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9 Weeks to Pump Out New Orleans?
Cr0w T. Trollbot asks: "It looks like New Orleans is going through something very close to the worst case scenario right now. This somewhat prescient study, written well before the hurricane, describes some of the challenges (engineering and otherwise) facing New Orleans. 'In this hypothetical storm scenario, it is estimated that it would take nine weeks to pump the water out of the city, and only then could assessments begin to determine what buildings were habitable or salvageable. Sewer, water, and the extensive forced drainage pumping systems would be damaged. National authorities would be scrambling to build tent cities to house the hundreds of thousands of refugees unable to return to their homes and without other relocation options.' The hypothetical is looking awful close to reality right now. What can be done about draining and rebuilding New Orleans in light of the massive flooding, and what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"
I know this sounds crazy, but given its bowl shape terrain, instead of pumping out the water and rebuild, why don't they rebuild over the water?
Otherwise, try asking Dutch how they have been living with large parts of Netherlands below sea level.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
...how many foreign countries are sending aid to the US now?
Did anyone else misread that headline and think the networks had started a "Pimp my City" show?
A) Don't live by a freaking ocean. Oceans have hurricanes.
B) Don't live in a city that is 8 feet below sea level. Flooding WILL occur.
Problem solved.
My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in, New Orleans is sinking man and I don't wanna swim!
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
"what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"
Well what I do in Civ3 is to disallow building cities on floodplains and swamps. Helps heaps.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
SPONGES.
Really, just a massive airdrop of sponges over the city, et voila, your problem, she is solved!
I Live in New Orleans and I was just planning on staying at Taco's house. This membership is good for something, right?
Salvation Army Online Donation - Money goes directly to help with Katrina relief.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
The Army Corps of Engineers is working on better flood detection and protection, and anyone with expertise in this area could contact them and lend a hand.
Well New Orleans is too big too just simply give it up and move on. I figure they'll have to just start pumping out water one problem neighborhood at a time. It might take months or years to fully recover but it has to be done. The cost of leaving all that alone is far worse.
Long term: I think a massive public works project will come out of this. Something along the lines of the Netherlands Delta Works Project. Only on a much more massive scale. Something along the lines of a massively huge dike between New Orleans and the ocean. Either that or find a way to drop enough dirt under New Orleans to raise it about 100 feet. Either that or maybe the United States will actually address and attempt to fix global warming with this hurricane blow?
...in bed
Only way to really prevent something like this is to not build densely in high-risk areas in the first place.
Of course, the very features that makes for high risk - river deltas, earthquake areas, active volcanism - tend to produce really desireable areas to live in.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
We all know why this is happening to us.
Yep, because terrorists hate our freedom.
Trolling is a art,
Blaming it on Bush is a joke. The levees haven't been properly funded for decades.
How about keeping the national guard at home so that we have a trained and able bodied army of people available to actually do the work? Right now I've heard that there's anywhere from 3K-6K Louisiana national guard troops following the story from Iraq.
Give thanks again to the GWB administration's inability to govern.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
You forgot the Mississippi river on the 4th side. That is often at a higher level than any of the other three (always higher than the sea, which not a direct neighbor yet -- needs a few more storms for that).
As for insurance, the US gov has bailed out every insurance company that hit bad times insuring Florida or Texas or California property, so why not ? It's a win-win situation -- nothing happens, you get the premiums, something happens, the Gov pays for you.
I predict people will move right back in, rebuild with easy gov-backed credit, and repeat all these mistakes again while our national deficit balloons.
Maybe they should seriously consider moving the whole city to someplace more stable (not below sea-level and not sinking).
Yeah, that'll be very expensive, but if they don't do seriously consider the moving option now, they'll probably have to consider it some time in the next 50 years anyway. Given the location and parameters (below sea-level and below Mississippi level much of the time) it's amazing that NL has lasted this long. Perhaps we should consider NL to be the first victim of Global Warming (which produces stronger hurricanes and higher ocean levels).
Popular Mechanics also did a piece on the disaster that was just waiting to happen in New Orleans. Check it out.
Do not read this sig.
... together with back-issues of National Geographic. That should avoid the problem in the future by raising the grade level by 5-7 meters.
Gee no practical value. I guess the whole port thing is useless now that we no longer use ships. Oh and the oil and gas terminal is also useless now that we have Zero Point Modules at every WalMat
There are some real practical reasons for New Orleans to exist.
There are some things that can be done to reduce the impact of hurricanes like this. The biggest one is to restore the delta and the wet lands. The messing with the Mississippi caused a lot of this damage.
Building codes can also make a big difference. My home got hit by TWO hurricanes last year. I had no damage. Lots of older homes near me get a lot of damage.
BTW if we are going to condemn cities that are could be damaged by natural disasters lets start the list with most of California and let's face it New York is just a giant target for terrorists. How many Billions did 9/11 cost the US? Oh and Seattle is next to a chain of volcanoes.
