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

[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

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?

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]

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: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: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.

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.

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.