that you should pick North Dakota as your first example. For every dollar that those badlands leeches [taxfoundation.org] pay in income taxes, they get back about TWO dollars [findarticles.com] in federal largesse.
Care to know which states really deserve to complain about their tax dollars being handed out to others? That would be Wisconsin, Delaware, New York, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the most robbed of all, New Jersey.
Re:Let's blame Congress (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as a Californian, I am happy my taxes are paying to help out the folks in Louisiana and Mississippi. And should disaster strike where I live -- which it will, given enough time -- they'll help me out as well, and we'll all end up better off.
Now, that said, I'd hope that the rebuilding effort takes this disaster into account and that whatever replaces the devastated areas will be built such that it comes closer to withstanding another big hurricane. (Obviously it's impossible to build a city that'll survive unscathed if the storm is big enough.)
The federal government spends billions on a lot of stupid things I feel are a total waste of my money. This isn't one of them.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike the Dutch, those in New Orleans have a choice to not live under sea-level. Also, unlike the Dutch, those in New Orleans live in a regular "hurricane alley". Allright, so Florida took that trophy over the last two years. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to pass it on, it still doesn't change the fact that the gulf coast gets hit regularly with hurricanes.
As for helping the victims, sure, but only once, with a generic yellow truck, ie move out to a new safer place. I don't want to help them rebuild so this can happen again, perhaps as early as next year. (I'm guessing it's going to take at least past this hurricane season before anything meaningful will happen.)
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
What it gets spent on is irrelevent. That it doesn't really get spread around is the issue. It's basically a money transfer from good places to live to bad places to live.
Assuming that what you want happens, and federal aid for disaster relief becomes a thing of the past, what are the effects? You seem to assert that people will simply not wish to live with the risk, so they'll move. That might apply to a relatively small number of people with the means to move, but what about everyone else, the people lacking not only the means/education/whatever to pick up and move, but also most in need of aid after a disaster?
I think I didn't explain myself very well. I didn't mean to suggest individuals pay the risk alone. That's impossible, and not how things work. I was trying to suggest that the people in the area pool their risk. In other words, on the state and county level. I don't think it's a radical idea to suggest that the people of Florida should pay for Florida's risk.
Anyway, these are just some crazy left wing ideas. You know, that big things might have effects.
You know the world's coming to an end when a liberal is pointing out the notion of unintended consequences! :-) (But I guess you know the world's still in it's place when it's with regard to the unintented consequences of killing a huge government transfer program.)
Anyway, who said I was right wing? I just knew people around here would think my idea was. Remember when being left wing was about being fair to the working class and not wasting money that could be spent on UNavoidable problems? Do you forget in all of your vicarious generosity that the tax money for these huge federal transfer programs comes from the middle class? Do you realize that to a certain extent there are poor people in Virginia paying taxes to rebuild the property of rich business owners in New Orleans?
I know the mental image you have is of a rich guy paying for the clean up, but there just aren't enough of them around to pay for EVERYTHING. Most of our tax money still comes from average joes like me, and quite few below average joes who really can't afford it. A tax that you don't benefit from is ALWAYS a regressive tax since a poor person can less afford to lose a dollar than a rich person can afford to lose a thousand. So if saving the working class some tax money by having a more intelligent location of our population isn't really left wing, I don't know if there are any good wings left to be had.
But you're absolutely right: I have no idea if this can be done without unpredictable consequences. But can't that be said about any change? I guess I'm just more progressive than you.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
You build a port where you can land an ocean-going vessel, ideally, at the mouth of a navigable river that provides deep penetration inland.
Geography defines what is possible, not what is safe.
The natural flow of trade in the central United States is defined by the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi, with the terminus in New Orleans.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think Louisiana should pay for it all itself, then give them back their money, stop taxing their oil, and let the state with the most offshore oil operations in the gulf excise the heck out of oil sales inside and out of the state.
Where the heck else are you gonna get your oil fix, Florida? For better or for worse, Louisiana is the only state that has consented to allow things to be built in "their backyard," and the nation as a whole has benefitted from it. If you don't think federal money should be involved in upkeeping the state, realize that sword cuts both ways.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
You cavalier attitude shows you don't seem to understand the situation, and your incorrect use of the word "socialism," shows that you don't know what you're talking about.