Cities tend to be where they are for a reason. Lots of cities tend to be on rivers and the Ocean because water transportation is so useful. New Orleans would have done just fine with a CAT 2 or CAT 3 Getting hit by a CAT 4+ is a very rare event for anyone location.
Saying that these people should "just" move on is uncaring, mean, and stupid
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
are just going to leave the city for good? Seriously, if it takes 2 months to get things back to something that even remotely resembles "normal" what are people going to do in the intervening time? Esp. considering that most children were looking to go back to school soon. My bet is that there will be a significant "brain drain" out of the city/state. Young educated people are going to find a job somewhere else and not look back. I wonder if that will be taken into account when the final tolls are reached....
Monstar L
Congress cut the fiscal year 2006 budget to the US Army Corps of Engineers in the New Orleans district by $71 Million, the largest single year cut ever.
Ironically, a study to determine the effects of a Cat 5 hurricane was also shelved.
Moreover, the New Orleans district imposed a hiring freeze back in June, the first time in 10 years.
Congress may be partially to blame for the failed pumps and the long clean-up time.
Think about the fact that a major U.S. city that many people love is slowly being destroyed almost completely. Think about how when all is said and done probably thousands of people will be dead from this. Think about how a husband feels knowing his wife is dead, or a wife feels seeing her husband die, or a parent who sees a child sicken and die.
Think I'm being overly dramatic? Think again. This is going to wind up being the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, and what I'm seeing on /. are jokes? I know the usual flippant response is 'hey dude, this is a valid response to tragedy.' Yeah, I understand that, but man, people are actively dying right now. How about just a tad more respect at this very moment, and then make your jokes? Why not wait to see the full impact of this disaster before you reflexively respond with sarcasm and wit? Please.
Three feet of sinking plus other issues, like rising water levels. Here, read this time story:
a ns.html
http://www.time.com/time/reports/mississippi/orle
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
These storms are part of a natural Hurricane cycle. These cycles have been seen going back centuries. Not really a case of Karma. If so wouldn't it have been more far for a massive hurricane to have hit California and New York where lots if this oil and gas is burned?
These poor people need help just a bunch of morons judging them and making stupid comments.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west...
Or more to the point, does it bother anyone that our tax dollars will be used to pay for people who do have insurance, because the insurance companies will run to the government to bail them out when that $20 billion bill comes due?
It's not helping the folks who have no insurance that bothers me. It's helping out comapnies whose business is selling risk, but who end up short on cash when their policies have to be paid out.
How about we limit the economic incentive to rebuild such a large city in such a blatently absurd geographic area?
After every major hurricane we see federal disaster relief helping to rebuild the are hit. Why not make the relief contingent on rebuilding outside of that area, or building structures that are far more resilient to hurricane damage?
As it is, the disaster relief limits the ability of the free market economy to control risk - insurance companies won't insure for flooding in New Orleans for a good reason. Why should taxpayers bail out residents in disaster-prone areas time and time again? Mother Nature always wins in the end. But I predict that we'll see massive rebuilding and an increase in the size of the levees, and New Orleans will rebound...until the next time. Maybe 150 years time, or 300. Or maybe not that long. That we don't know, but New Orleans will still be below sea level either way. Think that evacuating ~1 million people is bad enough? What will the population there be in 150 years time?
Look at Galveston, TX. In 1900 the island city was enjoying a huge economic boom. People didn't want to believe that anything could happen to the city so when a major hurricane hit the city got obliterated. ~3600 homes destroyed and between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths. They rebuilt, and raised much of the city from a lowly 9 feet above sea level, some by a whopping 11 feet. Woohoo.
My heart goes out to those who have lost homes, belongings, pets and family.
These people barely have enough money to live let alone buy insurance. Its funny how my opinions have changed now that the economy sucks so bad and jobs pay so little my girlfriend and i have no health insurance. contracted labor is a quick way to poverty but sometimes its all you have.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Flood insurance is provided by the federal government. You still have to buy it, but private insurers won't touch it. So if the feds stopped providing it large sections of, for instance, the Florida coast would cease to be attractive to development - you can't get a mortgage on something you can't get flood insurance on if it's anywhere that can flood at all.
So, yes, the government should stop providing flood insurance. Except then there would be millions of people in houses suddenly without much value since they can't sell them for much since the new owners couldn't get mortgages. And the banks holding the current mortgages wouldn't be too happy either. And Florida would be in a terrible way, which would be a hell of a repayment for the favor its government did for W back in 2000.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
New Orleans would have done just fine with a CAT 2 or CAT 3 Getting hit by a CAT 4+ is a very rare event for anyone location.
Dude. Hurricanes. Not network cable. No need to uppercase CAT.
I was just wondering, what exactly COULD have been done? Have everybody face southeast and blow really hard to make the hurricane move further east?
The only thing that you can do when there's a hurricane coming is GET THE FUCK OUT. A mandatory evacuation was announced at least 36 hours beforehand. Anyone with half a brain had ample opportunity to GET THE FUCK OUT.
