The city of New Orleans is no longer

[redsoxliberal]

The head of Orleans parish has said that apart from people returning to retrieve essentials from their houses (and only with IDs) people will have to leave for months.
The school district has indicated that school will also not take place for months.
75%+ of the city is still under water... Canal St. has become a canal... hundreds if not thousands are feared dead in New Orleans alone.

Anyone who wants to pick up their life, continue their education and move on will have to do so elsewhere... it may take a year just to become a viable place to live again if your house wasn't destroyed.
After a year, will people be willing to return to a place that has had to start from scratch again? A place where, given only days of notice the same thing could happen again? A place where perhaps thousands of their neighbours have been killed? My guess is no.

So should the city be rebuild?
Economically, it is obviously a neccessity to have a port there. It is the biggest port to the Mississippi river and essential for trade.
If it is to be rebuilt in the same spot, then the levees must be strnegthened tenfold, there must be landfill throughout the city (serious environmental concerns with this,) and suburbs must also have this treatment.
There are two other options... the city of New Orleans (perhaps under the same name, perhaps under a different one,) could be built again on higher ground in a different spot on the river but still right near the gulf of Mexico... this would be difficult as much of that area of Louisiana is under water level as well.
So, should the massive port of New Orleans then be transported to another city already in existence on the Mississippi, or at least close enough where the goods would have an easy trip to get to the Mississippi? Mobile, Alabama? Not on the Mississippi, but perhaps close enough?

What should be done?

[lpbk2713]

1. They might as well just write it off ....

This is the beginning of the end of low-lying coastal areas unless something can be done about global warming, which is doubtful. Time to face the reality of the situation.

[KamaAina]

2. Someone went through that whole "relocate N.O." thing yesterday

Trouble is, there just is not a whole lot of high ground on the Mississippi until you get clear up almost to Baton Rouge. Thus, really, all you would be doing would be expanding Baton Rouge.

As for the Port of Mobile, there is, and has been for years, the almost unused Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway connecting the Port of Mobile to the Ohio River shipping. It is now used mainly by pleasure craft.

[RPM]

19. widen the canal... move the business there... keep teh french qtr

and only have 60,000 people there - that's what the land was able to support naturally a long time ago...

[tigereye]

3. isn't this kind of an extreme reaction?

humans are very resilient. I expect much aid and money will come to the area. Would people really want to leave the area where they have always lived?

[redsoxliberal]

4. but to be removed for a year... how many would move back?

how many could?

[KitchenWitch]

20. Take a look at the history of Grand Forks ND

and then ask that question.

[redsoxliberal]

24. what happened?

[KitchenWitch]

26. They have fairly serious flooding every year

The worst of which was in 1997, and they rebuild in the same places.

[redsoxliberal]

27. the water does seep away does it not?

New Orleans is a bowl.
I doubt very much it floods to the same degree that New Orleans has... 80% of the city is UNDER WATER.

[KitchenWitch]

28. At least 80% of the city of Grand Forks was under water in 1997

and there were major fires downtown, and there was nothing anyone could do about it...

The Red River of the North is a capricious beast up there. A lot of the areas northward of the flood had not thawed yet, so there really was nowhere for the water to go (the river flows north to the Arctic).

[redsoxliberal]

29. very interesting info... heartening towards the situation in New Orleans

the difference, I think, is that in N.O. the water cannot recede... it just keeps building up.

[KitchenWitch]

31. I am just saying that they will likely rebuild in NO

Just like they do in the flood plains along the entire Mississippi River and the Red River of the North.

[spinbaby]

5. That place isn't there anymore

They won't be able to return to where they've always lived because that place has drowned.

[TankLV]

17. Galvaston was once Texas' largest city and was thriving until

a hurricane wiped it out.

It was never "re-built". That decision spawned the birth of Houston into the large important metropolis it is now.

I could predict the same for NO, except there is a LOT of $$$$$$ invested there already.

[derby378]

22. Uh, dude...

Galveston not only still exists, but it's become Texas' second busiest port because of cruise ships.

Nice place, too. You can find better beaches, sure, but Galveston is all right by me.

