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?"
Donate (Score:4, Informative)
One suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
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)
cheers, ben
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
(Source: The Guardian Newspaper, Monday 29th August)
Don't miss this Popular Mechanics article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:5, Informative)
from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Here is a map [minbuza.nl] of Netherlands showing the areas under sea level:
Not "just like this one" (Score:2, Informative)
No denying that the North Atlantic can dish out some major storms, but they are not even close to hurricane status.
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.
Re:My .02 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:New Orleans is sinking every year... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.time.com/time/reports/mississippi/orle
Re:cities on floodplains? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Global Warming = stronger hurricanes, so.... (Score:2, Informative)
If cable TV had existed in 1886, everyone in the U.S. might have been whipped into a hurricane panic. A record seven hurricanes made landfall that year, including a Category 4 storm that hit Texas and would have had on-the-spot cable newscasters dramatically fighting the wind to deliver their reports. All during the 1890s, reporters could have done the same along the Atlantic seaboard, as it was hammered by more powerful hurricanes than it would be in any decade except the 1950s.
Hurricane Katrina, which slammed the Gulf Coast and got eyewall-to-eyewall media coverage, is sure to increase the sense that there is an epidemic of hurricanes (along, of course, with an epidemic of shark attacks and missing blond girls). Which inevitably raises the question: "What can we do about it?" For some scientists and activists -- working on the assumption that anything they don't like must be caused by industrial emissions -- the answer is stop global warming.
There is hardly an undesirable natural event, from wildfires to hurricanes, that former Vice President Al Gore hasn't blamed on global warming. As if it weren't for fossil-fuel emissions, the weather would always be predictable and pleasant. An outfit called Scientists and Engineers for Change put up a billboard in Florida before last year's presidential election stating it starkly: "Global warming = Worse hurricanes. George Bush just doesn't get it." Ah, yes: Why are Bush and the neocons focused on the war in Iraq, when there is a very real threat to the U.S. they should be addressing in the waters of the Atlantic?
Has global warming increased the frequency of hurricanes? One of the nation's foremost hurricane experts, William Gray, points out that if global warming is at work, cyclones should be increasing not just in the Atlantic but elsewhere, in the West Pacific, East Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. They aren't. The number of cyclones per year worldwide fluctuates pretty steadily between 80 and 100. There's actually been a small overall decline in tropical cyclones since 1995, and Atlantic hurricanes declined from 1970 to 1994, even as the globe was heating up.
It seems that Atlantic hurricanes come in spurts, or as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts it in more technical language, "a quasi-cyclic multi-decade regime that alternates between active and quiet phases." The late 1920s through the 1960s were active; the 1970s to early 1990s quiet; and since 1995 -- as anyone living in Florida or Gulfport, Miss., can tell you -- seems to be another active phase.
But if hurricanes aren't more frequent, are they more powerful? Warm water fuels hurricanes, so the theory is that as the ocean's surface heats up, hurricanes will pack more punch. An article in Nature -- after questionable jiggering with the historical wind data -- argues that hurricanes have doubled in strength because of global warming. Climatologist Patrick Michaels counters that if hurricanes had doubled in their power it would be obvious to everyone and there would be no need to write controversial papers about it.
Indeed, if you adjust for population growth and skyrocketing property values, hurricanes don't appear to be any more destructive today. According to the work of Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, of the top five most destructive storms this century, only one occurred after 1950 -- Hurricane Andrew in 1992. An NOAA analysis says there have been fewer Category 4 storms throughout the past 35 years than would have been expected given 20th-century averages.
None of this data matters particularly, since proponents of global warming will continue to link warming with hurricanes. It generates headlines in a way that debates about tiny increments of warming don't. And it feeds a conceit that is oddly comforting: that whatever is wrong with the world is caused by us and fixable by us. Alas, it's not so. Mother Nature can be a cruel and unpredictable mistress, and sometimes all we can do is head for the high ground.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is a massively sad event, and we get jokes (Score:2, Informative)
2) Don't expect civilized behaviour online
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:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)
Today they announced on Montreal radio that an emergency response team of 30 Red Cross members is leaving tomorrow for New Orleans.