Knowing that there are plenty of people with less than half a brain, they opened up the Superdome so when those dipshits finally realized, too late, that the governor really meant it when he said GET THE FUCK OUT, they'd have something to cower in besides their single-story wooden houses left over from the Great Depression and earlier.
3/4 of a million MRE's, millions of gallons of bottled water, etc. etc. were all staged at nearby locations (as close as they could get without being just as fucked as the idiots who stayed in the city).
So, my question to you is this: What else was the government supposed to do to save the stragglers from their own stupidity?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Define "rare event"... I suspect that you (and most people think about your life time), but cities should be built with longer timescales in mind.
At somepoint many developed areas will either be abandonded as urban areas (due to lack of water as much as too much water), or we shall spend vast sums of money to inhabit areas that are "suboptimal"... people are very bad at actually evaluating "rare events"...
To quote Rich Lowrey @NRO
If cable TV had existed in 1886, everyone in the U.S. might have been whipped into a hurricane panic. A record seven hurricanes made landfall that year, including a Category 4 storm that hit Texas and would have had on-the-spot cable newscasters dramatically fighting the wind to deliver their reports. All during the 1890s, reporters could have done the same along the Atlantic seaboard, as it was hammered by more powerful hurricanes than it would be in any decade except the 1950s.
Hurricane Katrina, which slammed the Gulf Coast and got eyewall-to-eyewall media coverage, is sure to increase the sense that there is an epidemic of hurricanes (along, of course, with an epidemic of shark attacks and missing blond girls). Which inevitably raises the question: "What can we do about it?" For some scientists and activists -- working on the assumption that anything they don't like must be caused by industrial emissions -- the answer is stop global warming.
There is hardly an undesirable natural event, from wildfires to hurricanes, that former Vice President Al Gore hasn't blamed on global warming. As if it weren't for fossil-fuel emissions, the weather would always be predictable and pleasant. An outfit called Scientists and Engineers for Change put up a billboard in Florida before last year's presidential election stating it starkly: "Global warming = Worse hurricanes. George Bush just doesn't get it." Ah, yes: Why are Bush and the neocons focused on the war in Iraq, when there is a very real threat to the U.S. they should be addressing in the waters of the Atlantic?
Has global warming increased the frequency of hurricanes? One of the nation's foremost hurricane experts, William Gray, points out that if global warming is at work, cyclones should be increasing not just in the Atlantic but elsewhere, in the West Pacific, East Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. They aren't. The number of cyclones per year worldwide fluctuates pretty steadily between 80 and 100. There's actually been a small overall decline in tropical cyclones since 1995, and Atlantic hurricanes declined from 1970 to 1994, even as the globe was heating up.
It seems that Atlantic hurricanes come in spurts, or as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts it in more technical language, "a quasi-cyclic multi-decade regime that alternates between active and quiet phases." The late 1920s through the 1960s were active; the 1970s to early 1990s quiet; and since 1995 -- as anyone living in Florida or Gulfport, Miss., can tell you -- seems to be another active phase.
But if hurricanes aren't more frequent, are they more powerful? Warm water fuels hurricanes, so the theory is that as the ocean's surface heats up, hurricanes will pack more punch. An article in Nature -- after questionable jiggering with the historical wind data -- argues that hurricanes have doubled in strength because of global warming. Climatologist Patrick Michaels counters that if hurricanes had doubled in their power it would be obvious to everyone and there would be no need to write controversial papers about it.
Indeed, if you adjust for population growth and skyrocketing property values, hurricanes don't appear to be any more destructive today. According to the work of Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado, of the top five most destructive storms this century, only one occurred after 1950 -- Hurricane Andrew in 1992. An NOAA analysis says there have been fewer Category 4 storms throughout the past 35 years than would have been expected given 20th-century averages.
None of this data matters particularly, since proponents of global warming will continue to link warming with hurricanes. It generates headlines in a way that debates about tiny increments of warming don't. And it feeds a conceit that is oddly comforting: that whatever is wrong with the world is caused by us and fixable by us. Alas, it's not so. Mother Nature can be a cruel and unpredictable mistress, and sometimes all we can do is head for the high ground.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
For the rare reminder that humanity still exists amongst its callous namesakes.
I know a lot of people are thinking:
A) Just move the City
B) Just build it like this city or that city
C) New Orleans is just an party town, and of no apparent other use.
It's easy to say build it like Venice, or do it like the Netherlanders, in reality, New Orleans is different.
The reality is, a Category 5 or 4 Hurricane would devastate just about any city close to water without worrying even about the wind damage.
To the people saying just move away and don't bother, its easy to think that way when not looking at the whole picture. New Orleans is a BIG port, and there it's also a huge fishing area, and damn nice place to live without hurricanes like Katrina.
The real solution I think is to break up the levy system and use mother nature to do its own restoration work. New Orleans is sinking because the Mississippi can't redeposit sediment and create a natural barrier. Yes, without the levies there will be yearly flooding, and its an initial logistical nightmare, but without spending billions on systems that could fail again, it's the best long term solution. Right now, NOLA is devastated, and the levy systems as to be initially put up to pump out, but with the current cycle of stronger and more frequent hurricanes in the carribean and gulf, it's just a short term solution.
