New Orleans Questions

[Ben E Lou]

I'm about to walk out the door to a meeting, and probably won't be up for doing any research later on, but my wife and I were wondering about New Orleans.

Was it originally built below sea level without levies?
Has it sunk over time?
Did they block the river and the lake just to put a city there?

Just a little about the history of why it is the way it is would be appreciated.

Thanks!

--Ben

[Franklinnoble]

I blame the French.

(*kidding*)

[terpkristin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans

/tk

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by terpkristin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans

/tk

Back.

Thanks. At first, it seemed conflicting. Under "History," we have....

New Orleans was founded in 1718 by the French as La Nouvelle-Orléans, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. The site was selected because it was a rare bit of natural high ground along the flood-prone banks of the lower Mississippi, and was adjacent to a Native American trading route and portage between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain via Bayou St. John (known to the natives as Bayou Choupique)

Later, under geography, it says:

New Orleans is a unique city because some areas of the city range from 1 to 20 feet (0.3 to 6 m) below sea level, and rain-water must be pumped out as fast as it falls to prevent flooding. In addition to the urban areas of the city, New Orleans includes undeveloped wetland, especially in the east. The city is very flood-prone. If it rains more than 1 inch (25 mm) there is usually some form of area flooding, which due to the climate can be a fairly regular occurence. Because of this, nearly all of New Orleans' cemeteries use above ground crypts rather than underground burial.

I would have been left very confused were it not for this little tidbit...

Until the early 20th century, construction was largely limited to the slightly higher ground along old natural river levees and bayous, since much of the rest of the land was swampy and subject to frequent flooding. This gave the 19th century city the shape of a crescent along a bend of the Mississippi, the origin of the nickname The Crescent City. In the 1910s engineer and inventor A. Baldwin Wood enacted his ambitious plan to drain the city, including large pumps of his own design which are still used. All rain water must be pumped up to the canals which drain into Lake Pontchartrain. Wood's pumps and drainage allowed the city to expand greatly in area. However, pumping of groundwater from underneath the city has resulted in subsidence. This has greatly increased the flood risk, should the levees be breached or precipitation be in excess of pumping capacity, as would later happen in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A major hurricane could create a lake in the central city as much as 30 feet deep, which could take months to pump dry.

Ah, the hubris of man.

[21C]

I was most amazed by this picture.

[SFL Cat]

That pic really puts it in perspective. Lord, have mercy.

[RoastDuck]

I originally thought of this as a natural disaster but with A. Baldwin Wood's input it seems kind of man-made to some degree.

Don't want to make light of people suffering but that plan is right up there with Monty Burns' Sun Blocker.

[Karim]

Could anything be learned from Venice? (I realize it's an archipelago but you would think some of the same issues would arise.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ice_aerial.jpg

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by 21C

I was most amazed by this picture.

uhhhhhh...WOW. i gotta show that to my friends.

what a shame for that city.

[PackerFanatic]

lol, Monty Burn's Sun blocker...great couple of episodes there, heh.

[Ben E Lou]

I didn't realize that the bowl effect thingy would be a surprise to people. My dad grew up there, though. Basically, normal lake elevation would cover everything from the ridge eastward. Of course, the lake is higher than normal.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Up until a month ago, I'd spent my entire life in New Orleans, and while I knew it was a bowl, I really didn't know that it was like that.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

Up until a month ago, I'd spent my entire life in New Orleans, and while I knew it was a bowl, I really didn't know that it was like that.

For whatever reason, my dad talked about it all the time, which made me more interested, I guess.





....or maybe I'm just a nerd.

[Anthony]

i'll confess, i didn't even know what the hell people meant when they kept referring to NO as a "bowl". people have a tendency to over generalize things and i thought the media ran with that term. i now see the only thing more appropriate to say than "bowl" is "inevitable disaster waiting to happen".

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

i now see the only thing more appropriate to say than "bowl" is "inevitable disaster waiting to happen".

Bingo. Thus my comment about mankind's hubris.

[Klinglerware]

And from the topographical map you can see why NO would be called "The Crescent City": the higher ground along the Mississippi, where the city began to be built, definitely does take that shape...