Here's why the federal government must, should, and will pay:
1. New Orleans is a major sea port. It is pretty much THE agricultural export port for the entire United States east of the Rockies. The loss of the port is a major hinderence to not only the national economy, but the world's, since the United States is the world's number one agricultural exporter. The federal government has a duty to maintain the health of the national economy.
2. All the states, except for about 5 (I know, Vermont and Delaware, but I don't remember the others. They were all small states though.), don't have any money. In fact, they're bankrupt. Even if they did have budget surplus, they wouldn't have nearly enough (early estimates place the amount of damage at 1 trillion dollars). With the complete loss of the major city and several of the major industries (tourism, agriculture and trade, oil and gas, and tourism), Louisiana doesn't have tax base anymore, so even if they had to come up with their own funds, they have no way of doing so.
3. This is a humanitarian disaster the scale of which is unseen in the history of the United States. The devastation is vast. Litterally millions are homeless. With high, stagnent water, in what is effectively swamp land, could lead to wide spread outbreak of disease. This means that the longer it takes to clean up, the worse the situation is going to get.
4. One of the roles of government is doing what others can't do for themselves. The people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and all those along the Gulf Coast, can't clean help themselves. They are our countrymen, and they're in dire need. If you were a civilized individual with any ounce of decency, you'd recognize that.
that has nothing to do with New Orleans (Score:5, Informative)
It's true that it does require people in the vicinity to operate the various facilities, but there is no reason they can't be located further inland. New Orleans is in just about the worst possible spot in the region, located below sea level, in a bowl, in a swamp, between a river, lake, other lake, and the gulf.
If New Orleans were rebuilt 30-40 miles upriver, the port could continue to operate just fine, and the residents would be in a safer and more sustainable location. There is absolutely no reason to continue to maintain a city that is an average of 10 feet below sea level, when there is perfectly good above-sea-level land not very far away.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Water City (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need to do is flood it up to sea level. Construct some levies and whatnot there to control waves and stuff, but don't try to control the level.
The parts that are underwater? Build another Venice. Correctly this time.
Make sure there's a flow through the city so you don't get nasty stagent water. And make sure that people understand the base of the city will continue to sink, so they need to either have buildings that can raise up, or buildings where they can just throw away the bottom floor every once in a while.
Build pipe systems to carry a water around, and a system of bridges to drive on. Make the pipe segments more intelligent, where if pressure drops they'll immediately turn that section off, so nasty water doesn't backtrack into the system.
Aternately, we can just require everyone to build water-proof houses, and attach boats to their roofs. When bad weather is coming we can just preemptively slowly open the levies and turn off the pumps so that they don't break.
Because, seriously. We 'protect' New Orleans as long as possible, but we can't design a 'break-proof' system. We either need a system that can't break, or a system we're willing to turn off when horrible weather hits. Either way require New Orleans delibrately being underwater some of the time.
What we must not do it build the damn city back the way it was. Yes, it will probably be cheaper right now. It won't be cheaper in the long run.
Re:Water City (Score:4, Informative)
When you build skyscrapers or bridges, you don't just build on top of the ground soil, you dig your foundations piles deep into the groundrock below. Then you use these to build your structure. If you look at any coastal city with skyscrapers, you will see that they excavate underground for many reasons, including in order to seal the foundations from groundwater leakage and to provide underground services (car parks, metro systems, storage, communications).
Many Scottish cities were built in a similar way. Edinburgh was built on seven hills - the Victorians basically built high streets that spanned each valley, with the empty space being used as storage basements for the high street departments stores, and also as an underground rail service to deliver goods direct by train from London to the stores.
Misread... (Score:4, Funny)
cities on floodplains? (Score:5, Funny)
Well what I do in Civ3 is to disallow building cities on floodplains and swamps. Helps heaps.
Re:cities on floodplains? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:cities on floodplains? (Score:4, Interesting)
If your house is a total loss, they generally won't allow you to rebuild there. They settle and turn your land into a park. There is a hole neighborhood across the river from my parents (my parent's house doesn't flood) that is now a park.
I have friend's who homes (in Houston) were CONDIMIED because, after essesive development around their aera, there was not enough drainage and so everytime it rain their neighborhood would flood (it didn't do this until the last 10 years). The land and homes were purchased using emminent domain, and then buldozed.