Let's not forget though, that while New Orleans is the easiest place to look and claim that its just a problem with the land, just look a little East where the hurricane eyewall passed, and the devastation is just as horrific to communities not below sea level.
I say we just abandon New Orleans if the damage is too extensive to rebuild. Basically, call it Americas "chernobyl" and move on. Ya, there are fond memories in that city...but sometimes it's best to not fight nature. Just leave it be. But up a memorial, rebuild refineries in other areas...but slowly, just walk away from it.
I doubt this will happen, but it would be better in the long run then supporting a city BELOW see level.
Life is not for the lazy.
Where from? Pumps on the scale we're talking about aren't exactly lying around, they're manufactured to order. Then there's the problem of power, given the extensive damage. Then we can start talking about working conditions for installing those pumps...
Let me put in here my (little) experience about floodings.
I live in Venice, well in the hinterland of it. As you may know, it's a city build "on" the water. Or, better said, on a group of islands (107, exactly) in a laguna, directly connected by three connections to the mediterranean sea.
The area suffers from geological bradyseism (sinking) of few centimeters per year.
It's an irreversible process, simply leading to a worse situation as time goes by.
The city suffers an average of 50 floodings per year, with peak heigth of the water of more than a meter in the lower zones.
"Just" 40 years ago, the count of floodings per year was less than a dozen.
Lots are the analysis, conferences and general discussion on which should be best ways to limit the effects of such situation.
Well, the most common answer is: there's no solution.
It is just possible to extend the agony, not to dry up the city.
So, I agree with the cynical comment red so far: if you consider it worth, go and rebuild some kilometers faraway.
Sad but true.
Back to New Orleans - which is not Venice indeed - surely it will be possible to clean the city, polish it up and recall it to normality, but nothing assures you another similar (or even worse) flooding won't occur again, vanishing every effort.
Good luck to whose are still there.
I once tried to figure out the safest place to live in the USA. I eliminated all places that have:
Tornados
Hurricanes
Earthquakes
Wildfires
Fierce Blizzards
Sweltering summers (100+ F, 40+ C)
Volcanos
Nor-Easters
Flooding
Ignored tsunamis as they are unpredictable
Had nothing left of the USA after that. Every area of the country has one probkem or another.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Get real. There is a differnece between donating your money to those in need and having your money taken from you. If I stick a gun in your face, take your wallet, but give 25% of it to a charity, I'm I not guilty of theft? That's the point the of the original post. I have no problem giving to charitys that will help the people of New Orleans get back on their feet. What I, and many others, have a problem with is that money is taken from us without our permission by the goverment and given to these people when their is a 100% chance that a similar event will happen in the future because of the location these people choose to live in and do business in. Theft is theft, no matter how good you believe the cause to be. Let those who wish to give, give. Let those who do not, keep their money. Nobody is entitled to anyone elses hard earned property or earnings under any circumstances, period.
I realize that's hard for you to wrap your liberal head around but I don't work 8 hours a day , 5 days a week so other people can decide how to spend my hard earned dollars. I work so that I can.
...and if you do, build your pumping stations so that they can work submerged and without grid power, so that next time, they don't ALL FAIL. It's not like we don't have the technology- submarines, for example.
How much can it cost to build a solid foundation, and put a big diesel engine with a big fuel tank either in a sealed container with a snorkle, or put the engine bits up top a high tower (with substantial reinforcement)? This ain't rocket science.
Also, why don't the levees have anything but dirt in 'em? Why can't they have periodic concrete segments or something to stop breaks from spreading and to use as a base for emergency repairs?
Please help metamoderate.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was getting progressively more frustrated by the utter insensitivity shown by the posters in this article. "Wah wah tax dollars, wah wah floodplain, wah wah just move." I suppose you all live somewhere where a natural disaster couldn't possibly ever happen?
This reminds me of a Sam Kinison comment: "Why ship food to the Ethiopians!? Ship the Ethiopians to the food." In this case, why not move New Orleans to where the Lake was that was above the level of the city, which has now migrated to downtown New Orleans?
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
Some reports are saying that the govenor wants the entire city evac'ed. I am *guessing* that they may have to let the bowl fill up before they can get decent repairs on the levee. The only event I can even imagine of this scale is for the San Andreas to let loose right under LA (and I reallly hope that does not happpen in my lifetime). This is way beyond a catastrophe. This is functionally (if not literally) the destruction of a major US city. Other than the act of god bit, it would take a nuke to equal what just happened. How would you like to flee your home, then get told that it may be months before you are allowed back, and then to see what all that water did to the carpets, drywall, etc.
Folks, it doesn't get much worse than this.. except for death... and some folks bought that ticket.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Excuse me, but why should I have to pay tax dollars to a state who put a city 17 feet below sea level? This was an inevitability, and why should the FEDERAL government have to suck it up? Sure, you could 'fill in the blank' with all sorts of pork projects, but seriously, more socialism isn't the answer here.
