[sionnsar]

You've got it! (What kind of engineer?)

From Prydain:

A positive way to think about the future of New Orleans
This comment by Charlie E., a commenter at Kendall Harmon's "Titusonenine", gives a hopeful way to think about the future of New Orleans: emulate the Dutch in their reclamation of the Zuider Zee. Charlie E writes:

I pray for all caught up in this. It is a sad and hard thing to lose your house and possibly your job. But the people caught up in this should not despair too much. The rest of the country is there and they appear to be more than willing to help.

It must be overwhelming at this point but this is a bit more gloom than necessary unless the people of Louisiana don’t have the fortitude of the Dutch. I remember watching a documentary a couple of years ago about the devastating North Sea storm of 1953. Thousands killed, well over 1/4 million acres of land inundated and fouled when the polders/dikes were breached in 67 places. There is only about 8 million acres in the whole country so this was a very substantial part of it and a number of important cities were involved. So, the Dutch did not abandon all of this. No, they looked things over and acted on a long-term project. The Zuider Zee was turned into the Isjelmeer. The took back what was lost and added to it.

The lowest point in Holland is over 20 feet below sea level, the lowest spot around New Orleans is only about 8 feet below sea level. And the North Sea is no pussy cat when it comes to bad storms.

Maybe it is just that I am a Texan but it doesn’t seem like all that big of a project to me. If the powers that be in Lousiana can’t figure this out maybe they should phone the Dutch. They keep the North Sea out of their country.
There is too much shipping and refining infrastructure to abandon it just because of a bit of water.

I know there are undoubtedly obstacles to face that I cannot even comprehend--but I think this could well be a model for us to follow, and give long-term hope to New Orleans, although it will take years to do so.

[Congressman Billybob]

I was a civil engineer and a theoretical physics major with advance placement at Yale. But then I bailed out into English and Political Science because I had heard about such things as weekends, dates, and booze. LOL.

John / Billybob

[fallujah-nuker]

A historical note, the Zuider Zee was turned into the Isjelmeer between 1913 and 1932, it restored the Isjelmeer which existed prior the the All Saints Day Storm of 1570 IIRC. The 1953 floods were further south in the Rhine River Delta, the built several dams that converted estuaries into reservoirs, on another they built a storm surge barrier similar to the one on the Thames. The most southerly could not be dammed since it was the waterway to Antwerp so all the dikes were raised. National Geographic Magazine had a good article in the middle sixties, very good illustration of the whole project.

[hoboken109]

Ive seen the dyke system in Holland , it's amazing.