After all the city is Below Sea Level and was built by the French…
Or we could use this opputtunity to build a “NEW” New Orleans with a world class light rail system and state of the art wired houses. But this time perhaps a few miiles inland
hmmm was chicago rebuilt??? was san francisco?of course.new orleans is a vital export import city in the united states.thats why it was fought over in the first place.
stay safe
joe
The current site of New Orleans is located at the point where the Mississippi River is no longer navigable by Panamax ships, so it makes the ideal site for a world class port. Whether NO is rebuilt with higher levees, or is elevated to a certain height above sea level, makes no difference. We will rebuild NO, because that’s what we Americans do.
I wonder if the exclusive frranchise for “Stilts Are Us” is available?
It’s very hard too say…
Allan.
I really don’t think there’s a choice… What do you do with all the property that’s owned? Just tell those people they are out of luck? The insurance won’t pay for a whole property, and I doubt the government will. So that leaves rebuilding.
Dave
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http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/
New Orleans needs to become the focal point for an upcoming episode of the History Channel’s ‘Great Engineering Disasters’. The disaster of New Orleans is the failure of the levee’s…the fact that it was instigated by Hurricane Katrina is for the most part coincidental…as the system could just as easily have failed with some 2 inch an hour Afternoon Thunderstorms hanging over the Lake Ponchatrain watershed for 10 to 12 hours (which can occur).
Perhaps they should rebuild New Orleans with these house-boats the Dutch are developing which can rise with the water.
You might want to check in with some of the victims of the Mississippi River flooding a few years ago. They rebuilt - on higher ground. IIRC, several complete communities moved. Nothing on the scale of NO, but it’s obvious that the current situation there is not acceptable.
Without a doubt, if New Orleans hadn’t already been there for over 275 years, a city would not be built on that location. But, since a city of half a million people is already there, relocation is not a realistic option and rebuilding will take place. The form that the rebuilt New Orleans will take is going to be subject to a long, acrimonious and occasionally ugly debate, but it will be rebuilt.
I think we need to get the French to honor the warranty that came with the Louisianna Purchase. NO has an obvious manufacturing defect!
Always remember the assistance provided by the French during the Revolutionary War by the Marquis de Lafayette and others, such as the French fleet that kept a British supply fleet from landing at Yorktown and resupplying Cornwallis in 1781.
Part of the city certainly should be. As noted above, New Orleans is a major port and transportation hub. That said, I am horrified and dismayed at the hubris (a particularly vile form of blind pride) of Man that supposes – even for an instant – that building in a place which is obviously going to be hit by a natural disaster of this sort (flooding) is supportable. The supposition is that ‘something’ can be done to keep the natural disaster from happening, or from damaging what is built. In some cases, this may be true, up to a point: Joe makes a comparison with Chicago (which, along with Boston, London, New York, and a bunch of other cities) was damaged extensively by fire. I have to disagree, Joe, but this wasn’t a natural disaster, but a man-made one, and as such is subject to Man’s control – and correction. Oddly, San Francisco was also largely destroyed by fire, not the earthquake. Can an earthquake be controlled? No hope. But the damage from it can be significantly reduced. Should there be extensive building/rebuilding in earthquake-prone areas? very honestly, I don’t think so. Should there be building or rebuilding in flood prone areas (including beaches and barrier islands!)? Absolutely not, except for facilities which are must be there, such as in the case of New Orleans, the port facilities.
There will be, though… sadly… ‘it can’t happen again’ or ‘it can’t happen to me’ or ‘THEY will protect my below sea level house’ will be the order of the day. Oh well…
Many people, including former high school wrestling coach Denny Hastert, seem to think New Orleans is nothing more than Mardi-gras, tourism, and a bunch of folks on welfare. It is the most critical port and transportation center in the U.S., far more important than Long Beach. Imports and exports from every area served by the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and tributaries flow through it. It’s also a major rail and trucking center and has one of the few terminals able to directly unload supertankers. Saying it shouldn’t be rebuilt would be the rail equivalent of saying we shouldn’t run ANY trains through Chicago in order to solve the congestion problem. I suspect a lot of Illinois farmers will take issue with Hastert.