I already made my contributions to New Orleans. I stayed in their hotels, ate their food and patronized their stores. They should have been putting more of the tax revenue into the levee system, apparently.
Um, sorry, if 'nothing' was done we'd be talking about the 100,000 dead today, maybe more. This is the secenaro that had been forseen for years. People were told to get the hell out of the city. Most that could did, may Idiots stayed that could leave, then there are tens of thousands of poor, elderly, and crackheads that dont have any means of doing so. The traffic was jammed for hours leaving the city, you've probably never been there, its a huge swamp with water on all sides, building more roads is extremely expensive, and the conservationist would go nuts if you tried to put a 10 lane highway in.
If the people didnt go to the superdome, they may be dead, there are not many places to go, I live over 250 miles away and ALL the hotels are full. Trying to bus 10,000 people in a day is a logistic nightmare. Remember they called the Superdome 'A place of last resort', that meant get out of the city now.
Now getting the people that are there out is a bigger nightmare, only one way out of the city, and if the water levels rise, it too may be cut off. If you live close and have a flat bottom boat, they may need your help over there.
Most of the dead so far have been in MS, not LA.
Your post is emotional drivel, you cant even grasp the scope of this disaster. Thousands of square miles of land has been severly affected by this storm, even with 100,000 emergency workers its going to take days to find survivors, and weeks for even the most basic clean up to get underway.
We live at the mercy of nature, when we think that we have it beaten, it shows it true power and our foolishness.
I posted a torrent to the helicopter flyover video of New Orleans (from a news station earlier today) in the other hurricane-related discussion:
o rrent
http://wrpn.net/~kremit/files/wgno26flyover.wmv.t
It's about 46 minutes long and in Windows Media format (I didn't create it and didn't feel like converting it).
You know what? I completely agree. Jokes about it may be in poor taste, but hey its the internet and people(immature teens mostly) do sometimes joke to cope.
What gets my fucking goat is all the assholes who are saying "oh well, what did you fucking expect based on where you live? Fuck em". They aren't joking, they aren't using "coping mechanisms". They are just cold-hearted fucktards who could give a crap about anything in life that doesn't directly affect them. Douchebags.
Oh btw A big fuck you to the people with mod points today.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
The Battle of New Orleans
The battle of New Orleans
Long before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was in a precarious state -- caught in an ongoing war with the mighty Mississippi River.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By John McPhee
Aug. 30, 2005 | For those watching the near-cataclysmic results of Hurricane Katrina, and wondering how New Orleans ever fell into such a precariously vulnerable position, John McPhee's great 1989 book "The Control of Nature" offers concrete answers. Each of the three parts of the book deals with a different region where man has been at war with nature: in Los Angeles, Iceland and, most important at this moment, the lower Mississippi River. Katrina is, of course, a case of nature waging war on man. But its damage and devastation may be felt all the more in places like New Orleans, where sturdy and deeply rooted men and women have faced off with the great river we call the Mississippi again and again. In this excerpt from "Atchafalaya," the first chapter from "The Control of Nature," McPhee draws affectionate portraits of the men of the Army Corps of Engineers and others who toil on behalf of "progress." Yet, it's clear which side he comes down on in these fights. His work reminds us that there are things more powerful than we are, and that nature, however hard we try to control it, will run its course.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Something like half of New Orleans is now below sea level -- as much as fifteen feet. New Orleans, surrounded by levees, is emplaced between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi like a broad shallow bowl. Nowhere is New Orleans higher than the river's natural bank. Underprivileged people live in the lower elevations, and always have. The rich -- by the river -- occupy the highest ground. In New Orleans, income and elevation can be correlated on a literally sliding scale: the Garden District on the highest level, Stanley Kowalski in the swamp. The Garden District and its environs are locally known as uptown.
Torrential rains fall on New Orleans -- enough to cause flash floods inside the municipal walls. The water has nowhere to go. Left on its own, it would form a lake, rising inexorably from one level of the economy to the next. So it has to be pumped out. Every drop of rain that falls on New Orleans evaporates or is pumped out. Its removal lowers the water table and accelerates the city's subsidence. Where marshes have been drained to create tracts for new housing, ground will shrink, too. People buy landfill to keep up with the Joneses. In the words of Bob Fairless, of the New Orleans District engineers, "It's almost an annual spring ritual to get a load of dirt and fill in the low spots on your lawn." A child jumping up and down on such a lawn can cause the earth to move under another child, on the far side of the lawn.
Many houses are built on slabs that firmly rest on pilings. As the turf around a house gradually subsides, the slab seems to rise. Where the driveway was once flush with the foor of the carport, a bump appears. The front walk sags like a hammock. The sidewalk sags. The bump up to the carport, growing, becomes high enough to knock the front wheels out of alignment. Sakrete appears, like putty beside a windowpane, to ease the bump. The property sinks another foot. The house stays where it is, on its slab and pilings. A ramp is built to get the car into the carport. The ramp rises three feet. But the yard, before long, has subsided four. The carport becomes a porch, with hanging plants and steep wooden steps. A carport that is not firmly anchored may dangle from the side of a house like a third of a drop-leaf table. Under the house, daylight appears. You can see under the slab and out the other side. More landfill or more concrete is packed around the edges to hide the ugly scene. A gas main, broken by the settling earth, leaks below the slab. The sealed cavity fills with gas. The house blows sky high.
