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Should we even rebuild New Orleans?

13Gigatons

13Gigatons

Diamond Member
Should we even rebuild New Orleans?


Published September 13, 2005


Of all the ideas I've heard about what to do with New Orleans, the best one came from former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), who said we should "put somebody like former President Jimmy Carter in charge of rebuilding New Orleans."

As president, Carter distinguished himself by failing to free the hostages in Iran, failing to vanquish inflation and failing to solve the energy crisis. Were he to fail to rebuild New Orleans, he'd be doing the country a great service.

If you were looking for a place expressly designed to endanger people and property, it would look a lot like New Orleans. No one today would ever think of building a city on a plot of ground below sea level, surrounded by water, endlessly vulnerable to floods and hurricanes. So why would anyone think of rebuilding a city in exactly the same place?

New Orleans was a unique and wonderful creation, and I'd give my eyeteeth for the chance to go back to the city I got to visit only once. But neither I nor anyone else will ever be able to return to that place: It's gone. Whatever comes next will not be the same. You can't flood most of the buildings in the city, immerse it in a toxic stew, empty out its residents for months, and expect it to blossom anew like a perennial flower in the spring.

Restoring New Orleans to anything like its former self would take an astronomical amount of money--to rebuild infrastructure, clean up horrendous pollution, resettle people, and replace many or most of the 150,000 properties that were flooded. That doesn't count the vast sums that would be needed for levees and other flood-prevention projects that were too expensive to undertake before Hurricane Katrina.

No amount of money will change the fact that this is no place for a large urban population. Most of the city is below sea level, and it continues to sink, even as the ocean is rising. Over the next century, it's expected to drop by a full meter. Virginia Burkett of the United States Geological Survey told National Public Radio, "Within the next century, the areas that didn't flood this time will be likely to flood under a similar hurricane situation."

But anticipating "a similar hurricane situation" is overoptimistic. Katrina was not the worst-case scenario: Had a Category 5 storm smashed into New Orleans head-on, the flooding, destruction and death toll would all have been much worse.

Over time, the question about a Category 5 storm is when, not if. To guard against it, the city would need greater and more expensive protections than were ever contemplated.

Yes, we could spend whatever it takes trying to re-create the New Orleans we once knew. But why would we want to, given the other ways that money could be spent? Much of what the city offered is not worth resurrecting--such as widespread poverty, high unemployment, a backward economy and rampant crime.

Much of what is worth resurrecting, such as its vibrant culture and street life, may be fatally compromised. After hundreds of thousands of people have moved elsewhere for months and taken jobs, many are unlikely to return to a city that will be even shorter on economic opportunities than it used to be.

Before the hurricane, New Orleans had one of the poorest and least mobile populaces in the country. You could have made a case before Katrina that the best thing most residents could do is leave for someplace with higher living standards and a better job market.

Now, most of them have done exactly that. It's hard to see why they would be better off returning to New Orleans six months or a year from now. It's even harder to see why the government should encourage them to do so. There's a whole continent where they can settle, most of it above sea level.

Some of New Orleans will doubtless survive, starting with the areas that didn't flood. But the message to those who want to remain there is that while the rest of us stand ready to help them begin new lives, we aren't going to bail them back into a city that will always be a disaster waiting to happen. If they want to resurrect the New Orleans of old, they should bear the full cost of making it safe and livable.

For a long time, New Orleans has been fighting a war with nature, and it finally lost. Why fight that war again?
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Why not rebuild we would if Los Angeles was destroyed by the big one or san fran or any west coast city.

Besides wasting money on huge project is what government does best.
 
NO will be rebuilt for the simple reason that we can do it. This country loves a problem that has a solution, and cost isn't really that much of a factor. Cleanup will be messy, many apparently intact places will uninhabitable and unrepairable due to mold and other water damage. Expect a LOT of sad moments when historic places are bulldozed.
 
Originally posted by: Gravity
I vote NO on the rebuild.
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I agree on the sections that are below sea level.

If they do build, it would have to be designed to have flowing water for the first 20 feet and then living space.

America's version of Venice.
 
Originally posted by: TheSnowman
Does the Mississippi river need a functional southern port?
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I would say yes. Seagoing cargo vessels don't make money meandering up the Mississippi. Much of that cargo gets transferred to barges, trucks, trains. I think this is called a "break in bulk" point.
 
I say rebuild New Orleans......20 miles upstream!! Maybe call it "Newer" Orleans?? :roll:

There's no reason to have any residential areas below sea level, anywhere near the sea. That's like asking for trouble, or leaning into a punch to lessen the effect. Sooner or later, this will happen again. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: marvdmartian
I say rebuild New Orleans......20 miles upstream!! Maybe call it "Newer" Orleans?? :roll:

There's no reason to have any residential areas below sea level, anywhere near the sea. That's like asking for trouble, or leaning into a punch to lessen the effect. Sooner or later, this will happen again. 🙁
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I believe federal building code states you CAN NOT build any structure below sea level, if they follow this code when they builder that means all buildings need to be built on 15foot pilings, but you know that will never happen.
 
They must rebuild the port and they are as we speak. The Mississippi provides very cheap passage for our bulk goods (corn and wheat). And the harvest is upon us. I do not celebrate the loss of one of the oldest and most historic citys in america. I would save it or as much of it as I could. But I can't nay say the fact as it stood it was a clamity waiting to happen. It seems as in all things political I hope a middle ground is struck. I have allways wanted to visit to experience an NO oyster house. And it is my hope that I might still get to experience the mix of cajun and the best seafood in the gulf. The cajun are a fairly resilant bunch I would expect them to return and rebuild. It seems clear now that not all of NO is going to be evacuated. In particular the french quarter (the historic bit). Well, time will tell and I can only hope. But experiences like this have been a part of the gulf and the atlantic seaboards past. It was a 1 in 300 years storm I've heard it called but NO has been there more than 300 years.
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: Gravity
I vote NO on the rebuild.
Click to expand...

I agree on the sections that are below sea level.

If they do build, it would have to be designed to have flowing water for the first 20 feet and then living space.

America's version of Venice.
Click to expand...

Thanks to the current regulations on not hiring foreigners with the needed skills and knowledge if you can hire Americans who don't have those and ask more money it might indeed not be wise to rebuilt it. They could however hire experts to handle such a project. Most of the Netherlands is below sea-level, and large parts of the coast have been made to withstand heavy storms. As most of it was done in previous centuries already the technology and knowledge has been available for quite some time, and could long ago have been implemented in the US.
 
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