Posted on 04/18/2006 12:36:04 PM PDT by Ellesu
Sinking land ultimately reduces effectiveness of levee protection:
The Army Corps of Engineers discovered a $4 billion surprise by underestimating the cost of repairing the levees because south Louisiana is sinking. One geologist has said the sinking will continue, especially in New Orleans East, because that part of town rests on a fault line.
Bad roadways have become a common complaint over the years for some New Orleans residents, but to LSU Geologist Dr. Roy Dokka, they’re scientific evidence which demonstrate that the ultimate problem goes much deeper.
Dokka suggests that Louisiana is not only sinking, but was sliding out toward the south, along the edge of a fault line in New Orleans East – namely Michoud.
For the last century, Michoud has sunk up to two inches per year; taking the levees down with it – four feet total since 1960. According to Dokka’s study, New Orleans East has sunk deeper than any other area in the state and at a much faster rate. It’s a phenomenon that contributes to lower levees and protection from storm surge.
Dokka said it’s a simple case of building for now rather than later.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which funded Dokka’s study, said the sinking land accounts for the rising cost of levees, which means there’s no magic number for any category of levee protection, whether it's category-3 this year or category-5 down the road.
The Corps has called the situation “an extraordinary conundrum,” adding that Dokka’s findings would certainly factor into plans for rebuilding the levees.
As for the price, Dokka said it's more like an installment payment as it seems south Louisiana will be paying for levee protection forever.
"Once we build the levees -- that's not enough. We've got to keep thinking about how they're changing and continue to build them up in certain places,” Dokka said.
If the Democrats could name that fault, I am sure they would call it "Bush's Fault"
I have been watching History Channel and others programming on the SF Earthquake of 1906. Half the population displaced and hundreds killed.
Now, just how could there possible be a city there now since I heard nothing about the Feds providing everything to take care of the poor abused citizens.
If it sinks fast enough we won't have to spend multiple billions of dollars for repairs and upgrades.
When billions of federal dollars are spent in a futile effort to fight nature, it will be "Bush's fault".
Isn't it racist not to rebuild New Orleans just as it was before? But then if it keeps sinking with people moved back in, would that be racist? I guess I don't know which is the more politically correct thing to do - rebuild in an unsafe place or don't rebuild at all.
"it will be "Bush's fault"."
Well, he DID approve of giving them billions to rebuild. Dennis Hastert was one of the few that had the guts to suggest NOT rebuilding in a sinking swamp.
...and I don't wanna swim.
I'm praying for another Cat 4 (or even a Cat 5) to bring that sinkhole to an end.
Thanks(Sarc)
It is sinking under the weight of decades of graft, corruption, and pc bs. If they don't start cleaning up that mess fast, N O will soon join the Titanic, Bismark, Monitor, and Merimac.
We may get that wish since hurricane activity is on the upswing. The last one was more exciting than a super bowl.
Issac Newton hates Black people.
Fitting analogies all. Will NO succumb to a storm like the Titanic or the Monitor, be sunk by patisan warfare like the Bismarck or be scuttled from necessity like the Virginia (merrimac to the uninformed)?
I keep saying, turn it into a houseboat marina.
Admiral Nagin, get on board with this idea.
Scratch that Titanic analogy and substitute: be navigated to disaster by inept politicians.
Or be driven into the ground by a drunken captain (Nagin) like the Exxon Valdez??
"Isn't it racist not to rebuild New Orleans just as it was before?"
I drove into the Chocolate City from Slidell through east Orleans Parish the weekend before last. What I saw was appalling. Mile after mile of neighborhoods that are veritable ghost towns. These are, so far as I could see, some apartment complexes but mostly brick or wood frame homes built on the ground---probably now completely full of mold and eaten up by termites. Didn't see a single car or person moving in them. Not one. Empty, littered, debris-filled streets with no sign of life. Entire ruined shopping centers appeared to be untouched since the storm and maybe abandoned for good. Eerie. Looked like something from a science fiction movie set.
What that area needs the most is to return to what it was 150 years ago-----a cypress swamp.
"When billions of federal dollars are spent in a futile effort to fight nature, it will be "Bush's fault".
More like France's fault for building a city in the swampy delta in the first place.....maybe the Frenchie Frogs will fix it now if we sell Naw Lens back to them.....with Katrina interest.....
check it out.
"I drove into the Chocolate City ,,,,,,,
Mmmmmmmmmmm...CHOCOLATE......make mine dark for that extra antioxidant kick....
Yep. Or someone's hurtin' bad for an editor.
Ray thinks that's a red salmon.
That was Captain Hazelwood and he ordered a Tanqueray on the rocks, not a tanker on the rocks.
Didn't the Spanish actually start this? I thought the Frenchies took over from Spain.
"(merrimac to the uninformed) Well, it did start out it's life as the Merrimac, didn't it? It seems the name Virginia never really caught on.
Since it fought it's famous battle as the Virginia, that's the name it should be remembered by.
Not surprising...hoping the levee system is built to withstand another cat 5 surge otherwise whats the use.
"...like the Virginia (merrimac to the uninformed)?..."
Whatever it's called, it still awaits the company of New Orleans.
Did you take any pictures for us?
I might take SWA fun fare over and see it.
I think NO is more likely to suffer the fate of the monitor, sunk at sea by a storm. One more hurricane, even a small one, will finish NO off.