"The people cannot have w
Folks down in New Orleans have to sweat another month or two of hurricane season. Having even a Catagory I hit the city after the devastation that's already occured would, IMHO, be the worst case scenario.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The difference is that this disaster has been widely expected. When I lived in Louisiana everyone talked about this in matter of fact terms. In fact most expected things to be far worse. Just be grateful it wasn't a cat 4 or cat 5 storm that hit a bit further west. I remember talking to the guy in charge of disaster planning for the state back in the 1980's. I asked what happens if a hurricane goes over Lake Pontchartrain. He said almost everyone dies because there is no way out of the city and no time to evacuate a few million people.
This was in the 1980's.
Everyone has known this would happen eventually but pretended it wouldn't.
I understand that for the people there this is of no comfort and we have to turn our hearts to them. I agree we should. But it was like 9/11 when many people had been trying to warn the public for years and everyone turned a deaf ear. Typically these sorts of things are well known about in advance years earlier. What's tragic isn't just the people killed and displaced. What's tragic is that this could have been prevented by not building up an area in which we knew this would happen.
We should be grateful that most of the predictions didn't happen. Because it easily could have been much, much worse.
Maybe it's just because I live Uptown, where devastating flood waters have not yet appeared (but may soon, due to the 17th St. Canal levee breach), but I say joke on.
What you're talking about is the Port of Southern Louisiana, which is located along a 50-mile stretch of the Mississippi river. Most shipping is not actually in the city of New Orleans (at least not for the past few decades). This sprawling port does not require the city of New Orleans in order to operate, although some debris will indeed have to be cleared out of the river.
It's true that it does require people in the vicinity to operate the various facilities, but there is no reason they can't be located further inland. New Orleans is in just about the worst possible spot in the region, located below sea level, in a bowl, in a swamp, between a river, lake, other lake, and the gulf.
If New Orleans were rebuilt 30-40 miles upriver, the port could continue to operate just fine, and the residents would be in a safer and more sustainable location. There is absolutely no reason to continue to maintain a city that is an average of 10 feet below sea level, when there is perfectly good above-sea-level land not very far away.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
my girlfriend and i used all our savings to get here to where the cost of living was cheaper. we are from los angeles, my girlfriend has a four year degree in telivision and film which has been outsourced and people are doing it on a volunteer basis while working at mcdonalds. i am a tech worker who's job has been outsourced. we moved from los angeles looking for more opportunity because of the hellish conditions of paying 1175 for a 650 square foot apartment.
i used to be just like you. its only when everything falls apart do you open your eyes and see how very fragile your lifestyle is.
there are many people like me discovering this right now. working hard will get you nowhere these days, only backstabbing will which is something i refuse to do because of my morals.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
They don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in 1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction, these "cities of the dead" serve as a reminder of the Big Easy's vulnerability to flooding. The reason water rushes into graves is because New Orleans sits atop a delta made of unconsolidated material that has washed down the Mississippi River.
Think of the city as a chin jutting out, waiting for a one-two punch from Mother Nature. The first blow comes from the sky. Hurricanes plying the Gulf of Mexico push massive domes of water (storm surges) ahead of their swirling winds. After the surges hit, the second blow strikes from below. The same swampy delta ground that necessitates above-ground burials leaves water from the storm surge with no place to go but up.
The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998, today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.
"In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.
During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96- to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane. Moving to higher elevations would be just as dangerous as staying on low ground. Had Camille, a Category 5 storm, made landfall at New Orleans, instead of losing her punch before arriving, her winds would have blown twice as hard and her storm surge would have been three times as high.
Yet knowing all this, area residents have made their potential problem worse. "Over the past 30 years, the coastal region impacted by Camille has changed dramatically. Coastal erosion combined with soaring commercial and residential development in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have all combined to significantly increase the vulnerability of the area," says Sandy Ward Eslinger, of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C. Early Warning
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a massive loss of lives.
The key is a new emergency warning system developed by Gregory Stone, a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). It is called WAVCIS, which stands for wave-current surge information system. Within 30 minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize resources--rescue personnel, the Red Cross, and so forth.
The $4.5 million WAVCIS project, which is now coming on line, will fill a major void in the Louisiana storm warning system, which was practically nonexistent compared to those of other Gulf Coast states. A system of 20 "weat
As difficult as it is to think about abandoning New Orleans, the grim reality is this:
1. Almost the entire city is inundated. Except for some tall and modern downtown buildings, most of the residential areas are going to be not worth salvaging,they will have to be rebuilt from scratch, even if the city is pumped dry. These buildings will be soaking the the fetid stew of stagnant polluted water for weeks, if not months. Anything made of wood will be turned to mulch.
