<A national call to arms? The Oil Drum Gas shortages are already happening>

69 comments on Newest (and very informative and very scary) report from an anonymous insider

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

Eroie Van Tanstaafl on August 31, 2005 - 11:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
According to a Redstate.org post I saw this morning, the existing system of levees in N.O. was only supposed to stop a Cat-3 hurricane.  Katrina was a large Cat-4, so the levees were NOT going to hold if Katrina hit too close.

There was a proposal to upgrade the levees to withstand a Cat-5 event, but AFAIK no construction was being done.  The federal contribution mentioned was for $55m for a planning study.  Dozens (if not hundreds) of miles of levees would have to be increased in height by nearly 50% (15ft to 22ft or more!).  Earthen levees would have to be at least 50% wider.  The project would have cost billions - $55m doesn't buy more than a few yards of levee, and it's no good until its ALL finished.

Whatever major changes are planned for N.O. in the future, their economic cost will be small next to the losses we've already seen and will continue to feel.  The direct costs of the hurricane may be $25bn or more, and the long term economic costs will be far greater, to say nothing of shattered lives and communities.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
karlof1 on August 31, 2005 - 12:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This item presents evidence that the disaster in NO was as much manmade as natural, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Eroie Van Tanstaafl on August 31, 2005 - 12:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That Commondreams article is hogwash.  

  1.  Of course federal money to SELA was being reduced: the Cat-3 levees were nearly completed, so construction costs were declining.  I've seen no reports that the sections of levee that broke were the sections that had not been upgraded to Cat-3 yet.

  2.  Again: the proposed Cat-5 levees have NOT even reached the design stage.  You can call for more funding all you want, but it'll take 10 years and a couple billion dollars to complete the levees - and they're no good until you finish them ALL.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
ericy on August 31, 2005 - 3:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Snort.  According to who - redstate.org??  Oh, yeah, there's an objective source of information.

The commondreams article seems to be based upon stories in the Times-Picayune.  If one wanted a good source of local information in New Orleans, that would be the first place I would turn.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Captin construction on September 4, 2005 - 2:44am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Son, your are talking utter cr*p. You give me the funding I'LL build your levies in a time directly proportional to the money available. 10 years!! wot a load!!

The Brits built the channel tunnel in 7 years (design and construct)

The Dutch keep out the North Sea every day!!! and whilst they don't have hurricanes the coast is severely battered constantly.

Go back to school son and think before you speak. The US can have these things done and dusted to a schedule governed by their desire and commitment.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Rick on August 31, 2005 - 1:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Good post, Eroie--
We forget that higher levees lead us to believe we can hold back nature. It's just folly to build a major city, subject to major storms, below sea level. If you do build theere, then prepare. The flood/storm preparation that the Netherlands and the British have invested in seems to dwarf the fairly primitive earthen levees in NO.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
sxwarren on August 31, 2005 - 5:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hold on a sec.  Nobody deliberately built a major city where NOLA is today.  This is the mouth of a major rover we're talking about.  It was inevitable that it would become a port and it was equally inevitable that communities such as NO and Gulfport would have been established to house the port workers.  Commerce inevitably follows workers and from there the city more or less expanded over time on its own, as cities do, developing one direction and then another as driven by the cat's paws of money and politics.  Why NO was establish on that exact spot is anybody's guess, but I'd bet that, at the time, the place was no farther below sea level than most other nearby spots.  It may not make sense to have over a million people living there now, but that's not how it started.

Moreover, New Orleans is not like, say, the vacation communities built on sandbars along the Atlantic Coast.  Its existence was never frivolous.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Halfin on September 1, 2005 - 12:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The problem is that the mouth of a major river like the Mississippi is inherently a dynamic place. Before NO was built (and in its early days) the river would flood regularly, depositing new sediment and rearranging the shape of the land and the course of the river. The problem is, humans desire stability. So the Army Corps of Engineers wrestled with the great river and tamed it, putting it between walls and forcing it into a specific channel. This let people build docks and cities on the very banks of the river, without fear of floods or of a change in course that could leave a dock high and dry.

Unfortunately, deprived of the annual replenishment of soil carried by the floods, the city is slowly sinking into the soft mud on which it is built. That's why it is now 6 feet below sea level on average. The flat barges that would float down the river were level with the rooftops of the buildings nearby.

Most observers viewed catastrophe as inevitable. If not in this form, then in the form of the river escaping its bounds and changing course as it naturally used to do every few years or decades, abandoning New Orleans and all the facilities built around the river. That problem still lies ahead.

Ultimately I think we need to take a different approach to managing the mouth of the Mississippi. We have to find a way to be more accommodating to the river's dynamism and not try to treat it like a piece of machinery that we can just shape as we desire and expect it to stay that way. It's almost more like a living organism. We need to let it move and change and be dynamic, and adjust our infrastructure to be flexible enough to adapt. Otherwise we will be facing another such catastrophe in a few years or decades.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Captin construction on September 4, 2005 - 2:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Read the article linked below then tell me the USA in not capable of protecting one of it's most historical land mark cities. You guys have got to stop pontificating about side issue that are just subjective opinion and pull together to get the job done.
If this had happened in Europe the whole surrounding population would be out digging n pumping. instead you all out shooting each other till even the local cops give up. Get some of the Dunkirk spirit. and national pride!!!

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa033000a.htm

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

69 comments on Newest (and very informative and very scary) report from an anonymous insider

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version