Re:cities on floodplains? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
See http://www.cbo.gov/bo2003/bo2003_showhit1.cfm?ind
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.
Re:cities on floodplains? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming that people have the option of moving elsewhere.
Louisiana ain't exactly the richest state in the Union and New Orleans is among the worst of it (as the bumper sticker says, "New Orleans--third world and proud of it!"). A lot of the families living there have been living there since they were emancipated, and were the unfortunate ones that couldn't afford to move north or west during the Nineteenth or Twentieth Centuries. They don't live in houses, they live in shacks (or, in the city, "blighted housing") for which moving into a trailer would be an improvement. They sure as heck wouldn't see any money from selling their homes in an effort to move inland (even less if we follow through with your motion to eliminate subsidized flood insurance), and if they could afford to move out, they would have done so in the past hundred years or so.
And even away from New Orleans, the parts of rural Louisiana ravaged by the storm are those parts where the primary language isn't English; Cajun and Creole country. And, again, these people don't exactly have luxury houses on prime real estate. They never had any money because there's been a history of language-based discrimination longer than and almost as violent as Louisiana's history of race discrimination. And while there's been a bit of reconcilliation in recent decades, there's still a whole mess of Indians and Pakistanis that speak better English than they do.
Their job options consist of shrimping, welding, or getting shot in Iraq (ever wonder why the Deep South has such large military and National Guard enlistment rates?). They couldn't afford to move even before their shack was knocked down by a tropical cyclone. The government's options are either to help them rebuild their "houses," or allow them to wander homeless, possibly scraping together enough money for bus fare so they can wander the streets of your town, since they have little else keeping them in Louisiana.
Or I suppose we could also throw them all in jail...
Telling them to simply move somewhere else is like saying "Let them eat cake." Yes, there are fools who have second homes on Grand Isle, but Grand Isle is not indicitive of that part of the state.
one word: (Score:5, Funny)
Really, just a massive airdrop of sponges over the city, et voila, your problem, she is solved!
I LIVE in New Orleans (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I LIVE in New Orleans (Score:5, Insightful)
All those coastal towns that were wiped out, do you think that they will all be rebuilt? What would be the fucking point? So they can all be destroyed again? It is not like the problem is going to suddenly disappear. Give up on New Orleans. It is going to cost far more money to rebuild it than it would to relocate all of those people.
Donate (Score:4, Informative)
One suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
Prevent? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
This is a massively sad event, and we get jokes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about the fact that a major U.S. city that many people love is slowly being destroyed almost completely. Think about how when all is said and done probably thousands of people will be dead from this. Think about how a husband feels knowing his wife is dead, or a wife feels seeing her husband die, or a parent who sees a child sicken and die.
Think I'm being overly dramatic? Think again. This is going to wind up being the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, and what I'm seeing on /. are jokes? I know the usual flippant response is 'hey dude, this is a valid response to tragedy.' Yeah, I understand that, but man, people are actively dying right now. How about just a tad more respect at this very moment, and then make your jokes? Why not wait to see the full impact of this disaster before you reflexively respond with sarcasm and wit? Please.
Re:This is a massively sad event, and we get jokes (Score:5, Insightful)
This was in the 1980's.
Everyone has known this would happen eventually but pretended it wouldn't.
I understand that for the people there this is of no comfort and we have to turn our hearts to them. I agree we should. But it was like 9/11 when many people had been trying to warn the public for years and everyone turned a deaf ear. Typically these sorts of things are well known about in advance years earlier. What's tragic isn't just the people killed and displaced. What's tragic is that this could have been prevented by not building up an area in which we knew this would happen.
We should be grateful that most of the predictions didn't happen. Because it easily could have been much, much worse.
Re:No joking? Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)
Amazing moderation! (Score:5, Insightful)
My little voice about it (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
looting vs. finding (Score:5, Interesting)
"Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store in New Orleans, Louisiana."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/p
"A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday. (AP/Dave Martin)"
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/1
So when it's a young black man it's called looting, but when it's a white woman it's called 'finding'?
Solutions, bad and good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The people saying "it's their own damn fault for building below sea level" don't understand how cities grow over centuries. When New Orleans was founded, it *was* well above sea level -- the original settlers found it a bit risky, but acceptable. The city is sinking, and the people living in lowlying neighborhoods have always been among the poorest -- for them, it's a choice between a home which might flood, or no home at all. Tight city planning restrictions might have prevented this, but the decisions were made 50-150 years ago, in a climate of intense racism and class division. It's specious to say "it's their own fault", since those at fault aren't the same "they" as those who suffer.
