Chocolate City?????????

So I guess that would not make me insensitive if I thought Seattle should not be rebuilt because it’s leveled when Mount Rainier blows? I guess if a tsunami were to level Portland or a major earthquake levels L.A. or S.F. we should just write those cities off too? How about Tornados destroying most of Dallas or Oklahoma City? My point is that many people in these areas are the first to “question” the viability of Rebuilding New Orleans, yet they seem to forget that at some point they could be in a similar situation. Personally I think that were any of these events to occur I would have NO PROBLEM with my tax dollars being used to rebuild any of these cities and help their citizens recover. Why is it that people in these areas seem so intent on abandoning N.O. and constantly question why their tax dollars should fund our recovery?

 

I would never support rebuilding California after an earthquake. Mother nature always wins. A tornado leveling Dallas if more unlikely than a LA earthquake. New Orleans is below sea level, there is significant risk of reflooding. If the plan was to build New Orleans up like the Back Bay in Boston, it would make more sense IMO.

 

Then I guess in your opinion the people of the Netherlands are really stupid. A good amount of their country is below sea level and they have spent billions of dollars in the past 40-50 years on an intricate levee/dike system to protect them from flooding. In fact many people here believe that a system like their's system is the key to New Orleans survival.

 

The United States has lots of open space left that is above sea level. The Netherlands is forced to have a levee system because of a lack of higher land available. You are confusing need with want. If the local people wish to rebuild using using state revenues, by all means do so. My issue is the demand that the Federal Government finance this project when we have many other needs that have a lower risk. People move everyday for a variety of reasons, perhaps it is time to realize that what would be required to shelter New Orleans is not in America's best finacial interest.

 

Perhaps if we were given our fair share of revenue from oil and gas from our costal waters then we would be in a better position to rebuild on our own. Unfortunately the rest of the country has been dicking us out of our fare share of this money for decades. Further I guess you have no idea just how dependent the nation is on the refining capabilities of this region. Maybe we should just cut that off to the rest of the nation until they come around. BTW, what other "needs" are you speaking of?

 

I suggest you do, while you are at it, get rid of the politicians that have put in your situation.

 

With that I totally agree. I'm just wondering what needs you are speeking of?

 

This is not a political forum, but I am sure most would agree there are educational and health care issues affecting every state. The resources the Federal Government has are finite. Redirecting funds to rebuild New Orleans means less for every other need unless we wish to add to the deficit or increase taxes.

 

I agree totally that this is not a political forum, however I'm not the one who started the political conversation by saying NO should not be rebuilt due to other "needs".

 

Without New Orleans, the US is ****ed. Here's a rebuttal to every point you've posted and are sadly mistaken about.
http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopolitics_katrina.php

 

Except what you are talking about is industrial areas and what we are discussing is the rebuilding of primarily residential areas. The port will be rebuilt because it makes economic sense, it does not make sense to rebuild the ninth ward residential areas. The port areas are also being repaired using private money and insurance settlements, again because it makes sense to do so. There is no need to rebuild the homes in the flood plain at a cost that far exceeds rebuilding on high land.

 

Again, I don't think you really have explored what is being asked for and what has been already promised. The problem is that you are trying to make conventional conclusions on an unconventional city.

I posted the following in the 'politics and religion' area and you should read it:
Does this hold that one shouldn't live in New Orleans as a whole? Maybe, maybe not. Consider this:

The Federal Gov't charges the Army Corps of Engineers with the responsibility of protecting inland waterways and support systems. Specific to New Orleans was the area Army Corps. Now, New Orleans was built in its location for many reasons well before people fully comprehended the dangers. Somehow New Orleans managed to survive in its place for a long time before Katrina.

After the great storm that blew away Galveston, Tx in 1900 the Feds woke up to the serious problem that faced the entire Gulf Coast. Plans to build a massive levee system to protect New Orleans precipitated shortly thereafter. As technology and science improved, geologists came to realize that New Orleans needed some serious flood protection. Throughout the 50s all the way up to present time the scientists had been screaming at the Army Corps to spend appropriated funds, well, appropriately. This meant they wanted a levee with Category 5 protection.