Of course, whether or not Montreal is a part of Canada depends on your political persuasion.
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:Let's blame Congress (Score:2, Informative)
Aren't we still on the 2005 budget?
And how the heck would a study help for this storm when it probably would not have been finished until 2006 at the very least.
As for the hiring freeze, thats the only argument you can use, but still those people would still be inexperianced today.
Helicopter flyover video (Score:3, Informative)
http://wrpn.net/~kremit/files/wgno26flyover.wmv.t
It's about 46 minutes long and in Windows Media format (I didn't create it and didn't feel like converting it).
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.
Salon: The Battle of New Orleans (Score:4, Informative)
The battle of New Orleans
Long before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was in a precarious state -- caught in an ongoing war with the mighty Mississippi River.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By John McPhee
Aug. 30, 2005 | For those watching the near-cataclysmic results of Hurricane Katrina, and wondering how New Orleans ever fell into such a precariously vulnerable position, John McPhee's great 1989 book "The Control of Nature" offers concrete answers. Each of the three parts of the book deals with a different region where man has been at war with nature: in Los Angeles, Iceland and, most important at this moment, the lower Mississippi River. Katrina is, of course, a case of nature waging war on man. But its damage and devastation may be felt all the more in places like New Orleans, where sturdy and deeply rooted men and women have faced off with the great river we call the Mississippi again and again. In this excerpt from "Atchafalaya," the first chapter from "The Control of Nature," McPhee draws affectionate portraits of the men of the Army Corps of Engineers and others who toil on behalf of "progress." Yet, it's clear which side he comes down on in these fights. His work reminds us that there are things more powerful than we are, and that nature, however hard we try to control it, will run its course.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Something like half of New Orleans is now below sea level -- as much as fifteen feet. New Orleans, surrounded by levees, is emplaced between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi like a broad shallow bowl. Nowhere is New Orleans higher than the river's natural bank. Underprivileged people live in the lower elevations, and always have. The rich -- by the river -- occupy the highest ground. In New Orleans, income and elevation can be correlated on a literally sliding scale: the Garden District on the highest level, Stanley Kowalski in the swamp. The Garden District and its environs are locally known as uptown.
Torrential rains fall on New Orleans -- enough to cause flash floods inside the municipal walls. The water has nowhere to go. Left on its own, it would form a lake, rising inexorably from one level of the economy to the next. So it has to be pumped out. Every drop of rain that falls on New Orleans evaporates or is pumped out. Its removal lowers the water table and accelerates the city's subsidence. Where marshes have been drained to create tracts for new housing, ground will shrink, too. People buy landfill to keep up with the Joneses. In the words of Bob Fairless, of the New Orleans District engineers, "It's almost an annual spring ritual to get a load of dirt and fill in the low spots on your lawn." A child jumping up and down on such a lawn can cause the earth to move under another child, on the far side of the lawn.
Many houses are built on slabs that firmly rest on pilings. As the turf around a house gradually subsides, the slab seems to rise. Where the driveway was once flush with the foor of the carport, a bump appears. The front walk sags like a hammock. The sidewalk sags. The bump up to the carport, growing, becomes high enough to knock the front wheels out of alignment. Sakrete appears, like putty beside a windowpane, to ease the bump. The property sinks another foot. The house stays where it is, on its slab and pilings. A ramp is built to get the car into the carport. The ramp rises three feet. But the yard, before long, has subsided four. The carport becomes a porch, with hanging plants and steep wooden steps. A carport that is not firmly anchored may dangle from the side of a house like a third of a drop-leaf table. Under the house, daylight appears. You can see under the slab and out the other side. More landfill or more concrete is packed around the edges to hide the ugly scene. A gas main, broken by the settling earth, leaks below the slab. The sealed cavity fills with gas. The house blows sky high.
