Re: No Money for China?
I'm in favor of burrying New Orleans (the city, not the people) under about 20' of sand and rock and rebuilding it all over again on top. It wouldn't be the first city to do that, either... Seattle did something like that, and it worked out pretty well for them... What would you, as a resident there, think of something like that?
I would not try to raise the entire city. While the population was never particularly high (and is even less now), it is a large city geographically. From the most eastern point of the populated areas, to the Parish line on the west side, it is about 20 miles wide. From north to south at the tallest point, there is about 7 - 8 miles in distance. Given the irregular shape of the city, I'll "guestimate" the square mile size at about 125 - 130. With this much area involved, I just don't see trying to fill it as a cost effective solution.
In order to understand how New Orleans got to the point where it could be so immensely destroyed by a hurricane, it is important to understand just what happened here, and it is important to understand the history of the development of the city.
First, New Orleans was situated in its current location because doing so made sense. There was a natural high point (obviously a relative term) along the "esplande ridge" and there was easy access to both the river and Lake Ponchartrain. Even given this higher terrain, however, flooding was a problem in the early years of the city. Because of this, the first levees were built in the early 1700s, and such was the beginning of the struggle against the Mississippi River and storm flooding.
If we "fast forward" to the fifties and sixties, the beginning of the modern day problems can be seen. By the time those "boom years" occurred, New Orleans had both an effective pump system in place and an extensive grid of levees. Because of these things, I think a very serious sense of false comfort existed, the result of which was quite a bit of home construction featuring living areas at or close to ground level. In particular, the nationwide trend towards building single story, slab mounted ranch houses, became popular here too. Even the houses that were not slab mounted tended to be mounted on short, cinder block piers. These houses were/are typically only about three feet above grade.
After Hurricane Betsy, in 1965, there was renewed interest in protecting not only New Orleans, but many areas across the U.S., from the effects of flooding. The Flood Control Act of 1965 tasked the "Chief of Engineers (Army Corps of Engineers) to design and construct, among other things, flood control structures around the country, With respect to New Orleans, what was a key issue in the situation, is that the responsibility to design and contruct levees in the region, became the responsibility of the Army Corps, not local or State agencies. Sadly, we have since learned that the Corps didn't do a very good job of doing so. I know there is a lot of debate about this issue but even the Corps has acknowledged this fact.
So, what to do now? Two things, I think. First, the entire country, who's dollars are being used to finance the extensive flood control and levee projects going on in my city right now, must demand that the Corps do a proper job of its work. Second, we as citizens in this area must change the way we live. In particular, one of the most important things that we must do is to return to a construction method that the earliest settlers of the French Quarter adopted - namely, to build houses so that the living areas were a minimum of eight feet off of the ground. To continue to build slab houses and slightly raised houses is folly. I also think that use of sheetrock on any level that may be susceptable to flooding needs to stop, because much of the problem that we experienced was directly related to having to rip the stuff out for mold remediation.
New Orleans is a vibrant city that contributes much to the Country both economically and in terms of culture. It can and should be saved and the lessons learned in our disaster should be used to better our ability to respond to emergency needs in other parts of the country. There is also no reason why we can't become as good as the Dutch at keeping water out of places that we don't want it.
And, for those that think that New Orleans is the only place with flooding problems, consider the list of places that Congress felt needed protecting in 1965:
St John River Basin, Maine
Housatonic River Basin, Connecticut
New England - Atlantic Coastal Area
Long Island Sound
New York - Atlantic Coastal Area
Elizabeth River Basin, New Jersey
Rahway River Basin, New Jersey
Neuse River Basin, North Carolina
Middle Atlantic Coastal Area
Flint River Basin, Georgia
Central and Southern Florida Basin
South Atlantic Coastal Area
Phillippi Creek Basin, Florida
Lower Mississippi River Basin, adapting the Birds Point - New Madrid project enacted by 45 Stat. 34 at an estimated cost of $189,109,000
General Projects - Grand Isle, Morgan City, and Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana (Lake Ponchartrain at a cost of $56,235,000)
Ouchita River Basin, Louisiana
Red River Basin, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas
Gulf of Mexico - various bayous in Texas
Rio Grande Basin, Texas at a cost of $12,493,000
Arkansas River Basin, as authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1946 - various creeks and rivers in Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas
Missouri River Basin - various creeks and rivers in Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, and Montana
Ohio River Basin - various creeks and rivers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia
Red River of the North Basin
Upper Mississippi River Basin - various projects in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota and South Dakota
Great Lakes Basin
Little Colorado River Basin
Gila River Basin, Arizona
Eel River, Whitewater River, Santa Ana River, Sacramento River, San Diego River Basins, California
San Francisco Bay Area
Columbia River Basin, Oregon and Washington
As someone said earlier, what are we going to do, borrow money from them to donate to them? We should never donate relief aid to countries we owe, instead we should take that time as an opportunity to pay back a larger portion of the debt than we would have otherwise paid.