2. Most of the major highways that serve the city are heavily damaged. It will take many months, if not years to reconnect the city properly to the rest of the world, and cost billions of dollars.
3. Same can be said for the other infrastructure, such as water, sewer, electrical, and communications infrastructure.
4. Even if the downtown high-rises are relatively unscathed (and most have pretty serious glass breakage) who will stay in the area to work in them or occupy them.
5. The levee system needs extensive repairs to hold back even another tropical storm or category one hurricane. It is not unreasonable to expect another tropical cyclone to form in the gulf and affect that part of the coast before repairs can be completed.
6. Even if the levees are reinforced against another Category 4/5 hurricane, New Orleans faces other threats to its viability as a city. Upriver, the Mississippii River is held back by huge dikes to prevent it from finding a new route to the sea. Someday, these defenses will be overwhelmed, and Old Man River will take a shortcut to the west, abandoning its current channel, cutting off New Orleans and the water flow that keeps its shipping channels clear.
To abandon New Orleans would mean abandoning over 400 years of tradition, history, and a unique and quirky culture unlike anywhere else in the country. Without a vision to keep the survivors in the region, most likely they would disperse throughout the rest of the country, as the article noted. The geography of the area provides no easy answers, there is not a whole lot of good buildable land that can be used to build a new city nearby, but there are better locations to build than the current location.
Perhaps it is the Sim City enthusiast in me, but perhaps the destruction of New Orleans would give us a chance to rebuild a city from scratch, and avoid some of the mistakes that were made in the original town. It would be a mistake as well though, to rebuild New Orleans in the same sterile and souless style as many modern suburbs are, as it would be to try to rebuild an exact replica of it upriver somewhere.
While I understand that a hurried evacuation is a highly chaotic situation, and there were undoubtedly many foolhardy people who simply decided not to leave, I fail to understand why everybody that wanted to go couldn't have been shifted. Certainly, I would hope that if *I* was in a place where everybody who could drive out was told to evacuate, every possible effort would be made to provide some transport to those who didn't have their own. Heck, if I were evacuating and somebody needed a lift out of there, I'd certainly throw away any crap I was carrying to offer them a ride. Goods are replaceable, people's lives aren't.
Or am I grossly misinterpreting the situation?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I find it amazing that a sincere plea for someone else's safety was modded down.
The Dutch probably have the best aquatic geologists on the planet. We could certainly use their expertise in drying the place up. The Norwegians have more cruise ships than any other nation, and they could be leased to provide temporary housing (FEMA has a few ships for this purpose, but they usually house FEMA employees). The Italian engineers who manage pulic works for Venice would be very helpful in this situation. We could do it without their help; we could do it easier with their help.
I'm one of those people who complain about 100+ million dollar sports teams who force taxpayers to build stadiums for them from taxdollars, but there would be 10000+ people who would be SOL without the Superdome. I'm sure people would have scoffed at the idea of funding the dome because "it might come in handy in a natural disaster" but it has definitely saved alot of lives.
Has George finally decided to go back to work yet? I noticed that he was still traveling around on his wartime PR tour today. He mentioned Louisiana for about a minute or two... and then he moved right back to freedom, terrorists, and some other redundant talking points.
Considering the dead bodies on roof tops and attics, a destroyed major city, and the danger of a potential recession, you'd think the guy would be trying to do something more significant.... or at least trying to LOOK like he was doing something significant.
ehh.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Or did you just spend the night at a Holiday Inn?
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
we can blame this on the french?
I'm Dutch, and considering the 1,5 trillion pounds is spread over _50_ years i think this is quite good estimate, the Zuiderzee works are only a small part of our total infrastructure against flooding.
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004
Let the Bush bashing begin, at least, according to some.
Funding for work on New Orleans' flood prevention system slowed to a trickle in 2003, and many people (long before Monday) claimed that was due to the Iraq war. Did GW bet that he wouldn't need the money for New Orleans levees, and decided to shift it to the war instead?
Looks like a bad bet.......
Wonder if Congress will look into this?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've seen that show, and it's just not as good as the original...
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
The Zuiderzee works are only a small part of the 'wall' around the Netherlands. It was created to make that wall a good bit shorter, like the Delta Works.
Given that the oldest wall-shaped water defenses date from around 200BC, and that the making of new dry land in the form of polders involved massive private ventures in the 17th and 18th centuries and were undertaken as big New Deal-like projects in the early 20th century, the real figure may still be pretty big.
Jeff Parish President. Residents will probably be allowed back in town in a week, with identification only, but only to get essentials and clothing. You will then be asked to leave and not come back for one month.
FEMA numbers to begin assistance process 1-800-621-FEMA or http://www.fema.gov./
(Disclaimer; I'm not associated with FEMA. Message copied from wwltv.com. AFAIA conserned this message is provided "as is".)
Your forgetting, this is the U.S. We dont need to CONVINCE libya of anything, we just need to liberate them.
I'm never been to New Orleans but I wonder if it would be possible to use a floodway?