[CraigSca]

Unfortunately, things like this are bound to happen in many places - this is not an exclusive to New Orleans. Anyone think a major earthquake will hit SF or LA in the future? Should we be surprised?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Unfortunately, things like this are bound to happen in many places - this is not an exclusive to New Orleans. Anyone think a major earthquake will hit SF or LA in the future? Should we be surprised?

Yeah, the odds are that it is going to happen, but even the major one in SF in '89 won't approach the kind of death, destruction and length of time and land area that will be uninhabitable.

[Raiders Army]

That's crazy.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Yeah, the odds are that it is going to happen, but even the major one in SF in '89 won't approach the kind of death, destruction and length of time and land area that will be uninhabitable.

Unless of course, an LA quake dumps half of SoCal in the ocean.

But really, I can't think of any natural disaster (short of a pompeii-esque volcano) that would totally render a land as screwed as what NO is right now. Entire massive city being immersed for an extended period of time == Very Very Bad.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Unless of course, an LA quake dumps half of SoCal in the ocean.

Agreed, but somehow in my mind, that's different. What we've done with New Orleans just seems so.....arrogant.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Agreed, but somehow in my mind, that's different. What we've done with New Orleans just seems so.....arrogant.

Might be, but it's not much different than other places, like the Netherlands, where much of the country is there because of land reclamation.

This actually got me thinking about the Netherlands and how they deal with this sort of thing--they talk about it a little bit in the Guardian article that was just posted in the other thread...

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Agreed, but somehow in my mind, that's different. What we've done with New Orleans just seems so.....arrogant.

I dunno. I don't particularly find it any more arrogant than the zillion other man vs nature things we've done over the years.

I do however, believe that the rebuilding of New Orleans needs to be less v1.01 and more v2.0. A long, hard look needs to be taken at the future architeture of that city. We could, if we were so inclined (and unfortunately, the cynic in me knows this will not happen), try and mold New Orleans into a City Of The Future (tm).

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Unless of course, an LA quake dumps half of SoCal in the ocean.

But really, I can't think of any natural disaster (short of a pompeii-esque volcano) that would totally render a land as screwed as what NO is right now. Entire massive city being immersed for an extended period of time == Very Very Bad.

A good quake could shear off most of the California coastline - north and south.

I'll say this much in defense of my home state - most of the cities were founded before anyone realized they were sitting on top of a major fault line.

New Orleans, on the other hand, had to have the water pumped out before structures could be built. That seems like more of a conscious decision to me.

Either way, I live far enough inland to be safe from earthquakes, mudslides, tsunamis, etc. I don't think I'd care to invest my home in a location that was so easily subjected to the wrath of mother nature.

Now I just have to hope I never end up on the bad side of one of our regular wildfires...

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

I'll say this much in defense of my home state - most of the cities were founded before anyone realized they were sitting on top of a major fault line.

New Orleans, on the other hand, had to have the water pumped out before structures could be built. That seems like more of a conscious decision to me.

Exactly.

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Exactly.

Stop agreeing with him! That's too much like a public apology.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Stop agreeing with him! That's too much like a public apology.

That was SO 36 hours ago.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Klinglerware

Might be, but it's not much different than other places, like the Netherlands, where much of the country is there because of land reclamation.

This actually got me thinking about the Netherlands and how they deal with this sort of thing--they talk about it a little bit in the Guardian article that was just posted in the other thread...

I was just listening to an NPR interview with a Dutch engineer who runs classes for the UN on water management.

He was explaining that much of the Netherlands is set up to handle what they call a "10,000-year" flood. They made the initial investment, and feel comfortable with the results.

He said the New Orleans levee system was more a "100-year" approach, and given the hurricane potential, this was inevitable.

So, the interviewer asked what he'd do, as raising the levees to a height that would protect New Orleans from an even-stronger hurricane would be difficult if not impossible.

He said the levees were fine. But, in addition, he'd construct a gate where Lake Pontchartrain opens to the gulf that could be raised in the event of a major storm.

Much smaller distance to cover there, and while it would be incredibly expensive to construct that kind of structure, it's still nothing compared to replacing the levee system with something ten times as massive.

Interesting concept. I'm not an engineer, but it seems so logical.

[albionmoonlight]

I am as biased a source as they come, but in New Orleans' defense, the city has been there since the 1700s. This isn't an instance in which people decided to start putting up beach houses on the coast in the last 25 years. And it is one thing to say that you should not live in a certain place to people who are used to being mobile. It is another thing to tell that to families (like mine) who can trace their roots back to French Canada. The sense of home runs very very deep there.