Well, the Feds thought about it and found their statisticians believed the odds of a major Cat 4 or 5 storm hitting New Orleans was somewhere in the range of 1:300 years.

So they went ahead and half-assed a levee system to protect up to a Cat 3 in hopes that they could put off spending funds to protect the area. They bet wrong.

Everyone knows the destruction to New Orleans was caused by the levee breach. Had this not occured, N.O. would have been back to normal in no time.

The problem is that the Feds made a bet against mother nature despite having the ability to hedge the risk 100% by using availbale resources and technology. The funds it would have taken to protect the area from flooding pale in comparison with the amount of damage done to New Orleans.

Most people forget that the French Quarter and other parts of the city(the oldest and most historical) actually lie ABOVE sea level. Crazy thought eh?

Now does this mean we should have built in the lower 9th ward and other low lying areas? Well, in my opinion it wasn't the best idea in the world. That entire area was essentially marsh and swamp before the levee was constructed. Once water was blocked from entering those areas they dried up and created a lot of space close to New Orleans for people to live. Bad idea, no doubt. This is NOT to say that those areas do not have valuable history. Rather, it is confronting what was essentially poor planning.

But why do people think the levee was blown up on purpose depsite knowing it wasn't built to handle the strength of Katrina? Why? Because the levee has been blown up on purpose before! To protect the city from massive flooding from the Mississippi river funneling water from huge flooding in the Plains states the local government decided it needed to use dynamite to destroy a section of the levee to help alleviate pressure and allow the influx of water to shoot past New Orleans quickly. What happened? The ENTIRE parish of St. Bernard has horrendous flooding. But it saved New Orleans.

Since then people have been afraid that it could happen again. WIth this in mind it is not hard to believe that a lot of people living in an area would be quick to point a finger toward Bush blowing up the levee. Many people, not all, in the lower 9th ward, well below sea level, are highly uneducated folks who percieve a strong racial divide between themselves and wealthy whites in the area. The racial tension in New Orleans was palpable well before Katrina. A shame that this perception is getting people to be at each other's throats.

But anyways...

City planners are beginning to recognize that we should bulldoze the lowest areas and return them to their natural wetland state. What is taking so long for this realization to become public? Probably the fact that they don't want to tell a couple hundred thousand pissed off people that they will never get to reclaim their property. Then the NAACP gets involved pulling the race card, blah blah blah. All of that would serve as negative attention, ticking off policy makers in Washington, which, in turn, could seriously hurt chances of New Orleans obtaining assistance for some of the very valid projects and restoration plans.

In the future the restored wetlands would help protect the city by serving as a type of last ditch drainage.

I think that once more people become clear about what New Orleans' future will look like more people will be willing to let it have a chance. Nobody in their right mind thinks it should be redeveloped to mirror how it was before the hurricane. Doing so would be a blunder. But, if done correctly to standards that take into account the problem areas of the city, it can make sense economically all while appealing to the nations's sense of conscience.

In my opinion, of course
__________________

 

On behalf of the members of our community, we are outraged that Mayor Nagin would call New Orleans a Chocalate City, he has no right to do so and there isn't any historical precedence for making such a claim.


Joe
Hershey, PA
A Real Chocalote City.

 

Your reasoning does not make sense? New Orleans and southern Louisiana not only are the channel for a large portion of the US domestic oil production, but also port activity, fishing and seafood production 2nd only to Alaska, sport fishing and hunting 2nd to none, tourism and more. Using your logic we should keep these businesses, but get rid of all the housing areas that flooded because of a US government screw-up in design and building of our levee system. Well, how could any of these businesses survive without people to work and manage them, and these people need housing, schools, hospitals, etc. to operate! So should we scrap a 300 year old city and import all our workers? If that's the case then lets sink Venice, Italy now and get it over with too. And blow up the San Andras fault and let California slide into the Pacific now instead of waiting until the US spends "too much money" to save it.

Here's hoping your city isn't worth it either!

