He's right. New Orleans is going to keep sinking - which means it could be 40 feet below sea level, then 45...
There is higher ground to the west. Levee off the French Quarter as a tourist town, and re-locate the residential and manufacturing facilities to the west. And build a canal to deal with the eventual shift of the Mississippi channel down the Atchafalaya.
Do it once and do it right.
Yeah...the suburbs (largely unaffected by the massive destruction) are already there unless we go 15 miles west or so.
Your ideas make a lot of sense. I dearly love New Orleans, but it doesn't have to be rebuilt exactly in the same spot. It can be bigger and better than ever, but just in a location above sea level. The same could be said for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Let's rebuild, but in a way that makes us less vulnerable to hurricanes. No offense is intended -- I just would hate to see something like this happen again the next time a hurricane targets this area.
"Do it once and do it right."
Absolutely.
The truth is not always popular, and Hastert was stupid to have said this under present circumstances. But he was right. Surely, as time passes, common sense will prevail.
I was talking about this with my son the other night. One idea would be to dulldoze destroyed parts of the city into a series of low hills 20-30 feet above sea level, perhaps with canals or small lakes separating the various sections.
I have been thinking about the same idea to leave the French Quarter and tourist or historical places but why put so much infrastructure back in harms way...whether 10 or 50 years away. Hastert may have angered some but why are we so afraid to say things that make sense. Is there no open discussion? For the sake of sentimentality, we may doom NO to the same fate some day. Hastert is finally acting like a leader and saying something that may not be popular but deserves consideration.
Yup, and continental drift will continue, volcanoes will awaken and go dorment, lightening strikes and grass fires will happen, earth quakes will continue.
Darn, is there no place that is ok to build? ;)
LOL! Where's the graft and pork-barrelling in that?
"New Orleans Is Sinking"
Bourbon blues on the street loose and complete
Under skies all smoky blue-green
I can Forksake the dixie dead shake
So we dance the sidewalk clean
My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim
Colonel Tom What's wrong? What's Going On
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said" Hey North you're south shut you big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real."
Ain't got no picture postcards ain't go no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking about those years
Pale as a light bulb hanging on a wire
Sucking up to someone just stoke the fire
Picking out the highlights of the scenery
Saw a little cloud looked a little like me
I had My hand in the river
My feet back up on the banks
Looked up to the lord above and said hey man thanks
Some time I fell so good I gotta scream
She says Gordie baby I know exactly what you mean
She said, she said I swear to god she said
My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim
your comments are what he should have said, not tossing around the word "bulldoze" it.
Per your post, I've been saying this since the Hurricane happened. Salvage 10 square miles to recreate the old tourist New Orleans. The rest of the city should be built elsewhere.
Sounds like a good plan to me. Are you an engineer or just a reader of maps?
There is higher ground to the west. Levee off the French Quarter as a tourist town, and re-locate the residential and manufacturing facilities to the west.
And build a canal to deal with the eventual shift of the Mississippi channel down the Atchafalaya. Do it once and do it right.
I am getting tired of you being right all the time. :-)
Two things they could do to help, because they aren't likely to follow your advice. They could get off all ground water sources and start taking river water to replace it. That would stop the subsidence and it may eventually reverse itself as the water table recovers. Raise and shore up the levees. Some of those buildings around St. Louis Cathedral are reportedly the oldest existing structure in the U.S. Many in the French Quarter are almost as old. Jean Lafitte, the pirate, supposedly was a regular at the Old Absinthe house. That part would need to be saved if nothing else, as you suggested.
Until the past few years the water was pumped out of the city, even when it rained, by three approximately 300 year old pumps of French manufacture. (Yeah, I know, will wonders never cease.) They were replaced I understand and the replacements don't seem as reliable.
Years ago, perhaps when the levees were built in 1927, the Corp of Engineers included a number of spillways along the way to control the flow of the river and to relieve flooding conditions. One of those was the Bonnet Carre Spillway above Baton Rouge where the Red River met the Mississippi and the Atachafalya Basin began. As you know, the Atachafalya River was also a part of the old river bed and that the Mississippi would at times have its main flow through there. (After large floods, as the flood water was receding, the Mississippi changed courses through that area many times. It is really the more natural path. ) For fear of Isolating New Orleans, they keep the Bonnet Carre either closed or nearly closed to keep the Mississippi in its present banks. As all attempts to control Mother Nature do, this created problems of its own. Silting and levee erosion are just two of them.
Hastert: Rebuilding below sea level senseless
.....
exactly, AGREE! - swampy wetlands just like the properties getting over developed in Florida. So many greedy and sun worshippers are in denial about a lot of things concerning these water zones going up way too fast without a care about what will happen 30 years down the road.