And to the extent that people are foolish to live there (and there is a LOT of foolishness in town--even after Pumpy left ), they are no more foolish than a lot of the people in this country.

People keep moving to and building in L.A. and San Francisco despite the fact that we know that they may fall into the sea. Juneau Alaska is building right behind a retreating glacier (that may be the one city on Earth that is rooting for global warming). People are still moving to New York and D.C. despite the fact that we now know that those cities are targets for a (hopefully not) inevitable terrorist attack with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. People are flocking to Phoenix and Las Vegas in droves despite the fact that a few broken or sabatogued (sp?) water lines will leave the population there dying of thirst. People build houses in forests subject to wildfires.

It's just human nature, and I would hope that people will continue to view this as the disaster that it is and not blame the victims who lived there--at least not anymore than you would blame the 75% or so of the U.S. who lives in a place where they are dependant on infastructure for survival.

[QuikSand]

The picture above is a handy illustration, but if you are reacting with something along the lines of "Holy Shit!" when you see it, you are likely falling for some classic "how to lie with statistics." The picture's scale is very deceiving.

Yes, the city lies largely below the surrounding water levels. But the graphic above suggests that the center of the city is on something like a 10 or 15 degree slope down from the edges -- which is obviously absurd. It's a little bit of a dish, yes, but it's not a giant caldera. For the picture to really look like a cross-section of the actual city of New Orleans (with the depression to that scale) we'd have to be talking about the central city lying some 4,000 feet below sea level. Look at the measurements on the side of the graphic -- the difference in elevation between the edge of the city and itls lowest point is some 16 feet or so. Yes that is unusual and dangerous. No, the whole city is not built in some kind of giant divot in the earth that plunges a mile downward in the heart of town.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

The picture above is a handy illustration, but if you are reacting with something along the lines of "Holy Shit!" when you see it, you are likely falling for some classic "how to lie with statistics." The picture's scale is very deceiving.

Yes, the city lies largely below the surrounding water levels. But the graphic above suggests that the center of the city is on something like a 10 or 15 degree slope down from the edges -- which is obviously absurd. It's a little bit of a dish, yes, but it's not a giant caldera. For the picture to really look like a cross-section of the actual city of New Orleans (with the depression to that scale) we'd have to be talking about the central city lying some 4,000 feet below sea level. Look at the measurements on the side of the graphic -- the difference in elevation between the edge of the city and itls lowest point is some 16 feet or so. Yes that is unusual and dangerous. No, the whole city is not built in some kind of giant divot in the earth that plunges a mile downward in the heart of town.

Correct, but the important point (at least from where I'm coming from) is that the water is not going to recede as in a "normal" flood situation.

[Solecismic]

The first thing I thought when I realized how much damage was done was Detroit in the aftermath of the 1967 riots. Anyone with the economic ability to leave Detroit just stayed away. And nearly 40 years later, Detroit is just a shell of what it used to be. You can still see burned-out hourses along some of Detroit's traffic arteries.

But it's not the same situation. Detroit's decline was already in progress, a combination of racial unrest and the beginning of mass unemployment stemming from the relocation of the auto industry. The riots just sped things up. Detroit is a city of close to a million people where you can park near downtown for free on a practically deserted street.

New Orleans offers a lot to the nation as a whole. It has character, it's a convention center. I think it will lose a lot of its population and rebuilding will obviously take years, if not a full decade, but if the city cares about its business owners, it can be brought back.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

New Orleans offers a lot to the nation as a whole. It has character, it's a convention center. I think it will lose a lot of its population and rebuilding will obviously take years, if not a full decade, but if the city cares about its business owners, it can be brought back.

That's my initial thought as well. In the short-term, I think there are most certainly going to be people who decide to move on; especially if you're talking about 3-4 months before they can even go back and see what they've lost. Too many people live paycheck-to-paycheck. They can't afford to wait until December or January to find out what they have; I'm guessing many of them will end up settling wherever they are evacuated to.