[Terran]

6. I think this is an exaggeration

I think it would take a much much MUCH worse disaster than this to make people abandon a whole city, especially one the size and importance of New Orleans. I also doubt it will take a year to re-inhabit. Flood waters recede (or will get pumped out in this case) and people come and start cleaning up. People have their stake in the city--they have land, they have businesses, they have history and family--any number of reasons to stay. And they will bank on the probability that this won't happen again for a long time.

[WeRQ4U]

8. I agree. People are resilient and powerful when they join together

They will rebuild. They won't just get up and walk away.

[markus]

7. Yes

[blindpig]

9. lost cause

The guarantee of rising sea levels makes rebuilding a town already below sea level madness. This is likely just the 1st of calamities brought on by our hubris. All coastal areas are endangered, my hometown of Baltimore will go, bye and bye.

Rebuilding will just give false home to people and put them in continued danger. That and throw tremendous amounts of money to exploitaive contractors.

I grieve for the people of NO, by all accounts one of the coolest cities in the US and one that I never got to see due to procrastination. Sigh.

[RPM]

21. Come to Pittsburgh

It's like the baltimore of the mountains.

i'll buy you a beer :toast:

[elfrangel]

10. This is WAY too premature

You make some good points, but Florida is surrounded by coastline on 3 sides and people FLOCK to it. Hugo, Ivan...did serious damage as well, but they rebuilt. New Orleans will too. It may not be exactly the same, it may even improve.

Let's be really hopeful and think that this major undertaking, which has yet to begin, will spark some good ol' fashioned american ingenuity. Let's get out of our complacency and really show these people what we're about.

We started out as people fighting to have a tract of land to squat on, WHY would we throw it away now??? What happened to determination and beating the odds????

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. But NO is in a unique position, geographically, that no other

city in the hurricane belt has --> the fact that it sits in a big ass bowl.

Other cities, such as Florida etc., will fill with water, but then the water will flow back out to the rivers and ocean and lakes, etc.

New Orleans, however, once it floods, the water has nowhere to flow. Water continues to flow IN to the city until they can rebuild the levees.

And the fact of its bowlness, and the fact that if it floods that flood is ipso facto CATASTROPHIC flooding, might very well be the doom of New Orleans re-existing where it is. Or it will require years to rebuild it properly with greater protection with higher and more strudy (and fuck-all more expensive) levees.

I can easily imagine a scenario in which they don't rebuild the city to what it was, but either abandon it, or make it very different from what it was.

And remember, also, that even if it CAN be rebuilt, it's gonna be years - after people have lived somewhere else for two years or more, what's the chance they'll want to leave that place to go back to a new New Orleans? If it were me, I very well might call the new place home and have no desire to go back to something that is no longer the city that I left.

[redsoxliberal]

15. exactly right... I don't know if it's worth risking millions of lives

purely for nostalgia.

[katty]

12. First, get the water pumped out! People need to make other

plans-it's very traumatic, but they need to make a decision and get themselves situated elsewhere asap (so they might be able to have a bit of a breather to think things through).

[Mick Knox]

13. It will be rebuilt

And faster than predicted IMO.

People say this stuff after every disaster.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

14. It will be rebuilt.

That city has been there for Centuries. They'll rebuild. It's not going anywhere.
Duckie

[RummyTheDummy]

18. Indeed....

This is not New Orleans' first rodeo, as we say in the Midwest.

[RummyTheDummy]

16. Shouldn't this be over in GD

I'm sure it would be welcomed with open arms by all the hysteria/panic/misery addicts over there.

[derby378]

23. If the history students in the classroom will please recall...

...Chicago suffered far worse than New Orleans, and look how it rebounded.

[redsoxliberal]

25. PLEASE... a fire could happen in any city...

the extent of the flooding could ONLY be seen in New Orleans or Bangledesh.

And, don't forget... the flooding will only get worse until the levees and pumps are fixed.
Water is rising, and will continue to rise 21" per HOUR in some locations in New Orleans.

Tomorrow morning even roads that were dry today will have 5'+ on them unless the pumps begin to work.

[sasquatch]

32. Massive city fires were common in that time period though

The city's were rebuilt because of their geological importance in trade or politics. I'm quite unsure of what's the best solution to NO's problems but something must be done.

[kool kitty streblin]

30. .

Que Sera Sera




the big easy will survive