Rebuilding New Orleans doesn't make sense

New Orleans Times-Picayune ^ | 9/1/05 | Bill Walsh

[FormerACLUmember]

House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask." Hastert's comments came as Congress cut short its summer recess and raced back to Washington to take up an emergency aid package expected to be $10 billion or more.

Hastert said that he supports an emergency bailout, but raised questions about a long-term rebuilding effort. As the most powerful voice in the Republican-controlled House, Hastert is in a position to block any legislation that he opposes. "We help replace, we help relieve disaster," Hastert said. "But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it... we ought to take a second look at that."

Rebuilding the city, which is more than 80 percent submerged, could cost tens of billions of dollars more, experts projected. Hastert questioned the wisdom of rebuilding a city below sea level that will continue to be in the path of powerful hurricanes. "You know we build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake issures and they rebuild, too. Stubbornness," he said. Hastert wasn't the only one questioning the rebuilding of New Orleans. The Waterbury, Conn., Republican-American newspaper wrote an editorial Wednesday entitled, "Is New Orleans worth reclaiming?" "Americans' hearts go out to the people in Katrina's path," it said. "But if the people of New Orleans and other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way, they ought to accept responsibility for what happens to them and their property."

[af_vet_rr]

In fact it would be cheaper and may work better to simply add fill to the existing city and be done with it, we need that port!

There is no doubt that the port is vital.

My suggestion - zone the entire area that has been flooded as commercial and industrial - warehouses, port facilities, distribution centers, construction, etc.

Don't let anybody live in that area that has been flooded. Move everybody into an area that is not swampland, that is not sinking, that is not vulnerable to the 1-2-3 punch that is the Gulf, the Missippi, and the lake. If you say "the poor people can't commute the 20 or 30 miles to work there", out of the 10s of billions of dollars that would be needed to rebuild it, they could spend a few billion on a *good* rail system that's capable of moving large numbers of people very fast between two areas seperated by 20 or 30 miles. Plenty of cities move a lot more people around further distances using rail.

[livius]

Well, Renewed Orleans has a sort of ring to it...or maybe New Orleans Bis (No. 2, in French and Continental Spanish). Nah, too clunky.

Let's think of the billboards and the tourist campaigns. Maybe the thing to do is rename the "old" New Orleans. Historic New Orleans? French New Orleans? Old New Orleans?

[Rockitz]

I was walking around the French Quarter back in May. I'd have to agree- don't rebuild the entire city only the tourist parts and then only on higher ground.

[Paleo Conservative]

Southern Cali, mainly the LA area, is a false oasis anyway. Cut off the water supplied to that area, which comes from hundreds of miles and isn't part of the locality, and no one would live there.

LA's theft of that water turned lots of farm land into desert too.

[Loud Mime]

I wasn't serious about that remark......should have posted a sarcasm note afterwards.

I'm not a believer in rebuilding the city simply because of its location. Unless you move a few buttes in from new mexico...

[Lessismore]

If and when they do get the levee plugged, where are they going to pump all that NASTY, POLLUTED water to?

Back into the lake?

Good question. Won't they first have to file an environmental impact statement before they start pumping? Public hearings? Comment periods?

This could take weeks before they can start disposing of the water that has now become "hazardous waste".

[Paleo Conservative]

Meantime, make lemonade out of this lemon by dedicating the Big Easy Memorial Landfill.

What kind of landfill did you have in mind? The EPA won't let you put garbage in a landfill located below the water table.

[muffaletaman]

Rebuild a portion around the french quarter and CBD as a special economic area - gaming - etc. - behind levees.

Get rid of the lake ponchartrain causeway and the low bridges blocking access to lake borgne and ponchartrain from the gulf.

The distance between the Mississippi river and Lake Ponchartrain, just south of Laplace - is 4.5 miles.

Dredge a canal - BIG canal - here, as needed to the north side of Ponchartrain, and on to the the gulf through Lake Borgne.

Relocate the Mississippi River ports south of Laplace/Norco to the north shore of lake ponchartrain.

Put a river control structure in at Norco. Bust all the levees south of there except around the New Orleans special economic center. When the spring floods come - let the Mississippi flood the delta south of there and start restoring the marshlands.

That'll do the trick...

[Sprite518]

Although that sounds great that would never happen. You know the way the politicians think. No way a politician is going to turn his back on a city that is ruined.

Although I agree with it. I just know it will never happen that way.

[rintense]

I got a great chuckle out of their want of the Great Lakes. Then I got very concerned.

[Lessismore]

The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is.

This is pretty much untrue. The oil tanker port LOOP isn't even close to New Orleans, since the river is too shallow. A port needs really good deepwater entrance channels, and highly efficient container cranes and yards, connecting with rail and roads to get the containers on their way to their destination. It also needs bulk loading and unloading terminal. Most of this can be highly automated and doesn't require much population to operate it.

For example, most NYC shipping occurs through the Port of Newark where there are large slips and connections to road and rail going west. Little moves through the congested areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn which once had thriving dockyards.

[Paleo Conservative]

Relocate the Mississippi River ports south of Laplace/Norco to the north shore of lake ponchartrain.

Why not just go ahead and let the Mississippi change its course and go down the Atchafalaya River? The Mississpi River tends to do change its course to the Gulf of Mexico every few thousand years anyway.

[Paleo Conservative]

I got a great chuckle out of their want of the Great Lakes. Then I got very concerned.

Back in the 1960's there were proposals to divert rivers from Alaska to California.

[LNewman]

the City That Care Forgot

The only time I heard that was the only time I visited New Orleans ... during the Worlds Fair there in '84. Even then it seemed an understatement.