People who suggest jacking up the city like Chicago are on the right track, but fail to understand the magnitude of the problem. Chicago did this in the 1850s, when its population was 30-60,000. Something like half a square mile of downtown Chicago is now raised above the river. Here, we're talking about half a million people, and 50 square miles of city. And even then, remember that Chicago's basement level totally flooded due to a tunnel rupture in 1992.
New Orleans is an engineering and planning failure, but probably not one which could have been prevented. People have no choice but to make the best of existing situations, and what seems wise at one point in a city's long history may only be proven foolish years or centuries down the road. Long-term plans also conflict with short-term needs, and short-term needs usually win.
There is no silver lining to this tragedy, except that it gives us a chance to start over, essentially completely from scratch, and do things right this time. New Orleans is now more or less a horribly blank slate: almost all the buildings in the city will need to be torn down after soaking in water for weeks. As I see it, there are three long-term ways to solve the problem of New Orleans.
1) Abandon the city. This is almost inconceivable. In addition to the massive impact on Mississippi River and Gulf Coast commerce, what do you do with the million people displaced? Even if they scatter across the country, a million poor homeless refugees will be catastrophic to the already-struggling state and national poverty programs. If they all move only to neighboring states, state governments will collapse under the load. Nevertheless, this might actually be the cheapest long-term solution.
2) Stilt houses. No, don't laugh. In Hawaii where I grew up, many coastal houses are built on 10-foot timber or concrete stilts to keep them above the height of storm surges and tidal waves. We could rebuild every single house in New Orleans as a stilt house. It would make the houses more costly to rebuild, but not by much. The next flood would still destroy roads and utilities, but the houses and their residents could be saved.
3) Jack and fill. Like Chicago, but more so. Demolish all the flooded houses. Grab every dredge, barge, and dump truck you can, and start on one end of the city, dumping Missisippi Delta mud onto the ground ten feet deep. On the other end of the city, start building houses with sturdy frames on concrete pier foundations. When the landfill reaches a rebuild neighborhood, jack up the houses ten feet, dump in ten feet of landfill, and continue on to the next neighborhood. As the city keeps sinking over the next centuries, keep jacking up houses and dumping more dirt. It's probably a $100-$200 billion project (it'd be more, but most of New Orleans' houses are very cheap), but it's a solid long-term solution for keeping New Orleans above water forever.
The one thing we can't afford to do is the one thing that will almost certainly happen. The levees will be plugged, the pumps repaired, and the city rebuilt as it stood a week ago. And forty years from now, this will happen again.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Venezuela (Score:5, Interesting)
Our offer to the United States is sincere. I don't know what George W. Bush will do, or not, but its not an offer to the USA central government, its an offer for the people, the organizations helping people, local governments, religious groups, etc.
This type of aid has been offered to the countries in the Caribbean who had been suffering the past hurricanes. We have helped with supplies and rebuilding in Jamaica, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, etc. We also sent people to Sri Lanka and India after the tsunami, along with monetary donations.
Let me return you the favor: if you ever come to Venezuela, look me up and i would gladly show you around, so you can see the truth by yourself.
Let me clarify that we in Venezuela have no problem with the people of the United States. What we have issues with, is with the current administration, because they have actively worked against our country. It is not a personal matter either, if Bush stopped attempting to force his vision of what a country should be, and started respecting our sovereignty, i'm sure normal relationships with the administration would be restored. As it is right now, they don't even accept talking with our ambassador in Washington D.C., despite permanent attempts and support from Democrats and Republicans in the US congress.
If you are interested in knowing more about Venezuela, let me suggest these links:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/ [venezuelanalysis.com]
http://www.vheadline.com/ [vheadline.com]
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
While Chavez is making some token attempts to help people, if real significant portion of oil revenues were being used to help the poor they could garantee every person in Venezuela western style medical care, diet, and education. There are serious questions about were all that money is going.