"The people cannot have w
Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)
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:cities on floodplains? (Score:3, Informative)
My expereince is from a small working class town in central Texas when a Democrat was President and a ceartain Republican was still Govenor (pre-2000).
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, 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..)
mostly because he's an authoritarian thug (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No joking? Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sinking :Look at this from popularmechanics'01 (Score:4, Informative)
They don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in 1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction, these "cities of the dead" serve as a reminder of the Big Easy's vulnerability to flooding. The reason water rushes into graves is because New Orleans sits atop a delta made of unconsolidated material that has washed down the Mississippi River.
Think of the city as a chin jutting out, waiting for a one-two punch from Mother Nature. The first blow comes from the sky. Hurricanes plying the Gulf of Mexico push massive domes of water (storm surges) ahead of their swirling winds. After the surges hit, the second blow strikes from below. The same swampy delta ground that necessitates above-ground burials leaves water from the storm surge with no place to go but up.
The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998, today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
"In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96- to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane. Moving to higher elevations would be just as dangerous as staying on low ground. Had Camille, a Category 5 storm, made landfall at New Orleans, instead of losing her punch before arriving, her winds would have blown twice as hard and her storm surge would have been three times as high.
Yet knowing all this, area residents have made their potential problem worse. "Over the past 30 years, the coastal region impacted by Camille has changed dramatically. Coastal erosion combined with soaring commercial and residential development in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have all combined to significantly increase the vulnerability of the area," says Sandy Ward Eslinger, of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C. Early Warning
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a massive loss of lives.
The key is a new emergency warning system developed by Gregory Stone, a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). It is called WAVCIS, which stands for wave-current surge information system. Within 30 minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize resources--rescue personnel, the Red Cross, and so forth.
The $4.5 million WAVCIS project, which is now coming on line, will fill a major void in the Louisiana storm warning system, which was practically nonexistent compared to those of other Gulf Coast states. A system of 20 "weat
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
This, as I understand it, is one of the problems in the South: there are so many levees and damns on the river systems that exit around New Orleans to avoid minor flooding they exacerbate the major problems.
That and the destruction of the wetlands has removed a major buffer to storm surges.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:3, Informative)
True. But only a moron builds on a fault. Or in the immediate danger area of a volcano. Or in a flood plain. Or really needs a study to figure out what will happen if it lets loose
It is pretty obvious what would happen if a Cat5 hurricane struck New Orleans directly. Total disaster. Not much point in studying it.
Some risks can't be avoided (EQ's, storms in general). But building a city below sea level is just plain stupid. As is funding to rebuild it.
Sure help the people, provide disaster aid but don't make it so the problem repeats itself.
Re:On natural disasters... (Score:2, Informative)
As for coal hills catching on fire... I've lived here for almost 17 years and I've never heard of that happening anywhere near here. The mountains around here are mostly tourist things; most of the coal is already gone.
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, I don't think moving to a place where there are lots of "minor" earthquakes makes a whole lot of sense either. The sun comes out most everywhere, and I'll take "has had one really big earthquake in the last 250 years" over "has a fairly substantial quake every 6 months" any time.
Re:Your figures are a little off... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Your figures are a little off... (Score:3, Informative)
The Zuiderzee works are only a small part of the 'wall' around the Netherlands. It was created to make that wall a good bit shorter, like the Delta Works [wikipedia.org].
Given that the oldest wall-shaped water defenses date from around 200BC [www.rug.nl], and that the making of new dry land in the form of polders involved massive private ventures in the 17th and 18th centuries and were undertaken as big New Deal-like projects in the early 20th century, the real figure may still be pretty big.
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
New Orleans wasn't always below sea level, it only became that way from mans insistance that the Mississippi river never change course. Even if all the flood water gets pumped out this time, and all the homes and businesses get rebuilt, it will only be a matter of years before another hurricane hits the city. The next time, the city will be even further below sea level, and the river and the levees will be even higher and more prone to failure. The city is destined to dissappear in our lifetimes or in our children's lifetimes, it's only a matter of when.
