Posted on 08/30/2005 3:53:30 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War
On the southern fringe of New Orleans' City Park there is a live oak with a branch that dips low, goes briefly underground, and comes up the other side still thriving.
It's ancient and gnarled, this tree, and filtered sunglight slants through its crown at dusk. It's a sublime thing.
When we talk about these majestic items that dot New Orleans' landscape we say, "is," but we may mean, "was." The reports are still scattered, the news from the ground still incomplete, but Hurricane Katrina may have annihilated New Orleans.
It looks bad to everyone. "It's impossible for us to say how many structures can be salvaged," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said late Tuesday. But can the birthplace of jazz truly be wiped from the face of the earth?
New Orleans may yet surprise. Too often the city is written off as a whiskey nirvana, where one guzzles Pimms cups at Napoleon House in the French Quarter at night, and eggs and grits at the Camellia Grill in the Riverbend at sunrise.
In truth, however, New Orleans is as sublime as it is Rabelaisian. For example - and this is a thing few tourists know - the French Quarter, home of Bourbon Street and jazz and possessor of a global reputation for parties, is in fact a National Park. Now and then, through the spokes of a horse-drawn carriage taking honeymooners up Royal Street, one can spot the distinctive, "Smokey," hat of a park ranger telling a more earnest visitor some genuine history.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
For those who insist that "New Orleans will be back, Americans are hardy folk, we've dealt with hardship before, blah, blah, blah!" . . . I have one simple question:
When was the last time you've ever heard of a mandatory evacuation for a metropolitan area of 1.4 million people?
I agree. Rebuilding in the same disaster area is nuts. New Orleans should be relocated to higher ground.
"It can and has been done."
And it will be done in New Orleans. No doubt about it.
I agree...might be changed some but I'm sure for the better...it's the American way
Americans don't pack up and slink away.
> Ive seen more intelligent questions.
I think it is a very intelligent question to ask if New Orleans will survive. I could easily see a decision to rebuild the city down the road, above sea level... or to raise it, like they did with Galveston at the turn of the 20th century, post-hurricane.
I am reminded of that old 19th century classic study on mass behavior and the irrationality that it brings, named something like "Popular Delusions, and the Ordinary Madness of Crowds." In retrospect, it was easy to conclude not IF New Orleans would get annihilated, but WHEN. It is the height of hubris to think that technology can indefinitely stave off the time bomb that is represented by a below-sea-level city. The amount of potential energy represented by the elevation of Lake Ponchartrain, with respect to the New Orleans bowl, is a force that can't be ignored or talked away.
Sure, I have great sympathy for all those people, and I'm sure many just never gave it any thought in their lifetimes, but if I were confronted with the fact that I owned a house below sea level, or that someone was asking me to invest in a sports stadium, or to build a high rise, in a city below sea level, without mentioning the words "New Orleans", I would burst out laughing at the preposterousness of the idea.
Dealing in pure rationality, one would sell and get the heck out of Dodge and not look back. But again, I see how things evolved as they did, and once you've had multiple generations dodging the bullet, one begins to discount the possibility of disaster, almost reflexively.
And in the same way that many, Monday afternoon, said New Orleans dodged the bullet, while those wise in the ways of science and engineering said "let's wait and see," I now say let's wait and see about the possibility of whether or not the city will be rebuilt as it was. I believe that if it takes them a month to "drain the swamp," as it were, that most, if not all of those structures' foundations will have been potentially compromised.
The reality may take a while to sink in, but not only the residents who are contemplating rebuilding, but also the government, who doles out the disaster money, may decide that something fundamental needs to change.
I also never visited.When I had the money, there was no time.
When I had the time, there was no money.
I may never get the combination correct, but I knew it was there with its history and unique flavor, and it was part of my country.
Even though I have never set foot in New Orleans, it is part of my heritage as a citizen of the USA, and I want it rebuilt.
I would much rather my already confiscated tax dollars be spent on rebuilding New Orleans than wasted on the useless schemes of the UN, or in foreign countries like Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Mexico etc.
Four states of the USA have just suffered through an enormous natural disaster, and I fully expect the other 46 to stand with them, help them to recover, and keep the extraneous BS to a minimum.
Well, one either piles a hill and builds on it, or abandons the place. For crucial infrastructure like petrochemical complexes, creating the hills may be a viable option.
Red
> When Galveston was devastated by the 1906 hurricane, they jacked up the buildings that survived, pumped sand in under them, then built a seawall to protect the city. It can and has been done.
There are some great photos of the Galveston project at
http://www.gthcenter.org/exhibits/graderaising/
Some think there was nothing left in Galveston, so that they just built anew after filling. But the truth is staggering in it its engineering complexity. They literally elevated all the buildings in the city, and then pumped in silt slurry for many months (years?) to create the 12 foot bump in elevation.
There were huge churches even raised for fill:
http://www.gthcenter.org/exhibits/graderaising/Buildings/G-59262FF3-7.htm
Once you've evacuated all 1.4 million people from the area, you're basically starting with a clean slate.
As it exists now, mostly below sea-level? The correct answer is No! But I think we all know what will be at least attempted.
Should it? No.
Should the taxpayers be on the hook for it? No. Will they? Of course!
I'm trying not to be bitter here, but I have little hope of the powers-that-be following a logical and prudent decision-making procedure. I mean we're talking a place where the populist political heritage is Hewey Long and Edwin Edwards
Sure we do... when persuaded by Mother Nature.
Only fools don't respect that authority.
It might be the smart thing to do to pave the place over, but it isn't the sentimental thing to do and this isn't an accounting spreadsheet. It certainly won't be the same. But New Orleans will be there because for better or worse we'll rebuild it there, and yes, much of it will come out of the public's pockets and it won't be money optimally spent.
Is it ever?
LOL .... note the well-defined "eye" in that Cat-5!
Because of its location on the delta at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the land on which New Orleans was built has changed dramatically over the years. It isn't even located in the same place (relative to the mouth of the river) where it was first built!
You need to reread your FR home page:
Prayer to St. Jude
Most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you, universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Please pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Please make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Please come to my assistance in these great needs, that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly ___________________________. And I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of these great favors, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Thank you, St. Jude, for favors granted.
But when most of us here you folks talk about rebuilding in that geographical depression it pysses us off and erodes our empathy cuz we know that in the end, we ALL will be throwing good $$$ after bad.
Sometimes it's best to accept basic hydrology.
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