Posted on 08/31/2005 11:33:28 AM PDT by george wythe
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have died in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the city, Mayor C. Ray Nagin said Wednesday.
It will at least two or three months before the city has electricity. Restaurants won't be able to open; there won't be any commerce, he said during an impromptu news conference at the Hyatt Hotel.
"This is the real deal. It's not living conditions," he said.
There is also the danger of a major epidemic, with bodies floating in 95-degree whether, both human and animal corpses.
I thought that Andrew was the worst natural disaster in my lifetime, but I'm afraid this Katrina hurricane is much worse.
Does the mayor still have a job?
As a citizen of Baton Rouge, let me just say that we know New Orleans, we love New Orleans, but we don't want to be New Orleans, or the "New" New Orleans. It's a great place to visit, but if we wanted to be there, we would have moved there.
I can guarantee the people on the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain don't want to be New Orleans, either -- most of them moved over there to get away from New Orleans.
If New Orleans is going to be rebuilt, please don't do it here.
How far north to be reasonably high ground?
It's been a long time since a real live storm surging Cat 4 or 5 rolled through. The damage effects increase exponetially as you move up the scale. Too many near misses conditioned people to think it's hype.
Then the big one comes and educates another generation.
Galveston was hit in 1900 and it still hasn't recovered. Houston took it from Galveston. Baton Rouge is going to take it from NO.
Good point. Or, rebuild in the same below-sea-level spot and wait for the next category 4 or 5 storm to devastate the city all over again.
If the jobs stay, the people stay. Otherwise, the people go where the jobs are. Who/what are New Orleans' major employers?
And the illegals ...
Perhaps New Orleans can consider filling out the bowl where it is located and rebuilding at a higher elevation.
Actually, it could work.
Hopefully without the SCOTUS eminent domain coming into play.
There's mostly rural land upstream. Most of the time, rural land is cheaper on a per acre basis than urban. Land is not insured but homes are so that's a start. If I lived in St. James Parish (which would be a good location for a new city) and I owned 5 acres worth $200,000 on the current market-if someone says "we have 110 homeowners who have sustained losses that want to divide your land into 110 parcels at $10,000 each...do the math! I'd sell!
I think I read in an Anne Rice novel once that the knowledge that the next one could be the big one was a reason for New Orleans' "laissez le bon temp roulez" attitude; (i.e., life is uncertain, enjoy it while you can)
It's really sad that people did not listen , it sure would have been better to error on the side of safety. They had plenty of time. The City should have had a better plan for the elderly, and the poor that didn't the ability to vacate. State officials knew how serious it was and shouldn't have given people a choice.
It's really sad. People rushed to Sri Lanka but the thought of not rushing a different group to deal with the dead floating, decaying is hard to take, especially in America. Hate to say it but even Castro in Cuba, evacuated it's people. We will pull through and help our own.
30 miles west actually, in St. James Parish. At least it looks like that on the map I found. It's largely undeveloped now. The land is owned by someone surely...but being rural land it's affordable from an urban homeowner's perspective. I'm sure if I owned 5 acres that used to be worth $200k but was now worth millions to the developer that wants it...I'd sell! Especially under the circumstances.
I'm pretty sure the storm that just passed would have overflowed the Galveston seawall. It wouldn't breach it (Granite is good stuff) but it would have gone over the top and flooded the city.
Floods are a pain but nothing compared to a wall of wind driven water and debris stacked like a giant moving dike. That's what did it Galveston the first time.
Some of the Louisiana farmland is VERY valuable.
I am not an expert on much of anything, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but.
As I am given to understand, conventional propeller driven boats are at a huge disadvantage in navigating present water conditions in NOLA. I have seen a few air boats being put into use, but far too few.
I would suggest that in the US, every sales show room and manufacturing facility of jet (not engine, but where in lieu of a prop, they use a pump to propel the craft) boats be cleared out and all such craft immediately shipped down to New Orleans. This would include all PWC (personal watercraft) as these small, highly maneuverable one and two man craft can negotiate where larger boats cannot.
Utilizing the jet boats would allow much greater real time resources to be used in response to those in immediate dire need. Be it having manpower to check on those who may be trapped in attics, to deliver water, food, and medicine to those people whom cannot be removed for now.
It is time to think outside the bureaucratic box and get creative for confronting the daunting task of preventing imminent deaths.
In those areas where the water has subsided, follow up with as many ATV's as needed to check and recheck for rescues.
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