[topher]

Important to note that shipping is being rerouted, but now truckers have to go, for example to Freeport, TX to deliver banananas to the Midwest. Confusion reigns at this shipping company because of the communications mess that has occurred.

Of significant important, in my opinion, is the need to do something like The Netherlands. They are actually reclaiming land from the North Sea. Specifically, building a barrier wall 60 foot high wall to protect the coastal areas and prevent storm surge. It is possible, and with the oil and natural gas flowing into Louisiana, this could and should be funded somehow.

Man has tampered with the Mississippi delta area by building levees -- preventing mud from sloshing into the coastal marshes to rebuild sentiment deposits.

By doing somethings similar as the Netherlands, the coastal areas would retain sentiments and sand.

Ecologically, if done correctly, it would be a boon to the environment as well as man.

And I feel 60 foot high wall just offshore with openings that could be closed for storms would be sufficient to deflect the energy, storm surge, and waves of the hurricane. Water could leak around such a wall, but the storm surge would be reduced significantly, in my opinion.

A bold idea, but so was building hundreds of miles of 20 foot to 30 foot levee down most of the length of the Mississippi.

[Wiseghy]

headline sounds like something Jon Stewart might adopt...

[topher]

Either write off the Mississippi River as a major means of inexpensive river commerce, or do something that should fix the problem.

Time to come up with ideas for the future instead of complaining about the present and the past...

[Leg Olam]

Good post but your use of 'sentiments' instead of sediments just cracked me up.

[topher]

Photographs show very little left of some parts of the Mississippi River delta.

[Old Professer]

I hope the author meant marshes instead of marches.

[Rockingham]

Your suggestion is well intended but would not work in the long run because there is a far more difficult problem involved than mere hurricanes and storm surges: the high ground in New Orleans and elsewhere in the Louisiana delta is subsiding. In New Orleans, the rate of subsidence is an inch a year, which would put all of the city below sea level within about eight or nine decades, with subsidence continuing even after that. Eventually, the cost of pumping, maintenance, and risk of levee breach would become unbearable. Perhaps there is an affordable solution other than relocation, but my layman's understanding is that the geology of the delta region is against it.

[scouse]

Of significant important, in my opinion, is the need to do something like The Netherlands.

I wouldn't do that. Instead I would do away with all the levees and build a new city similar to Venice. A series of large man-made islands joined by bridges etc. This would allow the river to return the silt back to the delta and stabilize the area by halting the subsidence.

[dirtboy]

Of significant important, in my opinion, is the need to do something like The Netherlands

The Netherlands recalims land from the sea because it is a small country with nowhere else to get additional land.

Louisian is a large state with a population of less than 5 million people. There is natural high ground west of NOLA that sits between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya.

I think the Dutch would be the first to say building higher levees around the current location of NOLA makes no sense when so much higher ground already exists nearby.

[isthisnickcool]

One of my friends brother-in-law was on the coast in Mississippi and had not been heard of and was feared dead. They just got a call and apparently he left before the storm then came back to his home and found it still intact. He's been locked and loaded and has been fending off looters. He's in a hell but alive.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

In the meantime, we can await this to occur.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5fNE2-FnzKcJ:www.uh.edu/engines/epi1135.htm++Mississippi+river+to+flow+down+old+river+sooner+or+later&hl=en