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tw · 09-03-2005, 11:03 AM

xoxoxoBruce also provided this link to a Scientific American article of October 2001:
Drowning New Orleans

The SciAm article added one additional fact. A storm surge is reduced about one foot for every mile of marshland. Wide marshland between a city and the ocean is essential to the preservation of human life during such storms. The article makes it clear how much of that marshland around New Orleans has been lost and how fast it is disappearing. None of these articles provides sufficient information to make judgments on what is and is not a good solution. But they do provide executive summaries of many possible solutions. Solutions do exist. They are expensive or we could let nature do more of the work.

For New Orleans to survive, the protection must be layers including more than one line of levees. Is it worth it? Free market economics more than government welfare should be the determining factor.

A problem with New Orleans is that it will only keep sinking. It’s the nature of that geology. Makes no sense to keep rebuilding in land that is already 10 and 14 feet below sea level and will only keep sinking. Literally everything in those sections must be razed and rebuilt. Rebuilding there only guarantees loss of life. Land where the buildings would stay mostly above the next flood are the sections of New Orleans to be preserved - if logic thought is the determining factor. Most of that land is on the Mississippi River side including the French Quarter, Superdome, etc. Most of New Orleans and Jefferson parish on the Lake Pontchartrain side should be surrendered to marshland. Or now that the land is so deep, maybe it could only be lake.

All of which only asks questions months from now. The real question is why so many died at the hands of the US government; well after the storm had passed. Four days for the 400 trucks of food and water to arrive? That is nothing more than criminal neglect.

09-03-2005, 11:03 AM	#10
tw Read? I only know how to write. Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 11,933	xoxoxoBruce also provided this link to a Scientific American article of October 2001: Drowning New Orleans The SciAm article added one additional fact. A storm surge is reduced about one foot for every mile of marshland. Wide marshland between a city and the ocean is essential to the preservation of human life during such storms. The article makes it clear how much of that marshland around New Orleans has been lost and how fast it is disappearing. None of these articles provides sufficient information to make judgments on what is and is not a good solution. But they do provide executive summaries of many possible solutions. Solutions do exist. They are expensive or we could let nature do more of the work. For New Orleans to survive, the protection must be layers including more than one line of levees. Is it worth it? Free market economics more than government welfare should be the determining factor. A problem with New Orleans is that it will only keep sinking. It’s the nature of that geology. Makes no sense to keep rebuilding in land that is already 10 and 14 feet below sea level and will only keep sinking. Literally everything in those sections must be razed and rebuilt. Rebuilding there only guarantees loss of life. Land where the buildings would stay mostly above the next flood are the sections of New Orleans to be preserved - if logic thought is the determining factor. Most of that land is on the Mississippi River side including the French Quarter, Superdome, etc. Most of New Orleans and Jefferson parish on the Lake Pontchartrain side should be surrendered to marshland. Or now that the land is so deep, maybe it could only be lake. All of which only asks questions months from now. The real question is why so many died at the hands of the US government; well after the storm had passed. Four days for the 400 trucks of food and water to arrive? That is nothing more than criminal neglect.