Will New Orleans survive? (Just posted on Times-Picayune web site)

New Orleans Times-Picayune ^ | August 30, 2005 | James Varney

[Dont Mention the War]

Will New Orleans survive?

By James Varney
Staff writer
Times-Picayune
Tuesday, 5 p.m. CT

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.

[garyhope]

I'd like to talk to you about a a nice bridge in Brooklyn that I own.

I'm prepared to offer you a nice deal on it.

[garyhope]

"If we said nobody should live in places that are dangerous, then that eliminates pretty much everywhere in the US I'd like to live.

Florida? Hurricanes. Texas? Hurricanes. Louisiana? Hurricanes."

You forgot to mention Massachuetts, John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy. Treason. Drunk driving.

[Salvation]

Let's pray that they get a new mayor pronto!

[Jackknife]

I really like Randy Newman, but am not familiar with this album. I will be checking it out. Thanks.

[muir_redwoods]

This will happen again and again. NO needs to be radically altered if it is to survive at all. A city below lake, sea and river level situated in a common hurricane path is asking for it.

The city of NO needs to be rebuilt on higher ground. The port of NO, obviously needs to be where it is but the area of the port needs to be reinforced and filled, an undertaking that makes building the pyramids look like a High School shop project.

[McGavin999]

It's never going to be the same. First of all, a lot of the good middle class blacks, and even good low income blacks, are getting their first ever view of a well run city and how the people of those cities live and respond to others. Unbelieveable kindess and respect is being shown to them. They will never go back. I would venture to guess that most who do are the types who will add nothing to the city.

Those who remain in Texas will add to state and become proud Texans. A LOT of those good people have never been outside of LA for much more than a weekend if at all.

[McGavin999]

Bring in landfill from northern Louisiana and Mississippi, and fill all the streets of New Orleans to at least the level with Lake Ponchartrain (or maybe a few feet higher). THEN rebuild the city.

I was thinking the same thing. Bring in all the debris from the hurricane, compact it, then fill it with topsoil.