The main reason why people outside Venezuela love him so much is not because he is some kind of people's hero, it is because they like his anti-American rhetoric. It gives people in countries married to the U.S. economicly and politically a vicarious thrill to have Chavez stand up to the U.S. when their own leaders will not. Chavez could be running death squads all over the country (and some have even made the allegation), and I don't think anyone would take issue with it as long as he kept up the anti-American rhetoric.
I honestly don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, this should concern us. How is it that someone can gain popularity by saying they hate America?
Sigh... I remember when they used to cheer for our President when he went on trips to foreign nations. Sad that was only 5 years ago now.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a pure free market, we wouldn't have FEMA, we'd have entreprenuers demanding families' life savings in exchange for life preservers and clean water.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
since when is Venezuela a communist country?
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
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:I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I spen two summers in Ecuador. The first summer I was in the tourist section of Quito in a Spanish immersion class. I saw families -- families -- mom, dad, and kids -- living homeless on the street. On the street. The little girls would lift up their skirts, squat, and pee, right on the sidewalk. That's something you don't see very often in the US.
The next summer I spent with an indigenous family, living in thatch-roof huts, playing cards by candle-light at night. These people had absolutely nothing. Their huts were built of wood they had cut down themselves. They carried babies around in shoulder sacks made of sheets. Their children were malnourished -- a 5 year old kid looked like a 3 year old.
I'll bet you're one of those Americans who have never been in a 3rd world country, witnessing actual poverty -- people literally living in dirt. Americans are incredibly, incredibly wealthy. Even the 'poor' ones.
Re:What can be done about it? (Score:5, Funny)
We all know why this is happening to us.
Yep, because terrorists hate our freedom.
Re:This is a pointed quote right now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Leave it alone (Score:4, Insightful)
As for insurance, the US gov has bailed out every insurance company that hit bad times insuring Florida or Texas or California property, so why not ? It's a win-win situation -- nothing happens, you get the premiums, something happens, the Gov pays for you.
I predict people will move right back in, rebuild with easy gov-backed credit, and repeat all these mistakes again while our national deficit balloons.
Re:Leave it alone (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Dude. Hurricanes. Not network cable. No need to uppercase CAT.
Re:Leave it alone (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My .02 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My .02 (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a global warming issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
These poor people need help just a bunch of morons judging them and making stupid comments.
Re:The future.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
...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:The future.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it is time to abandon it (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Almost the entire city is inundated. Except for some tall and modern downtown buildings, most of the residential areas are going to be not worth salvaging,they will have to be rebuilt from scratch, even if the city is pumped dry. These buildings will be soaking the the fetid stew of stagnant polluted water for weeks, if not months. Anything made of wood will be turned to mulch.
2. Most of the major highways that serve the city are heavily damaged. It will take many months, if not years to reconnect the city properly to the rest of the world, and cost billions of dollars.
3. Same can be said for the other infrastructure, such as water, sewer, electrical, and communications infrastructure.
4. Even if the downtown high-rises are relatively unscathed (and most have pretty serious glass breakage) who will stay in the area to work in them or occupy them.
5. The levee system needs extensive repairs to hold back even another tropical storm or category one hurricane. It is not unreasonable to expect another tropical cyclone to form in the gulf and affect that part of the coast before repairs can be completed.
6. Even if the levees are reinforced against another Category 4/5 hurricane, New Orleans faces other threats to its viability as a city. Upriver, the Mississippii River is held back by huge dikes to prevent it from finding a new route to the sea. Someday, these defenses will be overwhelmed, and Old Man River will take a shortcut to the west, abandoning its current channel, cutting off New Orleans and the water flow that keeps its shipping channels clear.
To abandon New Orleans would mean abandoning over 400 years of tradition, history, and a unique and quirky culture unlike anywhere else in the country. Without a vision to keep the survivors in the region, most likely they would disperse throughout the rest of the country, as the article noted. The geography of the area provides no easy answers, there is not a whole lot of good buildable land that can be used to build a new city nearby, but there are better locations to build than the current location.
Perhaps it is the Sim City enthusiast in me, but perhaps the destruction of New Orleans would give us a chance to rebuild a city from scratch, and avoid some of the mistakes that were made in the original town. It would be a mistake as well though, to rebuild New Orleans in the same sterile and souless style as many modern suburbs are, as it would be to try to rebuild an exact replica of it upriver somewhere.