URGENT -- PLEASE RELAY. (Score:3, Informative)
Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.
FEMA numbers to begin assistance process 1-800-621-FEMA or http://www.fema.gov./ [www.fema.gov]
(Disclaimer; I'm not associated with FEMA. Message copied from wwltv.com. AFAIA conserned this message is provided "as is".)
Re:why did all the pumps shut down? (Score:3, Informative)
A large number of the pumps seemed to have worked fine for a while... Some pumps on the west bank of the river are manually controlled diesel pumps (they're rarely needed) so those couldn't be started up...also their roofs blew off and they were claiming that no one could get to them to start things up.
They just built a brand new pumping station along the interstate along the evacuation route, and I believe those failed pretty quickly.
The last ones to go were just overwhelmed by the breach in the levee. Basically they were constantly pumping water into the lake, only to have it flow right back in. I can understand that a little bit more... They eventually overheated and shut down I believe.
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
This is something that only somebody who's lived under tyrannical socialism can understand.
Charles (from Budapest)
Re:Floodway for New Orleans (Score:2, Informative)
The report that started this Slashdot discussion mentioned that the main flooding would be
1) south of Lake Pontchartrain and north of the river; and
2) south of the river ie north of the lower lakes.
My suggestion is a dedicated ( very large ie 70+- km long) floodway that start further inland and runs south of the southern lakes - it should be capable of diverting a significant amount of water far away from the city. And the diverted water should either be stored in a reservoir or dumped back into the natural watershed well below Lake Salvador.
With the river water diverted south of the lower lakes the riverbed and canals ( and new dikes ) could then be used to divert the floodwaters from Lake Pontchartrain.
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:Salon: The Battle of New Orleans (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
And as an addendum to my other reply, I found this quote from wikipedia:
"[Chavez] said that Venezuelans must choose between 'capitalism, which is the road to hell, or socialism, for those who want to build the kingdom of God here on earth.'"
Re:Let the Bush Bashing Begin (Score:2, Informative)
The funding for the Army Corps of Engineers has increased every year since at least 2002.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy04/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf [gpoaccess.gov]
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf [gpoaccess.gov]
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf [gpoaccess.gov]
2002: 4.6 Billion 2003: 4.7 Billion 2004: 4.8 Billion 2005: 4.9 Billion (estimate)
Are you really asking congress to investigate how the lower budget in 2006 was responsible for the hurricane damage in 2005?
Re:Perhaps it is time to abandon it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why are all the looters black? (Score:1, Informative)
That doesn't explan all the looting, but the Wal-Mart was where it was worst. That Wal-Mart was gutted, and when you think about that, it's definately a feat to pull off - removing every single item of any value from a store that big, without any real vehicles or equipment, in a matter of hours.
Re:And yet nothing was done... (Score:3, Informative)
Nit-pick: The Causeway ends in Metairie, Jeff Parish. On the East Bank I can't remember where Jeff ends and Orleans begins, but I do know Causeway ain't it.
"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."
Uh... no. Assuming they would allow pedestrians on the interstate in an emergency, starting west of I-310 in St. Charles Parish and going well into St. John, I-10 is elevated over water, probably not the best stretch of road to be caught on when the storm starts coming.
Airline is even worse. For example, the Airline/I-310 exchange is notorious for being the first place in St. Charles to go underwater when it starts to rain, even though that's supposedly part of the hurricane evacuation route for St. Charles Parish. Closer Orleans, I hear Airline is closed and sandbagged over in order to suplement the levees there.
As for LaP lace itself, if Lake Pontchartrain has breached the levee in Orleans Parish, why do you believe the situation is any better for other parishes on the lake?
"the emergency services currently being used to airlift Boudreaux, Scioneaux and Arceneaux (yes, those are real names) off the roofs of their houses"
You forgot Thibodaux, or is he still waiting for the airlift?