The question is what will be the demographics of the people who go back? Will it be mostly older residents too stubborn to move elsewhere? Will it be predominantly poor people who can't afford to move elsewhere? Will families hold their kids out of school for six months or a year so they can head back or will they decide to settle elsewhere? Or will it attract the business people and entrepreneurs who made it once in New Orleans and want to make it again? I can see the demographics of the city changing drastically.

I think the Detroit analogy is interesting. I think there will be plenty of interest in rebuilding New Orleans. What I don't know is if there is the resources and political will. Rebuilding will require billions of dollars in direct federal aid and federal-backed loans. That will come with strings attached. It might be that the money is available, but only if people invest outside "the bowl" in an area less prone to disaster. It could lead to a suburban/exurban buildup the likes of which New Orleans hasn't seen.

The one thing I haven't heard much about yet is the likelihood of another tropical storm hitting again. During the current deluge of Atlantic hurricanes the last few years, many have followed the same path as their predecessors in a single season, such as what happened last year in Florida where three storms followed almost the exact same path. Conditions are prime for more tropical storms with two more months left of hurricane season. What if another storm follows Katrina's path? It doesn't sound like conditions are going to change much in the gulf region; my fear is that another strong storm hitting the same general area is very possible, and that could be devestating both financially and emotionally to these people.

[cartman]

I wonder if New Orleans is going to follow a path like Galveston did after the 1900 hurricane. That one buried the entire island under 10 to 20 feet of water, and killed anywhere from 6,000 to 12,000 people. At the time, Galveston was the largest city in Texas, and one of the financial centers of the US. Most people, instead of returning to Galveston, moved further inland, and made Houston their new home. It took many years, but Galveston built a seawall, raised the entire island 10 feet, and people slowly started coming back, but it is nowhere near as influential a city as it was before the 1900 hurricane.

Since it is going to be several months until large parts of the Big Easy are inhabitable again, are people simply going to wait? Or are they going to go someplace else and start over from scratch? It would be sad to see the city die off, or become marginal because of this, but I can see a push to do something like in Galveston, and try to raise the elevation of large parts of the city.

[Huckleberry]

I, on the other hand, think that you guys have already progressed to what I call the post-disaster city glamorization stage.

New Orleans wasn't the cultural center or great city it's already being made out to be. It was dirty, poor, and below sea level. All it had was history. I don't doubt someone will try to rebuild it. But they'll be idiots if they try to do this in the same location.

IIRC, isn't New Orleans the only Top 100 city by population to decrease in population for the last 3 censuses in a row? People were already leaving for a reason.

[Wolfpack]

However, the history and culture New Orleans had (particularly as a center of both Black and Acadian culture) is what made New Orleans what it is (was?). New Orleans will still exist if for no other reason than this. It's too important to too many people and not just to the ones who actually live(d) within its city limits. The New Orleans that will emerge over the course of the coming decades will obviously bear little resemblence to the city that stands now, but it'll be there nonetheless. I do think, however, that the center of gravity in Louisiana will now shift to Baton Rouge as it will be the most likely resettlement location for anyone leaving New Orleans permanently, but wishing to stay in Louisiana. It'll still be the cultural capital of the state, but it'll likely lose a lot of clout in other areas.

[Eaglesfan27]

I know I'm just one person, but this situation has changed my plans to buy a home in New Orleans. I anticipate I will continue to work in New Orleans when LSU Medical School returns to the area, but I just became much more likely to buy a house in a place like LaPlace which is at least slightly more stable from a geography standpoint.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

I, on the other hand, think that you guys have already progressed to what I call the post-disaster city glamorization stage.

New Orleans wasn't the cultural center or great city it's already being made out to be. It was dirty, poor, and below sea level. All it had was history. I don't doubt someone will try to rebuild it. But they'll be idiots if they try to do this in the same location.

IIRC, isn't New Orleans the only Top 100 city by population to decrease in population for the last 3 censuses in a row? People were already leaving for a reason.

I disagree. Not with everything you say. But I've been to both New Orleans and Detroit, and New Orleans offers a unique culture that Detroit never had.

Detroit is just a burned out industrial town with booming suburbs that are far nicer. The jobs are in the suburbs. The culture, for what it's worth, is where the people are. There are isolated bright spots, like Greektown, but they are few and far between.

New Orleans is more of a destination. The city is throughly integrated with the travel industry. The French Quarter is unique, and quite a pleasant place to spend an afternoon or evening if you don't get too close to the building walls and/or hold your nose.

