I have mixed feelings on this. EVERY region has their own style of disaster potential. Some are more hard core than others. Every 1500 years or so a big earthquake happens in Washington. It has been about 1500 years since the last one. It would destroy Seattle, because Seattle was built on material that will turn to liquid in a massive quake. The tall buildings may actually topple.
Midwest, tornados.
Southeast, hurricanes.
Southwest, earthquakes.
Alaska, earthquakes.
Hawaii, tsunamis.
So what happens in the North East aside from Kerry?
DK
People can choose to live anywhere they wish. For centuries people have been building their homes and cities on rivers, oceans, volcanoes, geological faults, etc. Are you or the Federal government going to establish guidelines on where people can live? Should San Francisco be shut down since it is built on the San Andreas fault?
New Orleans is a great American city with a rich history that has contrbuted to the greatness of this country. The famous Higgins boat was invented and manufactured there that helped us to take the fight to the enemy on Normandy and the Pacific. Over 20,000 boats were built there. It is no accident that New Orleans was selected as the site of the D-Day museum.
New Orleans has given us jazz, great cuisine, and much more. From its beginnings, New Orleans has been a city wed to river and ocean; an almost natural dock for the transshipment of goods. Pierce Lewis, perhaps its most knowledgeable scholar, describes New Orleans as the "inevitable city on an impossible site." It is a tribute to the ingenuity and greatness of Americans that a great city could be built and then flourish.
Few census were taken during New Orleans' colonial period, but it is estimated that about 250 people lived in the town during the early 1700's. By 1760, the population numbered about 4,000, and by 1803, it was upwards of 8,000.
By 1800, New Orleans had become a center for the preparation, storage, shipping, and financing of local sugar and rice crops, cotton from further up the river, and wheat and other products from the American midwest. Clearly, no matter what Spain's wishes or policy, New Orleans' natural economic development was tied to its position near the outlet of the greatest river in the United States.
From 1803 until 1861, New Orleans' population increased from 8,000 to nearly 170,000. The 1810 census revealed a population of 10,000 making New Orleans the United States' fifth largest city, after New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore and the largest city west of the Appalachians. From 1810 until 1840, New Orleans grew at a faster rate than any other large American city. By 1830, New Orleans was America's third largest city, behind New York and Baltimore; and in 1860, it was still the nation's fifth largest city. New Orleans, despite the Post-Civil War boom that transformed the North into an urban-industrial area, would remain among the twelve largest U.S. cities until 1910.
New Orleans' growth between 1810 and 1860 was the result of its unique geographical situation, the increasing industrialization of the American Northeast and Great Britain, and the westward movement of the young United States.
New Orleans will survive and thrive. The people are taxpayers like you and me. They pay higher rates of insurance because of where they live. Instead of pontificating about where they should live and whether they should share the risk on society, have a little compassion for your fellow Americans. This is a major tragedy and no one should blame the victims for being struck by a once-in-a-lifteme natural disaster.
You seem so smug about living in Iowa, which I guess makes you less a burden on the society. Well, Iowa receives federal disaster relief funds for floods and droughts as well as generous farm subsidies. How many times have the Quad cities been flooded out over the last century?
But, perhaps, another part of you should think otherwise. Everybody lives somewhere under the specter of a natural calamity. I live in tornado alley. Others live on fault lines (active and inactive). Still others live in the woods, where forest fires happen.
Miami is exposed to not only hurricanes, but tidal waves.
For its part, New Orleans is in a flood plain. As are at least parts of every major city in the country located on a river (as most of them are -- at one time, Indianapolis was the largest city in the US not on a navigable waterway).
An "act of God" can, by definition, strike anywhere, anytime. And the Big Easy just took a helluva smiting.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the city rebuilt in essentially the same location. In fact, I would root for such an event. But with some new and very innovative re-engineering of nature...
Pray for Jackson Square...