Eerily prophetic

[unixronin]

This article starts out reading exactly like a description of Katrina .... but National Geographic printed it in April 2001.  The article makes the telling point that even without development eating away at its barrier wetlands, New Orleans' days were numbered: it loses approximately two acres of protective wetlands and barrier islands per hour to the Gulf of Mexico, 25 square miles a year, 1,900 square miles since the 1930s.  That's like the entire state of Delaware washing away in seventy years.  Part of the problem is the oil development in the Gulf and southern Louisiana -- guess what?  You pump oil and gas out of the ground, the ground sinks.

You know what we really need to do about New Orleans?  We need to get the remaining people out, maybe cofferdam the French Quarter to preserve it as a historic area ... then dynamite the Mississippi and Pontchartrain levees and stop trying to fight nature there.  Because whether the levees hold or not, it's a fight we're losing.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Long as we build our port facilities at and above sea level (which is sort of a requirement for a port anyway ... they're not too useful submerged), the port doesn't need the levees.

Anything capable of doing this to an Interstate bridge....

[msa.livejournal.com]

Would still demolish a port:


Ouch (http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/i-10bridge_aug31_2005_dg.jpg)



We need to be better prepared for things, but I really wouldn't suggest not rebuilding, and it pisses me off to watch congresscritters do so.

They can't be serious, unless they intend never to rebuild anything in New York after a terrorist attack, and never rebuild Anchorage/Seattle/San Francisco/San Jose/LA and St. Louis after earthquakes, never rebuild DC for any reason at all, etc.

Sure, there are definitely smarter ways to build things, but ports breed cities, and that location pretty much has to have a port. Between oil coming in from overseas, and oil offshore, and that whole access to the rest of the country via the Mississippi thing.

Re: Anything capable of doing this to an Interstate bridge....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it'd still do damage, no argument.

I'm not saying, "Don't reconstruct the port facilities." Just that rebuilding the below-sea-level parts of New Orleans (which is to say, about 80% of it) isn't a very smart idea, especially when the levees required to prevent it from flooding are making the situation worse year by year. New Orleans has been living on borrowed time. The loan just came due, and I think taking out a bigger loan at higher interest to pay it off is a really bad idea.

There's dry land in the area. We don't HAVE to rebuild in the below-sea-level areas. It's not as though the entire population of New Orleans was required to operate the Port of Southern Louisiana anyway. House the people needed for the port above-ground, relocate the rest elsewhere, demolish the levees, and let the Mississippi start building the land back up again instead of dumping all that silt out into the Gulf to create the marine dead zone.

Frankly, if a major earthquake levelled San Francisco or Hayward, I wouldn't recommend rebuilding it on top of the fault again either. Rebuilding or replacing a structure in New York destroyed by a terrorist attack is one thing -- even rebuilding the entire city after a terrorist attack. Terrorists will go where the target is anyway, and you can't make a target safe from future attack just by moving it. But you CAN make it a lot safer from a repeat natural disaster by not rebuilding it someplace where you already know it's only a matter of time before it happens again.

Re: Anything capable of doing this to an Interstate bridge....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

By the way .... welcome back. We've missed you. :)