It's like water for chocolate.
Evidently, Gustav didn't think so.
>> Would it be worth the cost to rebuild New Orleans again if the storm caused widespread destruction as Katrina did?
That is a question that only the citizens of New Orleans are entitled to answer.
However...
If they answer “yes” — and I don’t blame them if they do — then it is THEIR sole and complete obligation to pay the cost themselves.
It is NOT the duty of the federal taxpayer to pay for the construction of their city.
It's like water for chocolate.
No public money should be used. If private investors and local residents don’t think it’s worth THEIR money to invest in this below-sea-level, hurricane-zone city, then it’s not worth anybody’s money.
We can bulldoze New Orleans right after we bulldoze the towns along the Mississippi River in Missouri. Illinois and Iowa the have flooded multiple times over the last 20 years.
New Orleans continues to sink so it’s just a matter of time before the city is abandoned. Historically there are cities throughout history that have been abandoned, New Orleans will be one of these.
Its in a hurricane zone. Hurricanes come every year. They have come every year since time began, and will continue to come every year long after we have left this earth for greener pastures.
Let the locals figure it out. Between the people who choose to live there, investors who want to invest there, local municipalities and parish and no higher than the state of Louisiana, let them figure it out.
Except in extreme cases, or very specific cases of federal responsibility, this should not be a federal issue. No one knows better how to live in a hurricane zone than the people who live there.
Parts of New Orleans are below sea level. The devices required to protect those areas below sea level will have to be higher, more robust and constantly under maintenance and upgrade. I think one guy ran a computer simulation and came up with 50 foot walls by 2020. A 100 years storm would still surge over those walls and flood those parts of the city below sea level.
Below sea level, get that. You can’t protect those places 100% regardless of how many billions you spend.
Below sea level. What is so hard about that. I don’t want to pay for 50 foot walls and for rebuilding everything behind those walls over and over and over again. Not to mention paying for evacuations every year and in some years multiple times. I don’t want my kids saddled with that bill either.
Its below sea level. What is so hard about that?
I used to live in St.John Parish just up river and loved N.O....Mardi Gras was especially fun because nobody worked on Fat Tuesday...it was like getting an extra holiday every year....today, I wouldn’t want to be around there....blacks have turned it into a dangerous and violent place....too bad.
If it is, let the locals foot the bill to live there. NO ONE should live below sealevel It is lunacy.
Short term, yeah, probably.
Long term?
What is the geological disposition of the area?
Sinking?
Already below sea level right?
Choice will be made by nature eventually.
We have as a country greatly depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. NO is a very important port. Keeping NO operable is a national security issue for the United States.
If we as a country are in a mature stage where we can say "No regrets, move that city to higher ground and throw off vain things" ... We can do it. But not til then.
Not as far as I am concerned.
New Orleans is N O T worth it. It’s outrageous that taxpayers bail out this city over and over and eventually it will be destroyed completely anyway. It’s outrageous that we waste so much money that is badly needed elsewhere for so many other causes than saving a doomed city.
The Port of New Orleans is absolutely vital to this nation an needs to be protected and, if necessary, rebuilt.
The City of New Orleans is a mistake that nature keeps trying to correct. We need to let it go and build on higher ground (above sea level, at least!).
If I were to wait until low tide, walk out 28 feet BELOW SEA LEVEL and build a 2 million dollar house before the tide came it, people would call me crazy! I also would not be able to get a bank loan for the building project OR home owners insurance on the house. To top it off, when the tide came back in and washed it all away, no one in their right mind would pay me a red cent to pay for the loss or to rebuild again. What I have described are the cold hard FACT concerning New Orleanes. So why in the world are the American tax payers being forced to rebuild it? The whole area should be written off and abandoned. It would be cheaper and more fiscally responsible to build everyone there a free home in a NEW location that is ABOVE sea level that it is to keep pouring money down the toilet.
N.O. is definitely worth saving. If we don’t keep it, right where it is, the N.O. population will move somewhere else... maybe even into our own neighborhoods.
If for no other reason, we have to keep N.O. on the map. Every time the residents are evacuated, some poor city/town/etc has its crime rate triple.
Is it still the 5th most used port (by tonnage) in the country? Then yes, it’s worth it.
People seem to forget that cities don’t actually exist for the tourist traps and fun stuff. Cities exist for one of a handful of reasons, coastal cities almost always exist because of trade or defense, they’re either port towns or base towns. And New Orleans, with all it’s faults, is a port town. Regardless of what hurricane season does to it there WILL be a city there. Maybe not as big as it used to be, maybe not as entertaining, but it’s just too necessary a port for the area to be abandoned.