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
When it eventually gets across the atlantic a week or two later it will not be that strong anymore, more a big atlantic depression, plus it typically first has to cross Ireland and the UK to get to the Netherlands, which tend to dissipate even more energy.
The only hurricane I can think of which hit the NL and UK was in 1987, it actually originated from the Bay of Biscay, strangely. Wind speeds were recorded of 70 to 100 knots by the british met service. (1 knot is greater than 1mph).
Atlantic storms with wind speeds of anywhere from 30 to 50 knots are a bit more typical over here, particularly during the winter.
Re:mostly because he's an authoritarian thug (Score:3, Informative)
You left out the fact that this President Carlos Andrés Pérez [wikipedia.org] was impeached and convicted on corruption charges in 1993. The fact that Chavez tried to oust him actually made him more popular in Venezuela.
Pérez was a bizarre president.
In his first term he ranted against the International Monetary Fund calling it ""Neutron Bomb that killed people, but left buildings standing.". At the start of his second term he took a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF with all the nasty strings that come with those.
Pérez is actually the one that nationalized American oil and steel interests in Venezuela which presumably put him on America's hit list. You have to wonder if maybe the U.S. wasn't backing Chavez's coup attempt at the time. America HATES it when a Socialist nationalizes American business assets.
"Arrested Roberto Alonso, one of the main opposition leaders, on trumped-up charges"
That one is certainly open to debate and depends on who you listen to. It may also be that he had 55 Columbian paramilitaries on his ranch in Venezuela as part of a new coup attempt in 2004 [wikipedia.org]. The right wing government in Columbia is best friends with the right wing government in Washington and they both HAVE been trying to overthrow Chavez. Though its impossible to tell who is telling the truth on this one exactly.
This is the most interesting part of the Wikipedia article on the supposed 2004 coup attempt:
"In June 2004, a Cuban Miami TV channel broadcasted a program featuring the Florida-based Comandos F4. Rodolfo Frometa, the Comandos F4 leader, said that his group was ready to carry out violent attacks against the Cuban government. Former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo García described the help he received from Comandos F4 to organize similar violent actions against the Chávez government. According to the TV program maker Randy Alonso, the US government would have recently earmarked $36 million to support such paramilitary groups. [7] U.S. officials and opposition figures in Venezuela have dismissed this claim. Alonso went into hiding. Many media reports, and his official website, suggested that he had fled the country."
"Maintains a sizable paramilitary militia loyal to him personally, outside the normal civilian and military command and oversight structures"
Uh so, this is not suprising when under constant threat of coup attempts which is Chavez and are high on the Bush administration's list of people it would most like to topple or assassinate. Interestingly the Army that staged the coup against Chavez put him back in power when they realized they guy trying to seize power with Bush administration backing, Pedro Carmona Estanga, was going to implement a dictatorship. Chavez appointed the army officer who lead the coup to his government soon after, pretty crafty.
Re:Water City (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Shoe is on the other foot now... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm also not sure about most of federal spending being in the North. The North had far more infrastructure, to be sure, but it was paid for parimarily by private money, and secondarily by state funds. The age of federally funded improvements really only came in 1864, when the Republican Congress enacted the Homestead Act, transcontinental railroad subsidies, land grant schools, etc. And then, as now, most military spending was concentrated in the South and West.
So in the absence of sources, I don't believe a word of your snark.
Re:America "chernobyl". Just walk away (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about blaming Louisiana? (Score:2, Informative)
New Orleans has 1.3 million in the metropolitan area. The brunt of the storm hit Biloxi, MS and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that an excess of 700,000 people lost their homes outside of metro New Orleans. Thus bringing my incredible underestimation to 2 million, and two is definately plural.
Answer: (Score:4, Informative)
I have two words for you: PRIVATE FUNDING.
You want to live below sea level in a hurricane zone? Fine by me, but don't ask me to bail you out. Want to build a million dollar house at the beach? Fine, but don't ask me to spend billions of dollars to rebuild the beach for you.