Re:How about moving off the flood plain? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:How about moving off the flood plain? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, yes, the government should stop providing flood insurance. Except then there would be millions of people in houses suddenly without much value since they can't sell them for much since the new owners couldn't get mortgages. And the banks holding the current mortgages wouldn't be too happy either. And Florida would be in a terrible way, which would be a hell of a repayment for the favor its government did for W back in 2000.
Oh please! (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Oh please! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes?
Americans need to quit this ludicrous whining and appreciate that their tax dollars are actually some of the best investments they make. You can accomplish what you do because you stand on the shoulders of honest citizens before you. You are not a victim for paying the dues needed to live in a stable, prosperous civilization. That's not communism, that's just the basic needs of developed society.
I'm sure a tax break could let you afford more electronic trinkets in the near future, but when public services get gutted like they did in my home state when politicians pandered to this kind of drivel, high school and college education got badly stripped, environmental cleanups vanished leaving just barebones monitoring, and our economic future took a turn for the worse. Other expenses, especially for those of us taking college courses to adjust to this changing economy, rose and more than ate up our token breaks. Some of us even had to forgo buying more electronic trinkets.
Nobody will win my vote with that nonsense after that.
Re:Oh please! (Score:5, Interesting)
(I'm not making this up, by the way -- they said it verbatim on today's episode of Going Tribal on the Discovery Channel.)
Re:How about moving off the flood plain? (Score:5, Insightful)
i used to be just like you. its only when everything falls apart do you open your eyes and see how very fragile your lifestyle is.
there are many people like me discovering this right now. working hard will get you nowhere these days, only backstabbing will which is something i refuse to do because of my morals.
Re:Keep the national guard at home (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:Bigger Pumps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And yet nothing was done... (Score:5, Interesting)
Provide proper transportation and shelter? Most people staying in the city had no cars and were too poor to pay for hotels (which increased their prices for more profit). It is entirely logical they had no other option than to stay in the city. Don't call them idiots, not every American has the possibilities you apparantly have..
Re:And yet nothing was done... (Score:5, Insightful)
- It's 8 miles (give or take) from the Causeway Bridge to Chef Menteur Highway. Hardly a walkable city. The tourists walk the French Quarter and think they've seen the city. I call bullshit.
- A great majority of the people in New Orleans has feet and the ability to use them. Even getting to La Place, 25 miles west on either I-10 or Airline Highway, is better than sitting in New Orleans. At least La Place isn't under water last I checked. At a decent walking speed of 2 miles per hour, that makes it a 12.5 hour walk.
- Those tourists tend to also have feet, rental cars, or other means of transport. For that matter, they can catch a ride with a local - most of the people I've known down there would at least give up a spot in the back of the truck or something. If I still lived down there, you can bet your ass I'd be willing to give somebody a ride if they wanted to go.
- See number 3.
- Causeway Bridge to Covington, then I-12 West. I-10 West to Baton Rouge, or catch I-55 North just outside La Place and take it to Hammond, or to Jackson, MS. Airline Highway West, also to Baton Rouge (or just to La Place or Lutcher). I-59 North to Meridian, MS or follow it all the way to I-24 in the northwest corner of GA. Highway 90 West to Hahnville, then 3127 West goes halfway to Baton Rouge. River Road as far as Memphis if you like. There's 7 escape routes right off the top of my head. Any able-bodied person on foot could have made it to La Place or Hahnville within 12 hours or so, depending on what side of the river they started out from. Both of those places have high schools which are used as shelters in hurricanes, and both are above sea level (and here's to hoping the East Saint John Wildcats kick the crap out of the Hahnville Tigers and the overprivileged Destrehan Wildcats this year, assuming they get to play. Yes, I know, that's 2 high school football teams in the same division with the same team name...go figure.)
- There are, of course, those who could not walk/bike/drive to safety, and it is for them that I reserve my pity and my disaster relief donation dollars. If the idiots had gotten out when they were told to, the emergency services currently being used to airlift Boudreaux, Scioneaux and Arceneaux (yes, those are real names) off the roofs of their houses could instead be used to evacuate the few elderly, handicapped, and infirm.
My "haughty presumption of superior intellect" is based upon the fact that about 80-90% of the people down there did leave, meaning the ones left behind are the dumbest 10-20% and those who physically couldn't leave. I'd bet my next paycheck that the former outnumber the latter 10 to 1.