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."

[syriacus]

Maybe we can sell it back to the French.

I'm surprised that Kerry isn't on his way to Paris to sell it to the Vietnamese.

[x]

Thanks for posting the Stratfor article. Something is going to rebuilt, but it will be different in crucial ways from what the city has been. There'll have to be much filling. Probably a degree of decentralization, and building discouraged or forbidden in certain areas to preserve marshes and flood plains.

In spite of its French flavor, NOLA is a very American city in a lot of ways. What comes next is going to be less expansive and exhuberant and more constrained and controlled.

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Ping for comment.

[Right Wing Assault]

Question: what shall we name it?

Orleans Trois.

I know, I know. But it is a French name.

[fallujah-nuker]

Interesting post. My great aunt lived in New Orleans till she died in 1980, she lived on St. Charles Avenue, it had a streetcar that ran along the median. I'm not sure how that area held up.

I live north of Seattle, it had a large hill downtown that was sluiced down down to create fill early in the last century. I have wondered if the reverse could be done, enlarge Lake Pontchartrain at the expense of the city's land area by dredging. Then pump the material to raise the remaining area of the city. Maybe the city would lose a third of its surface area, but what remains would all be above sea level. This would take years of course, it would be more like resettling the area than rebuilding.

[Schwaeky]

Some things are sacred cows... New Orleans is one of them.

as for the precedent, that had nothing to do with fema and with the whole wetland bullcrap...

[Right Wing Assault]

I agree with Hastert. If we fill it up with dirt, it will probably continue sinking. Abandon it, at least as a place to live.

[joyspring777]

Why would NO be a sacred cow?

For debauched people to go and show off the breasts, buttocks and privates?

To do sex in the streets?

[apackof2]

Wow, good for him

[joyspring777]

Here is a great idea....let us let France rebuild it at their cost?

[b4its2late]

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

That was a good one. Made iced tea blow out my nose....

2nd choice - I say, make it Gitmo II!.

[OldFriend]

Thanks for being so sensible.

Of course there will be some rebuilding.

Imagine this attitude if Venice went under water AGAIN. Do we say we should never repair Venice?

[TheBattman]

Should we rebuild California after the big one, or New York since it is a terrorist target, or Florida given that it gets hit so often?

California - not with taxpayer dollars. A known gologically active area with a history trouble with earthquakes. That's a risk of living there.

New York - not the same - it's not a "natural disaster. On the other hand, higher insurance rates would be justified while there is a reasonable possibility of it being in a "war zone".

Florida - not with taxpayer money. This is another case of regular natural diaster. This is most obvious on coastal areas where the majority of the major damage occurrs.

Again, it's all in the risk folks are willing to take. Some areas of the country have a far higher risk of disaster, while others, although not completely immune from disaster, are a far smaller risk. I have a problem encouraging the rebuilding of homes and buildings in known areas of trouble.

[rlmorel]

The Moosehead Truth hurts sometimes.

I don't think it is going to be rebuilt. But I could be wrong.

[joyspring777]

If this map is saying what I think it is...It is truly idiotic to rebuild this place!!

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

So you would leave the entire Gulf Coast? Hope you can live without oil, gas, gulf fishing and a way to get all the grain in the mid west to market.

[Doe Eyes]

Everybody knew that this was not an "if a disaster would happen", but a situation of when a disaster would happen.

It came it every year during hurricane season, for as long as I can remember.

[ZOOKER]

Rebuild the city, eventually.

Meantime, make lemonade out of this lemon by dedicating the Big Easy Memorial Landfill. Fill it up between the levees with all the rubble from Katrina devastation throughout the country.

Build NNO on top, after a suitable mourning/settling period (maybe 20 years?).

[okie01]

Maybe the city would lose a third of its surface area, but what remains would all be above sea level. This would take years of course, it would be more like resettling the area than rebuilding.

New Orleans WILL be rebuilt -- in some form, at some location. Geography and the economy require it.

And, in all liklihood, the end result will be an engineering marvel -- something on the order of the 8th Wonder of the World.

We cannot allow the left, however, to have anything to do with it. They're far better at whining and complaining than they are about solving problems --much less building anything.

[joyspring777]

Then the question is begged....WHERE, pray tell, would they rob that much dirt from?