 

A levee system is a bandaid IMO. Levee systems have breaches and are dependent on pumping systems. The only way to guarantee safety is to raise the level of the land. If New Orleans is 60" below sea level, bring in 120" of dirt. Levee systems require constant maintence, another never ending expense. The city needs to be regraded just like any lot you would build a home on. As I stated earlier, the Back Bay in Boston is a wonderful example of how marsch land can become usable.

The US government will design the new levee system as well, and I am confident that after all the money they will spend we will have just as many problems as before. You need look no furhter than the Big Dig to see a project that went 700% over budget, ran a decade over and is marred with flaws.

As for where the employees will live, I suppose they will need to commute. You wish to bombard me with various statistics of New Orleans importance to the nation, I have to ask why the high poverty rate? If New Orleans provides so many vital funtions to the US economy, why are its people living so poorly? Where is all the money that is generated going?

 

Johnfutureowner.....How does one reach the status of "highly uneducated"???? LOL! Other than that, well spoken, as usual.....I may qualify for that descriptor............

Listen, the main problem facing the Gulf Coast Region is the whole idea that one could engineer adequate protection for a Cat 5 storm......let's throw the AVERAGE numbers of this type event up on the screen for a minute and recap..

Average wave heights: 18 - 24 feet..
Mean storm surge due to tidal and wind action: 16 - 22 feet....

Average height of normal sand dune: 0 - 12 feet...

Now, some quick simple math would leave you with an incoming wall of water, about THIS high: (22 +24) - 12 = 34 Feet of angry storm tossed water, headed in the back deck patio doors, in an unprotected area.....

That's the reason most homes are considered 'seasonal', rather than permanent, in these areas.

Now if you build a continuous 34' high levee system from the Mouth of the Rio Grande all way over to, I dunno Clearwater, Florida, would you consider the same properties 'safe'?????? It would darn sure block the sunset view!!!!!

Thats the error in thinking I think, is the ability to "hide' behind a work of man, and face the full fury of nature!

Galveston and Texas City even NOW are only good for a full Cat 3 or so, a glancing blow from a full Cat 5 would overide everything built in the past 100 years! Houston is only protected by the distance it's harbor is away from the Gulf, although it's water connection by The Channel would allow the flood right into Downtown anyway.....New Orleans is in a similar status, once everything is repaired, they'll be good only for a Cat 3.......

So the real answer to a direct Cat 5 hit is still the same, to the rational mind:

"Run like He11.....come back in a few days to pick up the pieces!"

This is what the pubic is still urged to do in these cases. Only those in very well engineered facilities, such as Hospitals and Public Safety Administrative facilities are equipped to battle the storm "in place"....and are manned by heroes, thru the event!!!! It's no fun to be standing next to 600 volts and above, as the water rushes in......

 

Well, this simply supposes that everyone starts out as uneducated, so its more a matter of attaining knowledge as opposed to reaching a level of ignorance. Now, the issue of education gets quite comlicated, but simply stated, N.O. had SERIOUS education problems that were both systemic and perpetuated by community attitudes towards equality, racial tensions, and misinformation. But we'll leave that for another thread for now. Or better yet, a long discussion over a couple choice cigars that we have been meaning to enjoy together!

 

The former steel player with Jesse Dayton handed me some Cubans the other day.

Valeria got a pet fish........mine were easier to transport home, but her new Oscar wags his tail, when you come home in the evening.......

It's hard times here too, man. No easy choices.......best of luck.

Can I tell these streetwalkers it's OK to go home???????

 

I should just post the NOAA wave charts from Katrina, and then Rita, there were some rougue 20 - 24'ers in there.....

Another good read is Isaac's Storm, an account of Galveston's 1900 event.
A map in this book clearly depicts how far inland housing and other structures were wiped clean, then the debris wave went inland much further.

The history lesson was impressed from an early age, on me......looking forward to seeing everyone!!!

 

Nicely done! I am in the process of reviving my stock of smokes that were left in the humidor for a few months without the attention they require. But they are coming back nicely. In fact, I still have a few of the Bolivars I have had for awhile and they are delicious! I even have some FQC cigars tucked away

Nope!

Fantastic book. A U.S. history course I took about 6 years ago at Tulane had this book as required reading!