To those who think New Orleans is too far below sea level...

[Cascadian]

People who think that New Orleans should be rebuilt on a higher ground should really look to The Netherlands. A country that is mostly below sea level and yet centuries of Dutch engineering has successfully pushed the sea back. I think those who will undertake the task of rebuilding New Orleans should seek advice from the Dutch and how they have done it.

Just my thoughts on it. If it can be done by the Dutch, it can be done by America.


John

[demobabe]

1. I don't think the Netherlands are in a direct storm path

I want to see NO rebuilt, but if global warming is indeed happening, the future isn't going to look so good for the Gulf Coast and Florida...

[Coastie for Truth]

14. But Rotterdam is a North Sea port

[Mr_Spock]

2. Much of Boston is filled land

Granted we had hills here to get the fill from, but does anyone know if filling the area (now that we are starting over) is practical? This is a serious question.

[damntexdem]

9. Well, if hills are needed to fill from, NO doesn't have any.

The only hill in NO is a slight rise at Audubon Zoo, constructed so the children of NO could experience a hill.

[TwilightZone]

3. When was the last time a hurricane hit the Netherlands?

I think that's a rather significant difference.

[Cascadian]

4. I think it sounds somewhat defeatist.

No disrespect but I think with some science and some know-how, a stronger levy (sp) system can be built around the city! Enough to withstand a catagory 5 hurricane.

John

[greenman3610]

10. the current levees were built with 19th century understanding of ecology

That's why the Delta region is disappearing under the sea year by
year, because no one understood the relationship of the
annual mississipi floods to replenishing the soil and
foundation of the whole mississippi delta.
If the system is rebuilt without a better understanding
of the way the whole system needs to work, it's just
reinforcing a decades old error that will
not stand against mother nature's irreversible
laws, and the disintegration of the wetland
resource and fisheries will continue-guaranteeing
a larger future disaster....

[TwilightZone]

19. It has little to do with know-how...

and much more to do with money.

We have the knowledge; the government cut off the money.

I wasn't being defeatist, I was merely pointing out the obvious difference between your example and New Orleans. Using the Netherlands as an example would only apply if the situations were in any way similar. They are not.

[Mikimouse]

5. Hurricane, perhaps and probably not, but they are surrounded...

by the North Atlantic which is known for some ferocious storms and high winds, waves etc. The dikes have been challenged and tested quite severely on a number of occasions.

[damntexdem]

12. They're the experts at dykes against a raging ocean.

I'm sure they can account for the added effects of a hurricane.

But if it's hurricane-specific expertise needed, then turn to Cuba.

[indepat]

6. No Administration has been willing to commit the $14B reportedly needed

for hurricane protection and the flood damage alone will probably run in the neighborhood of ten times that amount. But for a pre-emptive war the Congress has literally jumped through its collective ass holes in writing blank checks for hundreds of billions of dollars with absolutely no accountability. Go figure.

[Cascadian]

8. It's just the absurdity of the Republicans.

They will throw money towards a war that did not have to happen and impeach a President for sex in the Oval Office and yet won't spend the money to help fix levies in Louisiana. They have no priorities.

John

[indepat]

16. Their priorities are to reward patrons, punish political enemies, and

further implement a far-right-wing PNAC agenda including destroying all social programs (thus making a mockery of the promote the general welfare doctrine), period, end of story, nothing else matters a whit.

[NNadir]

7. Global Climate Change may do the Netherlands in.

There is only so much engineering can accomplish.

[malaise]

11. Interestingly the Dutch

set up a similar system in Guyana (South America) way back when. There is a system of kokers and dykes which usually work for high tides and floods. That said Guyana had a major flood last year and thousnads were flooded out because many modern homes are no longer designed for the reality that the Guyana coast line is below sea level. Additionally private sector interests have developed areas too close to the kokers. Guyana is even more vulnerable than New Orleans since she located alongside the Atlantic Ocean and not a Gulf or the Caribbean sea.

[Coastie for Truth]

13. In Europe, High-Tech Flood Control, With Nature's Help - New York Times

<>

<>

<>

On a cold winter night in 1953, the Netherlands suffered a terrifying blow as old dikes and seawalls gave way during a violent storm.