[Tall_Texan]

I think Disney should Buy it and turn it into a water park

Nice idea. Since Disney keeps evolving into an R-rated empire, OrleansWorld can feature Ho-town, Drunksville, Looterberg and other amusement attractions. Just build the fences higher than the levees please.

[okie01]

Your screen name tells me where you hail from. I was introduced to the delicacy at Messina's, I believe it was, about forty years ago.

Yours sounds like a workable plan -- though dredging a shipping channel via Lakes Borgne, St. Catherines and Ponchartrain would be a massive undertaking.

But, hell, whatever is done is going to be a massive undertaking. The clean-up alone is daunting.

Another plan I've seen bandied about: Take advantage of the river's predeliction to re-route via the Atchafalaya Basin, construct a new port in the neighborhood of Morgan City and re-direct the river accordingly.

At the same time, resurrect the now smaller scale New Orleans Mk II at its current site -- properly protected as you suggest -- on what would now amount to a backwater.

How would that strike you? Would we still know what it means to miss New Orleans?

Pray for Jackson Square.

[agincourt1415]

You're wrong, its got history behind it and traditions, and you have to understand the CAJUN, they are stubborn.

It will be rebuilt, New Orleans, is not being moved.

[joanie-f]

David, I’ve tried a couple of times to sit down and write something about this tragedy. But the words just don’t come. There is a surreal unbelievability about the images we are seeing, and the reports we are hearing.

I am terribly ashamed to admit that my first prideful response is always: We are not a third world country. This can’t be happening here. Tens of thousands of homeless refugees, walking waist-deep through dirty water with everything they own on their backs – detouring around dead bodies and piles of refuse, searching for family members, seeking a warm meal or a place of temporary shelter, having had the door to their future slammed shut on them. Not knowing what lies a day … or a week … or a month … or a year ahead.

In America.

Yet, at the same time, the goodness that is America is already at work in the volunteerism and giving and sharing that is helping to allow the victims’ lives to at least have a shot at being elevated to a bearable level. God bless them all.

As for the looters, those who choose to shoot at a National Guard helicopter, to snipe at police who are attempting to maintain order, to steal into churches and pocket their tithes and offering money, to break into hospitals and nursing homes in order to pilfer drugs … I can think of no better use of a bullet than to drop them where they stand.

A good friend of mine who is a math teacher in a county high school, and a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard, was called this morning and and told that he is to be prepared to leave for New Orleans by seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I did not know that until I was called by his school district and asked to substitute teach for him while he is down south (I have subbed for him many times in the past). My first (unspoken) reaction was, ‘With all that I have to do for the next month, how on earth can I teach every day as well?’ And then I took a few steps back from the situation, performed a little unsettling self-evalutaion, remembered what it is like to be awash in shame and contrition, and of course said yes. I then called my friend, wished him well over the next month, reminded him that he would be in the prayers of many, and made him promise to keep a running mental record of the extraordinary human highs and indescribable human lows of which he will be a part and to which he will be a witness, so as to be able to write something about the entire experience once his service is over.

And all that we who sit in front of our radios and televisions can do is help in a vicarious way. I urge anyone who feels helpless and torn watching his countrymen enduring such tremendous trials to please consider making a donation to the Salvation Army. A more devoted, humanitarian organization does not exist. Their ‘soldiers’ live a frugal life, in order to meet the needs of others 24/7. (The Salvation Army, an evangelical part of the universal Christian church, has been supporting those in need in His name without discrimination since 1865. Nearly 33 million Americans receive assistance from The Salvation Army each year through the broadest array of social services that range from providing food for the hungry, relief for disaster victims, assistance for the disabled, outreach to the elderly and ill, clothing and shelter to the homeless and opportunities for underprivileged children. About 83 cents of every dollar raised is used to support those services in nearly 9,000 communities nationwide.)

I spoke to a friend of a friend who is involved in this wonderful organization on a regional level, and she assured me that they are focusing most of their attention on New Orleans, Hattiesburg, and Mobile – providing necessities and services to both the victims and the first responders. In addition to the material, emotional, and pastoral support that they bring to so many global disasters, they are prepared (and well underway) to serve up to 500,000 hot meals per day to residents and first responders in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. It is easy to make a donation by phone, on-line, or by mail. We can know the luxury of sitting in our own comfortable homes and have at least some peace of mind in having given of what we have to make the burdens lighter for these new American refugees.

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Heavenly Father, we come before you in the name of hundreds of thousands of our countrymen who are suffering through terrible trials the likes of which most of us cannot imagine, let alone comprehend. Nor do we have the ability to understand why. But we know that, no matter our circumstances, you are always near. Strengthen and comfort those who have lost so much, who are suffering both physical and emotional pain and discomfort, and whose earthly futures are cloudy, at best.

And please, Lord, whisper, as only you can, to those of us who look upon their heartbreak, feeling powerless to extend our hand to them. Let us know what you would have us do to ease their pain. And help us to remember your ageless words, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me … I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Amen.

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[backtothestreets]

nj26,

Your reference to Boston and San Francisco caught my eye. Few people know that Boston suffered the most devastating earthquake in terms of loss of life and property prior to the Great San Francisco Earthquake. Also, New Orleans was basically unpopulated at the time, but it was hit by the New Madrid (MO) quake in the early 1800's. That was believed to be the most powerful earthquake to strike the continental US in recorded history. That quake was reported by trappers and settlers from Niagara Falls to New Orleans. It formed new lakes throughout the territory and forever changed the course of some rivers. Reportedly, the Mississippi River flowed backwards for 3 days the earthquake was so powerful.

[Ken H]

bumping your post