It all goes back to foolish people doing foolish things. If it were me, I'd deny insurance claims to anyone wanting to rebuild, and I'd require that anyone rebuilding MUST place their first floor above sea level on a flood-resistant foudnation which can withstand 145mph winds.
What? That sounds too extreme? Guess what, dumbshit, THAT'S THE THE REQUIREMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL (i.e. US) BUILDING CODE!* They rebuild all these historic strucutres without these requirements because they've been "grandfathered". They shouldn't be rebuilt.
*I happen to be a strucutral engineer, and have the building code next to me. I design flood foundations. I design for hurricane winds. I happen to know that most builders and building officials outside of Florida wouldn't know proper high-wind construction if it fell on them. And as for the 145mph winds...well, grab a copy of ASCE 7-02 "Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures". Page 37. The 140MPH contour happens to pass right over Lake Ponchitrain. The next contour, which covers the entire coastal area is 150MPH. In fact, the entire coast from Houma, LA through MS and AL all the way to the FL border is a 150MPH zone. If all the buildings were up to code, there wouldn't have been anything but extremely isolated structural damage. But you don't listen. So you die.
I'd like my 7mil in cash, if you wouldn't mind.
Re:Prevent? (Score:2, Informative)
Volcanos spew out large amounts of volcanic ash and lava, which quickly becomes excellent soil to grow stuff in.
Re:Water City (Score:4, Informative)
The refineries aren't that badly damaged. The problem is that they have no power. As for higher prices, there's a more immediate concern: The gas and oil pipelines in the region have no power. They may not get power for another two weeks. Atlanta has not received new gasoline in two days. Retailers typically have a ten day reserve.
So my immediate concern is not how much gas will cost but whether there will be gas to buy at all. I guess we won't be driving to Grandma's for Labor Day after all.
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:2, Informative)
Seattle too... (Score:3, Informative)
In many places the second floor simply became the first floor while the first floor ended up being underground.
There's even a small tourist business around giving tours of the accessible parts.
http://www.undergroundtour.com/ [undergroundtour.com]
Flood insurance (Score:3, Informative)
I wish the government would figure this out too. The homeowners in the area with homeowner's insurance are covered for damage due to wind and wind-driven rain, just not flooding.
The problem with the first floor idea is that there are 3 story buildings with the roof just sticking out of the water. You'd have to add at least 3 or 4 stories of building to be sacrificed to flooding, at which point it makes more sense to raise the ground level to at least 10 feet above sea level.
Re:Water City (Score:2, Informative)
Over the next century, sea level is most likely to rise 55-60 cm along most of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
Where the hell did you get 30 feet from?
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
Worldwide, although ocean temperatures have risen, the overall number and strength of cyclones have not.
Ahh, but total energy consumption by hurricanes over the last few decades has increased worldwide because they are lasting longer. Here's a quote from an interview [democracynow.org] with Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
"[When you look at] their intensity and you look at how long the hurricanes lasted and you measure the total amount of energy released by the hurricanes, that is going up decidedly in most of the world's oceans, and we have tried very hard to see whether this might be an artifact of the way hurricanes are measured or the data, but no matter what you do, you get this signal. And that signal lies on top of regional phenomena."
Not Insightful (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Water City (Score:2, Informative)
New record gasoline price (even with inflation) (Score:3, Informative)
The record high price for gasoline (set in August, 1981), adjusted for inflation, works out to $3.08 / gallon in today's money. Stations in the Kansas City area BROKE that record, this afternoon. We do not, by any stretch, have the highest prices in the nation.
Many of our refineries are in the Gulf Coast region, and shut down and/or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. There's the choke point in the supply / demand equation. The price of crude has hit records, as well, but Uncle Sam is releasing some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to try to keep that from going too high.
Re:This is a massively sad event, and we get jokes (Score:3, Informative)
Commerce determines where a city is best built - not safety.
satellite pics, before and after (Score:3, Informative)
and
after, on the 30th [nasa.gov].
Note that these are false color images: clouds are white and light blue, land is green, water is darker blue or blue-grey.