The area is heavily dependent on convention business, however. Its future is secure if the planners recognize that fact.

I think it will be a different New Orleans, for certain, but it's not as if the concrete is going to just wash away. They will rebuild.

For reference, 26% of New Orleans adults have college educations, compared to 11% of Detroit adults. The crime rate in New Orleans is actually a little low for a southeastern population center, believe it or not (especially given the last couple of days). Detroit is one of the most dangerous cities in America.

Detroit has about half the population it did in 1950, making it the largest city, perhaps in the history of the world, to fall under 1,000,000 in population.

In 1950, Detroit had 1,850,000 people, the fifth-largest city in the country. That dropped steadily to 2000, when it had 951,000 people (10th). New Orleans was 16th in 1950 at 570,000, and dropped to 485,000 by 2000 (31st).

[Craptacular]

I wanted to start another thread to specifically discuss the questions of rebuilding, but this thread should do (although my thread title would be more controversial ). I'm sorry if there's a similar discussion in the Katrina thread, but I don't have the time to read that whole thing.

Personally, I do not think the federal government should spend the $25+ billion (my guess) that will be required to rebuild the devasted areas of New Orleans. I'm not talking about the $25+ billion in insured losses, such as homes and businesses, I'm talking simply about public infrastructure and federal aid for reconstruction. Hey, I'm a Civil Engineer, and I love infrastructure and feats of engineering more than most, but to rebuild parts of the metropolitan area that are below sea level, and more importantly, below the normal surface elevation of the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchatrain, would be absolutely irresponsible. My gut tells me the public works required to rebuild and make the necessary improvements to what was there will put the cost of the Big Dig (~$15 billion) to shame. I'm not even including the costs to clean up the current mess, or the projected costs of the Corp of Engineers' coastal restoration projects.

As a taxpayer, and an emotional human being, I firmly believe the federal gov't should spend the money necessary to help the people in this region rebuild their lives after this terrible event. My sister-in-law's family lost everything. However, I do not support plugging billions and billions of tax dollars into another tragedy-in-waiting. Regardless of what side of the global warming debate you believe, the current practice of development in SE Louisiana is making things worse. You build bigger levees and line them with concrete, you simply shove sediment into the Gulf, instead of repleneshing the environment that helps protect New Orleans from a hurricane in the first place. The wetlands and marshes are disappearing, New Orleans is sinking, and we're inviting disaster. We will win some battles with Mother Nature, but she'll win the wars, and when she does, the results are catastrophic.

Now, I know it's unrealistic to assume we would or could abandon New Orleans. However, we need to think hard about rebuilding the neighborhoods (in their present places) that have been completely destroyed. I'd rather see us spend $20 billion in new communities in safer areas with world-class transit systems, than to spend that money to allow houses to be built 100 feet from a levee that holds water 10-20 feet higher in elevation. Unfortunately, it took a disaster (that too many experts saw coming) to bring this issue to the forefront. Where do we go from here? I hope the answer is up ... figuratively, and literally.

[Franklinnoble]

That's a Craptacular suggestion.

I'd endorse this course of action - it's a shame it'll never happen, though.

The closest example I can think of is when the Embarcadero freeway collapsed in San Francisco in the quake of 89... they didn't bother to replace it - they just decided "this was a bad idea in the first place - and it's cheaper to bulldoze it." Not only that, but property along the waterfront there became worth millions overnight (overlooking the bay instead of the freeway) and now it's a popular tourist spot.

I think this is an opportunity to re-engineer the city and modernize it a bit. If I may digress a bit - there is another historical precedent for this. I used to work with a British fellow who said the biggest problem with Paris is that it stinks - literally. The city has a plumbing infrastructure ill-suited for a 21st century metropolis. He says the worst thing that could have happened to Paris was that the French surrendered in WWII before the Germans could bomb the hell out of it. Now, this happened to London, and they had to re-build, and a post-war infrastructure makes that city a lot nicer than Paris.

I've never seen Paris - this isn't my take, just another guy's opinion - but it makes a lot of sense to me.

[Tigercat]

And regarding the New Orleans population, it isn't simple urban flight out of desire, but also necessity. Land, as we have all seen, is a premium in SE Louisiana. You simply can't build new houses near or around the city anymore unless you plan to pay 5 times what you would 30 or more minutes away from the city.

