The humanitarian crisis is largely over...

[Checkmite]

...so lets get down to brass tacks. How could New Orleans be rebuilt safer? Just rebuild and reinforce the levees? Turn it into a Venice-type thing?

Obviously abandoning the city and rebuilding the marshes can't happen, so what then?

 

[KillerBob]

...so lets get down to brass tacks. How could New Orleans be rebuilt safer? Just rebuild and reinforce the levees? Turn it into a Venice-type thing?

Obviously abandoning the city and rebuilding the marshes can't happen, so what then?

If I remember right, New Orleans already has more miles of canals than Venice. Hurricanes are obviously the disaster scenario and more canals just equals more places that the water can rise.

From the info I've read on the problem, the short term fix is to build up and reinforce the levees and also update the pump system to be able to pump more and continue pumping when the water rises.

Long term, more needs to be done to get the Mississippi back to where it's dumping more of it's silt in the Delta than the Gulf. Over the long haul, that can rebuild the buffer zone between NOLA and the Gulf.


On a personal note, I'd like to see less silt going in the Gulf, too. I live near Galveston and the Gulf currents steer a large amount of that silt right to our shores. Hence, my profile location of "The Gulf of Yoo-Hoo", 'cause it's just dirty brown beach water here...

 

[Rolfe]

The humanitarian crisis is WHAT????

You've got a people holed up all over NO in upper floors too scared or too immobile to get out, many of them elderly or invalid, you've got about a million people displaced and homeless, many living on camp beds in sports stadiums with about 6 feet square to their names.... This is some new definition of "largely over" I was clearly unaware of.

Just one example. Note the date.

Rolfe.

 

[SezMe]

I second Rolfe. I think the crisis is just beginning. It is in all the news now, but what about, say, three months from now. It'll be off the front page but people will still not have homes, jobs, clothes, etc. and the money will be down to a trickle.

Then resentment will begin to creep in. NOLA people who get preferential treatment for jobs will be hated by others who are out of work but don't have a crisis to justify special treatment. Those people who took in refugees will find their generosity wearing thin. And what can they do - kick the poor blighter out?

And towns and cities like Houston are going to see a huge drain on their resources and budgets. Crime will rise. Public health will be threatened.

And on and on and on. No, the worst is yet to come when it is no longer news but the effects pile up. Whether and how to rebuild NOLA is probably one of the easiest problems that will have to be dealt with.

 

[a_unique_person]

...so lets get down to brass tacks. How could New Orleans be rebuilt safer? Just rebuild and reinforce the levees? Turn it into a Venice-type thing?

Obviously abandoning the city and rebuilding the marshes can't happen, so what then?

Sorry to dissapoint you, but it has only just started.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world...best-of-despair/2005/09/04/1125772409272.html

HURRICANE Katrina ripped families and lives apart — brothers from sisters, mothers from babies, even family pets from their owners.

At the River Centre in Baton Rouge, now home to 5000 people, Red Cross workers tried to reunite children with parents.

They had a list of 28 children whose parents were looking for them. They managed to find only one.

In the rush to evacuate New Orleans, some parents sent their children out of the city with relatives, neighbours or friends.

With communications destroyed by the storm, they had no idea where they had gone. In some cases, mothers were separated from new-born babies who became stranded in maternity wards.

At a reception centre in Alexandria, Louisiana, people had left messages for loved ones: "I am Michael Remble. We just left ground zero headed for Dallas, Texas. Would you let my family know this. Dallas may be my new home if the Lord say the same. Today is a Blessing for all that was in the political sespol (sic) called the SuperDome. Thanks for listening."

On the streets of surrounding cities, anxiety and relief co-existed.

Keisel Walker burst into tears when she saw her brother George Bailey.

"Thank Jesus, thank Jesus," she said, her arms wrapped around him as her five children stood on the street corner.

In the 38-degree heat, Terry and Phillip Bailey waited in line for food vouchers. They had fled New Orleans on Sunday as the hurricane approached the city. They took two changes of clothes, thinking they would be back by Tuesday.

They had to borrow money from relatives, as their bank's computer system had been flooded, making its ATM network useless.

Phillip Bailey works at the city's convention centre. They had considered sheltering there during the storm, but decided to get out of the city instead, a decision they had not regretted. However, he said, he believed his job was now in jeopardy, as there would be no events at the convention centre for the rest of the year.

As well as the prospect of no job, he did not know if they would have a house to go home to.

 

[SlippyToad]

...so lets get down to brass tacks. How could New Orleans be rebuilt safer? Just rebuild and reinforce the levees? Turn it into a Venice-type thing?

Obviously abandoning the city and rebuilding the marshes can't happen, so what then?

Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, thinks we should bulldoze it, dontcha know?

Of course, he's since (feebly) apologized, but in the meantime Bill Clinton is once again my man. I'd seriously enjoy seeing him take that pimply bastige to the mat.

 

[davefoc]

I don't know which of the many suggestions will lead to a permanent solution but it will probably be a combination of many of them including letting more of the silt dump naturally into the delta which will probably mean abandoning some communities and refineries on the delta itself.

Although it hasn't been suggested I wonder if it would be possible to eliminate housing and businesses from some of the lowest areas of the city. Perhaps these areas can be replaced with parks or even ponds which could help with ground water replenishment. In some of the marginally high enough areas houses can be raised on stilts. I watched a televison story on this today. It costs about $12 a foot to raise a house and I would guess about the same amount to build a foundation under it.

It would also be nice if the city fathers developed some evacuation plancs that took advantages of resources like school buses to move people to higher ground in an emergency.