Flooding killed nearly 2,000 people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 others. Icy waters turned villages and farm districts into lakes dotted with dead cows.

Ultimately, the waters destroyed more than 4,000 buildings.

Afterward, the Dutch - realizing that the disaster could have been much worse, since half the country, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, lies below sea level - vowed never again.

After all, as Tjalle de Haan, a Dutch public works official, put it in an interview last week, "Here, if something goes wrong, 10 million people can be threatened."

So at a cost of some $8 billion over a quarter century, the nation erected a futuristic system of coastal defenses that is admired around the world today as one of the best barriers against the sea's fury - one that could withstand the kind of storm that happens only once in 10,000 years.

The Dutch case is one of many in which low-lying cities and countries with long histories of flooding have turned science, technology and raw determination into ways of forestalling disaster.

London has built floodgates on the Thames River. Venice is doing the same on the Adriatic.

Japan is erecting superlevees. Even Bangladesh has built concrete shelters on stilts as emergency havens for flood victims.

Experts in the United States say the foreign projects are worth studying for inspiration about how to rebuild New Orleans once the deadly waters of Hurricane Katrina recede into history.

"They have something to teach us," said George Z. Voyiadjis, head of civil and environmental engineering at Louisiana State University. "We should capitalize on them for building the future here."


---There's a lot more -- and it's well worth a read ---

[ClintonTyree]

15. Most coastal cities are vulnerable............

that was their great appeal when they were founded, they were very accessible to the ocean. A CAT 2 Hurricane would take out most of Manhattan Island. Would we rebuild New York City? Rebuilding New Orleans is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. Of course you rebuild it, BUT with better levees and reparation of coastal wetlands. If the government would have spent $500 Million in the first place they wouldn't be spending $200+ Billion now. Penny wise and pound foolish, it's a very old saying but it still applies today.

[KT2000]

17. C-Span had author John Barry

talk about his book "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America" on Friday evening. They seemed to fit it in because the schedule indicated another program would have been on at the time.

If you look out for it, this man knows alot about the formation of New Orleans, what is happening to it now and how the changing Mississippi River affects it. The format was the program where one of their regular hosts (female) asked him questions for two hours. It may have been After Words.
The C-Span schedule does not mention that it was on yesterday and there is no mention of a replay, but I hope they do. Vey good stuff.

[lindisfarne]

18. One consideration is the cost. In Europe, land is very valuable and

countries are small so yes, they can justify the cost. But the situation in the US is different. We have a lot more land.

Levies are never infallible. Is it really fair to allow people to go through this again in 20-30 years? Or would it be better to think about where people should be allowed to live? Should they be allowed to live in the most dangerous areas (some of the parrishes, such as St. Bernard's, are in even more dangerous places than NO is).

Another thought is IF people are allowed to rebuild in the same place, how can building codes be revised to ensure safer houses? Should houses in the low-lying areas be required to have, for example, a 3rd floor, which would likely stay above the water level? Or to be built raised somehow.

Keep in mind that NO this time was NOT hit directly by a hurricane. What would happen if it was hit directly by a category 5 hurricane? That is possible. This one was only a category 4 (and I believe it dropped to a category 3 by the time it hit land).

There are many considerations, such as uprooting long-standing neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone. But we have an opportunity now unlike any we've had before to seriously look at this issue. Many from NO are saying they're not going to return, so neighborhoods will change anyhow.

The very poor will always live in the most dangerous areas. Given this, is it fair to allow the most dangerous areas to be used again for housing? If not, then people need to be provided with land, free of charge, in another area, and need to have things like public transportation provided to them.

Not easy questions, nor easy answers. In either scenario, the poor are going to be on the losing end, given the way we always do things in this country.

(I quite frankly don't think the federal government will EVER agree to pay for levees along the lines of those in the Netherlands. Although if they had done so years ago, we may not be facing the devastation we are today.)

[VADem11]

20. The dutch

have had disasters as well. The 1953 flood killed over a thousand people. I think that we should rebuild most of new orleans but that we should cede some land to the sea or lake or whatever and restore the wetlands. We don't need to hold back every drop of water.

[burrowowl]

21. Parts of New York are

not very high up, if the seas rise, well ...
Of course Death Valley is way low!