Superstorm

[Dr Mordrid]

The BEST course of action will never be taken because of emotion & politics: scrap the city, fill it in to 30' above sea level then rebuild. That or, better yet, move the whole shebang upstream to land that's already above sea level.

People are just unwilling to admit the truth: sometimes cities die, and often for good reason.

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

Maybe they could do what they did with Seattle..

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

[Fluff]

What would they call it it's already 'New'.

On another note hope you all manage to get away for Labour Day weekend ok.

[DukeP]

I was thinking in the line of Dr. Mordrid.

Let people take what they can salvage from their own house, and then let the reconstructors gather what they deem is saleable before they start rebuilding. Then hold an auction.

Still. I cant really begin to grasp the amount of cash that would cost...

~~DukeP~~

[rylan]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/02/katrina.world/index.html

[Jon P. Inghram]

Well, there's New New York in Futurama, I suppose that'd work in real life too...

[Lizzard[MPE]]

the city needs to be moved. i cant believe.. well i can believe they are going to rebuild. but its just ridiculous. and as a tax payer, i'd rather them move the city then rebuild it and have the same problems down the line.

[KeiFront]

I don't know the exact situation but moving a city (including industry) would be nearly impossible it would take years.

[Jessterw]

Well at this rate they will be rebuilding on ashes. The city is on fire in various places. Someone said to me today that they should just blow the remaining levees, and to a large degree I agree. Doc has the right idea, but sadly it will never happen.

Watching webcams and viewing the pictures of NO as it progresses into hell (by all reports, it's worse not than yesterday) just disgusts me. Just on the basis of how the people who remain in the city are acting. Where's our supposed moral superiority when we need it.

[The PIT]

Well forget about rebuilding what needs to be done first of all is getting aid to the remaining people and getting them out of there asap.

Clearly no one in power had a understanding what a storm of this strength can do and there wasn't any organised response.

Why can aid be shipped across the world but no one can do it here. Beggers belief.

[cjolley]

Those suggesting it be moved don't get why it was built there to begin with.
It CAN'T be moved.
It's the second or third largest port in the US and is at the mouth of of the largest and longest navagable river.
Where would it get moved to? Somewhere in Colorado?

They just* need to build a real sea wall around it.
That would be a smaller project than moving the city and port upriver.




* just!

[Jon P. Inghram]

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a city on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest city in all of Louisiana...

[dbdg]

cjolly, that may be the case but what if they do build a wall and 30 years from now it just floods again.....what would have been the point.

As for providing help to the US, the US is big enough to look after itself.

[Jessterw]

Moving the city of New Orleans a tad further inland is not going to ruin the port aspect of it. They can leave the port where it's at, but use some common sense and give nature back its ability to protect the area as it was meant to. Sure there might be some inconvenience having the city not resting right on the port, but I think avoiding something like this would be well worth it.

They definitely need to put some planning and money into constructing adequate sea walls and pumping systems, but you can only do so much for a city that is resting below sea level and has wiped out much of the natural flood preventions.

As something extra:

http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68738,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

[Jon P. Inghram]

If they made the flood control system properly a catastrophic flood like this wouldn't have happened in the first place. It's a classic example of penny-pinchers looking only at the short-term, the tens of billions that might be saved if a major hurricane were to hit was not considered as important as the couple billion it would have cost to upgrade the cities protection at the time.