I thought that the active parts of the New Madrid rift system stopped well north of the LA state line.
I intended to and to post them here but my digital camera crapped out on me....and it's something more serious than batteries.
As closely as I've followed this and all of the pictures I've seen of the devatation on the web, neither prepared me for the utter ruination I saw in east New Orleans. those people who think they'll move back into the (th Ward or other neighborhoods in that area are deluding themselves badly. It won't happen.
This study just about drives the final nail in the coffin for those areas I drove by last weekend....and for some others further south. No way will private lenders finance homes in large numbers in an area that's sinking at the rate it is. And why continue to spend billions to build levees when the levees themselves are sinking. East NOLA, St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemine Parish are finished. Politicians will give lip service to recovery but that's all it'll be. People who can't rebuild because they can't get financing because they can't buy flood insurance won't move back in large enough numbers for these areas to recover.....ever.
It's strange to think of an area that large and home to 150-200,000 people simply turning into a ghost town....... or ghost parishes.
I think New Orleans East was turning into a ghost town long before Katrina. The high crime rate took care of that. I remember living in Gretna and if we were going to Slidell or somewhere else on I-10 east, no matter what was wrong, we didn't stop till we were out of that area.
I don't understand why the city was built there in the first place if, among its other problems, its on a fault line.
Last words from Captain Nagin from City Hall:
"Lookouts below. Dive, dive, dive"
"I think New Orleans East was turning into a ghost town long before Katrina."
Yes, but the 50-70,000 voters that kept electing the corrupt and incompetant politicians were still there at election time. Now, they've been scattered and most won't have anything to return for.
Katrina was like a giant can opener.....and the can it opened we found was full of rotten insides: Rotten police, rotten schools, and rotten politicians.
NOLA will probably never again be larger than 250,000 people which is probably a good thing. Those areas that can reasonably be protected and that have some value(attracting tourists) will be rebuilt. East NOLA will eventually revert to what it once was.... a cypress swamp.
New Orleans east is one of the newer areas. The older areas were built on higher ground. That's the 20% of the city that didn't flood.
No, it's simply a case of building on ground that remains above sea level rather than continues sinking below sea level.
Here's a great interactive map that's helpful in seeing what areas were wet and what areas were dry.
Click on the neighborhood or street and it gives you a maximum depth of flood waters.
http://mapper.cctechnol.com/floodmap.php
Fault schmault. The Corps got ripped off if they paid this so-called geologist.
What evidence is there of a fault? SUBSIDENCE is the named phenomenon that describes the sinking of NO and the whole delta. The weight of the accumulated silt washed down the Mississippi causes NO to subside as the crust slowly bends to equalize the gravipotential. It happens at all the deltas and at dammed rivers etc. The opposite of subsidence is called REBOUND and it occurs when wieght is removed such as when a glacier melts. Scandinavia and parts of NA are still rebounding from the last ice age.
Rebuild elsewhere.
That's a neat map.
Revelling in the misery and loss is hideous. Wishing for more is just wrong.
It may come to that, but those waiting to celebrate utter destruction are unbelievable. I am a native New Orleanian who can honestly say I never liked living here, BUT-this is HOME to many people who do. As long as my family is elsewhere when it happens, I honestly wouldn't miss N.O.-BUT, I don't wish more destruction on people who do have their whole lives here.
How would it sound if we wished an F5 on Downtown OKC or pick any city? Do you hope the eradication of the Florida Keys? How about the outer banks of NC?
It's hard to leave when a storm wipes you out and your house goes from $150,000 to $15,000( as happened to relatives). If they wanted to sell and leave, where can they buy with that?
Where do you want the working middle class, who had their lives and finances wiped out by The Thing, to go with no $$ to start over?
It may be that nature and politics and fate have doomed New Orleans, but wishing wholesale doom on fellow Americans is sick.
This only proves what we, in the deep south, have always known- there are still those who have a REAL and UGLY prejudice against us. If a hurricane hits the East coast, there isn't this kind of venom. Is that because you don't consider the Gulf Coast residents as valuable?
Why else would anyone WISH death and disaster where there is already so much suffering?
I don't wish destruction on the people.
But if they move back to a "city under the sea", they deserve what they get.
Tornados are unpredictable, and very localized events. You can try to move away but you cannot predict with any certainty.
Hurricanes are predictable and, by their nature, devastating to entire states and regions. Hell, you can see them coming WEEKS in advance.
We've only begun to see what kind of $$$ the corrupt city of NOLA and state of Louisiana can bilk out of the rest of the US. Reinforce the business infrastructure (ports and terminals), let the rest slide into the sea, as it was meant to do. Everybody will win on that one.
And don't try to pull the "everybody hates The South" routine. It won't fly. I've lived in Oklahoma, Texas and Georgia and none of them have ever struck me as corrupt and futile as NOLA. I never wished anything bad on NOLA before Katrina, but I'm not going to stand around while a city drags the entire country down due to its own ineptness and corruption.
And The Keys? If nature wipes them out, so be it. But I don't expect them to DEMAND $100 Billion to pick up the pieces of their mistake.
NO is going to be the only place in the nation that is allowed to destroy it's wetlands with abandon. Do that anywhere else and the Dems will destroy you.
I suspect that the whole thing is a money grabbing sink hole. God is trying to sink it and we are working against HIm.
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