[CamEdwards]

I think Crappy's hit the nail on the head. The one thing I absolutely do not want to see as NO begins the rebuilding process is a mentality of "let's just build it again, and try to make it safer this time around".

I love New Orleans, but the geography of the city absolutely needs to be taken into consideration when determining how best to rebuild.

[Buccaneer]

I told my wife that I would not be surprised to see NO's population down 75% when all said and done.

[Buccaneer]

Doug, you ok? Hadn't heard from you since the weekend.

[Doug5984]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

However, the history and culture New Orleans had (particularly as a center of both Black and Acadian culture) is what made New Orleans what it is (was?). New Orleans will still exist if for no other reason than this. It's too important to too many people and not just to the ones who actually live(d) within its city limits. The New Orleans that will emerge over the course of the coming decades will obviously bear little resemblence to the city that stands now, but it'll be there nonetheless. I do think, however, that the center of gravity in Louisiana will now shift to Baton Rouge as it will be the most likely resettlement location for anyone leaving New Orleans permanently, but wishing to stay in Louisiana. It'll still be the cultural capital of the state, but it'll likely lose a lot of clout in other areas.

I agree with this- but I think Lafayette, will probably grow more than Baton Rouge.

[Buzzbee]

Originally Posted by CamEdwards

I think Crappy's hit the nail on the head. The one thing I absolutely do not want to see as NO begins the rebuilding process is a mentality of "let's just build it again, and try to make it safer this time around".

Not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, but isn't that sort of the mentality of re-building the twin towers?


Also, I'd like to point out that if (and I know that it is an irrelevant IF) the levee holds we aren't questioning how to fix NO or wondering what needs to be done to shore up (pardon the pun) NO. We'd instead be praising modern ingenuity and patting ourselves on the back for dodging a bullet.

Very interesting how 200 yards of earth and concrete is changing an entire city and an entire nation.

[Doug5984]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Doug, you ok? Hadn't heard from you since the weekend.

Yeah, I'm here in Lafayette- we are all fine. All friends and family got out safely with their lives so its good. Most my friends lost everything- some loaded a car up with a few personal belongings but pretty much everything is expected to be gone. It's been hectic here- it is being said that the population here in lafayette more than doubled over night and it is a nightmare to try to drive around town, its crazy. Everyone has friends and relatives staying with them, stores are running low on everything- i went to burger king today, and they are running low on food. Another interesting thing is UNO, Tulane, and Loyola all cancelled all classes this semester- so now everyone is trying to get into near by colleges and take a few classes...its going to be a very interesting few months to see how these things unfold, and what type of impact they have on the entire south louisiana area.

[Craptacular]

Originally Posted by Buzzbee

Not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, but isn't that sort of the mentality of re-building the twin towers?


Also, I'd like to point out that if (and I know that it is an irrelevant IF) the levee holds we aren't questioning how to fix NO or wondering what needs to be done to shore up (pardon the pun) NO. We'd instead be praising modern ingenuity and patting ourselves on the back for dodging a bullet.

Very interesting how 200 yards of earth and concrete is changing an entire city and an entire nation.

For the most part, you're right. However, there are quite a few people who were thinking about this before Katrina. There's a great article from the October 2004 issue of National Geographic about the flooding threat to N.O. from a hurricane. In fact, the first part of the article is a little spooky to read now.

[Cuckoo]

Originally Posted by Doug5984

Yeah, I'm here in Lafayette- we are all fine. All friends and family got out safely with their lives so its good. Most my friends lost everything- some loaded a car up with a few personal belongings but pretty much everything is expected to be gone. It's been hectic here- it is being said that the population here in lafayette more than doubled over night and it is a nightmare to try to drive around town, its crazy. Everyone has friends and relatives staying with them, stores are running low on everything- i went to burger king today, and they are running low on food. Another interesting thing is UNO, Tulane, and Loyola all cancelled all classes this semester- so now everyone is trying to get into near by colleges and take a few classes...its going to be a very interesting few months to see how these things unfold, and what type of impact they have on the entire south louisiana area.

Good to hear you're okay. We Pinged you over on the NAFL board, but you didn't respond. I knew you were sending exports so we just figured you were quite the trooper.