It’s relatively easy to patch the levees and get the industrial infrastructure, the refineries, chemical plants, and docks fixed, but the problem is who’s going to operate them and where will they live. Many of these jobs don’t pay that well so there’s a lot of working poor. These people need services - food, garbage, police, fire, and these jobs don’t pay really well either. The problem with re-developed high-tech cities is the service people can’t afford to live there. This is already happening in Colorado as well as many areas re-discovered for redevelopment in other older cities.
Whether one buys into the theories on Global Warming, it is a fact that sea levels are rising and other critical coastal cities are also in danger. One example that was destroyed by a Hurricane in the past is Galveston. And a major Hurricane almost hit NYC a few years back, another city very close to sea level. I don’t want to get into all the finger pointing as to who should have done what, rather what’s disturbing to me is that 5 years after 9-11 and billions spent on Homeland Security, things are more disorganized than before with many of the exact same problems.
My understanding of the Hurricane models for NO is that a Cat 5 storm surge would over-top the levees and re
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by up829
Many people, including former high school wrestling coach Denny Hastert, seem to think New Orleans is nothing more than Mardi-gras, tourism, and a bunch of folks on welfare. It is the most critical port and transportation center in the U.S., far more important than Long Beach. Imports and exports from every area served by the Missippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and tributaries flow through it. It’s also a major rail and trucking center amd has one of the few terminals able to directly unload supertankers. Saying it shouldn’t be rebuilt would be the rail equivalent of saying we shouldn’t run ANY trains through Chicago in order to solve the congestion problem. I suspect a lot of Illinois farmers will take issue with Hastert.
It’s relatively easy to patch the levees and get the industrial infrastructure, the refineries, chemical plants, and docks fixed, but the problem is who’s going to operate them and where will they live. Many of these jobs don’t pay that well so there’s a lot of working poor. These people need services - food, garbage, police, fire, and these jobs don’t pay really well either. The problem with re-developed high-tech cities is the service people can’t afford to live there. This is already happening in Colorado as well as many areas re-discovered for redevelopment in other older cities.
Whether one buys into the theories on Global Warming, it is a fact that sea levels are rising and other critical coastal cities are also in danger. One example that was destroyed by a Hurricane in the past is Galveston. And a major Hurricane almost hit NYC a few years back, another city very close to sea level. I don’t want to get into all the finger pointing as to who should have done what, rather what’s disturbing to me is that 5 years after 9-11 and billions spent on Homeland Security, things are more disorganized than before with many of the exact same problems.
My understanding of the Hurricane models for NO is
Major cities have been relocated in the past so there doesn’t seem to be any reason why you couldn’t chose that option. Obviously there would be a ton of details to work out and there would be problems galore. Another possibility is to do what Galveston did after the hurricane of 1900 - raise the town. Since the current verbiage suggests a huge portion of the town will have to be torn down completely there is the possibility of filling in to raise the town to at least sea level before starting with a rebuild effort. Would that be a lot of dirt - you bet but again, its been done before.
Yes indeed, both Chicago and SF were rebuilt…by the people who lived in those cities, NOT the Federal Government. If the people of NO want to continue to have their city in the same spot and accept the risks of living in that “bowl” then, fine, let them rebuild it, but NOT with our Federal tax dollars being used.
Perhaps they could raise it with trash. I know they make artificial hills out of garbage (and build on them)…why can’t they build a city on it? It’s a win-win, save some landfill room and rebuild NO.
[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]
We could make a lot of stilts out of that Eifel tower.[;)][:D][8D]
Should NO be rebuilt? Yes, but with a very thick layer of UV resistant polyurethane…