New Orleans' Tragic Paradox

In 1718, French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ignored his engineers' warnings about the hazards of flooding and mapped a settlement in a pinch of swampland between the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and a massive lake to the north.

Ever since, the water has sustained New Orleans and perpetually threatened it. Somehow, until this week, the mystique of the water had always washed away the foreboding of disaster, as if carrying the city's worries downstream. That was true even early Tuesday morning, when Hurricane Katrina's last-minute veer to the east convinced many residents they had once again eluded the Fates.

But when the rainfall brought by Katrina breached levees and overwhelmed the city's pumping stations, the catastrophic consequences of Bienville's miscalculation could no longer be ignored.

New Orleans, a city that has struggled to keep its head above water, physically and economically, is now a city submerged.

City officials estimated that 80% of the town was under standing water Tuesday, with some areas beneath as much as 20 feet. Water at times coursed through the French Quarter, one of the highest points in a city that is largely below sea level.

In broad swaths, the flooding submerged low-lying neighborhoods up to the rooftops and left one of America's most enchanting cities a sodden ruin.

For locals, it is a cruel paradox. The water that has given New Orleans its very life — its commerce, its cuisine, even the meandering flow of its daily pace — has now rendered their beloved city almost unrecognizable....

The Netherlands is not in danger of Hurricanes. Their problem is flooding from rising rivers. They're going to spend about 25 billion dollars to hold onto as much land as they can by their fingernails....they're actually going to allow 222,000 acres to be surrendered to the flood plains and thousands more acres will be allowed to flood "naturally". You see, they've realized they can NOT continue to artificially protect their country from flooding without potentially catastrophic results.

New Orleans, apparently, hasn't learned anything from the Dutch.

The Netherlands is not in danger of Hurricanes.

They weren't designed to protect against major tropical systems, i.e., hurricanes. That said, the North Atlantic and North Sea present a formidable challenge in terms of storms and winds. The 1953 North Sea Flood killed 1,835 people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 more. Ten thousand animals drowned, and 4,500 buildings were destroyed. Floods covered 9% of Dutch agricultural land, and sea water inundated 2,000 km² of polders. A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm caused a tidal surge of the North Sea up to 3.36 m which overwhelmed sea defences and caused extensive flooding.

A European windstorm is a severe cyclonic storm that tracks across the North Atlantic towards north-west Europe in the winter months. These storms usually track over the north coast of Scotland towards Norway but can veer south to affect other countries including Ireland, England, Wales, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. As these storms can generate hurricane-force winds, they are sometimes referred to as hurricanes, even though very few originate as tropical cyclones.

European windstorm

Their problem is flooding from rising rivers. They're going to spend about 25 billion dollars to hold onto as much land as they can by their fingernails....they're actually going to allow 222,000 acres to be surrendered to the flood plains and thousands more acres will be allowed to flood "naturally". You see, they've realized they can NOT continue to artificially protect their country from flooding without potentially catastrophic results.

And what percentage is 222,000 acres of the total land area reclaimed from the sea and/or below sea level? The Netherlands is a little less than twice the size of New Jersey with 31,883 sq km being land and 7,643 sq km water.

222,000 acres equals 347 sq miles. 31,883 sq km = 12,288 sq miles. So 347 sq miles is less than 3% of the land area, which is barely significant especially since so much land has been reclaimed from the sea. Have the Dutch stopped trying to reclaim land?

The bottom line is that the Dutch have shown us that it is possible to cope with the sea and storms even if the land is below sea level.

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