Winnipeg (Manitoba's provincial capital - Canada) has the 47 km Red River floodway that has saved the city from flooding a number of times.
I have just quickly looked at some maps of New Orleans and the surrounding area - it seems to me that a floodway starting west of Lutcher and curving south around the bottom of the city would allow water from the Mississippi river to be diverted into a large reservoir or possibly connect the floodway directly into Little Lake and then out into Barataria Bay.
And No, I'm not talking about diverting the whole river - just redirecting water during potential floods. I think it still would be necessary to build dikes for other areas of New Orleans.
I've included a wikipedia link for the Red River Floodway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Floodway
One way to get more than one use out of a floodway - build it between a seperated highway( freeway) ie the floodway is in the middle of two multi-lane raised ground roads.
Like I said earlier - never been to New Orleans so maybe this idea is way off because of the geography and/or land use.
Or at least it easier to joke about it than to think about it. Hell many people joke about bad stuff that happens to them, personally.
I have no problem simultaneously saying "good riddenance to a stinky, corrupt, crime-ridden city like New Orleans [ha, ha, big picture, funny]" and sending a nice big check to the Red Cross [individuals who really are hurting, empathy]...
What's your point? Misery is the basis of a lot of jokes.
Do Both!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
What else was the government supposed to do to save the stragglers from their own stupidity?
Provide proper transportation and shelter? Most people staying in the city had no cars and were too poor to pay for hotels (which increased their prices for more profit). It is entirely logical they had no other option than to stay in the city. Don't call them idiots, not every American has the possibilities you apparantly have..
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
Our government liberated Panama from Columbia so we could dig a big ditch.
A much better one would be fuckthesouth.com
If he paid money for the website, he must know what he's talking about, right?
We all know why this is happening to us.
Yep, because terrorists hate our freedom.
apparently, so do hurricanes.
Wow. This comment reminds me of what the mayor of nawlins said earlier: "This is our Tsunami." Wow. Think about that a second. By the time all this is over less than 200 people will have lost their lives compared to over 100,000 in southeast asia. I wonder how many of those villagers had insurance? Or job skills and the financial ability to relocate? Whiners! Damn straight! Where's our relief money from Thailand?! Frickin idiots...
If you were dealing with just building over water, you might be fine, but this is New Orleans we're talking about. The alcohol content of the water there makes this entirely impractical.
Are you ACTUALLY arguing that it's impossible to plan for the future? Just curious. Here's an idea - get a job as a tech worker. Yeah, it's hard. No, it's not impossible. Not by a long shot. In the past year I've run about four jobs (three were just my own doing, for kicks...one was my full time job). Any of them could have paid my way through life. You and your girlfriend could easily get minimum wage jobs, work 60 hours a week a piece, and live like slightly-underprivileged kings. Would you be driving a BMW? No. Guess what: I drive a Ford Focus. Judging from your whining, I probably make more than you. I'm paying my way through college cash up front at the moment.
But hey, congratulations on your defeatist viewpoint. I'm sure it's just the way life works, and not your miserable view of it, that's the cause of your predicament. This is a nice comment to read in this particular thread: both you and the people in New Orleans need to learn to make better decisions. I'm not being heartless in the face of either predicament - I give time and money to those in need. However, it's time for the citizens of this fine nation to learn that there are consequences to every single action you take. As for your statement that "working hard will get you nowhere these days," it turns out working hard has gotten me at least one non-whining-day ahead of you...
-knewter
- It's 8 miles (give or take) from the Causeway Bridge to Chef Menteur Highway. Hardly a walkable city. The tourists walk the French Quarter and think they've seen the city. I call bullshit.
- A great majority of the people in New Orleans has feet and the ability to use them. Even getting to La Place, 25 miles west on either I-10 or Airline Highway, is better than sitting in New Orleans. At least La Place isn't under water last I checked. At a decent walking speed of 2 miles per hour, that makes it a 12.5 hour walk.
- Those tourists tend to also have feet, rental cars, or other means of transport. For that matter, they can catch a ride with a local - most of the people I've known down there would at least give up a spot in the back of the truck or something. If I still lived down there, you can bet your ass I'd be willing to give somebody a ride if they wanted to go.
- See number 3.
- Causeway Bridge to Covington, then I-12 West. I-10 West to Baton Rouge, or catch I-55 North just outside La Place and take it to Hammond, or to Jackson, MS. Airline Highway West, also to Baton Rouge (or just to La Place or Lutcher). I-59 North to Meridian, MS or follow it all the way to I-24 in the northwest corner of GA. Highway 90 West to Hahnville, then 3127 West goes halfway to Baton Rouge. River Road as far as Memphis if you like. There's 7 escape routes right off the top of my head. Any able-bodied person on foot could have made it to La Place or Hahnville within 12 hours or so, depending on what side of the river they started out from. Both of those places have high schools which are used as shelters in hurricanes, and both are above sea level (and here's to hoping the East Saint John Wildcats kick the crap out of the Hahnville Tigers and the overprivileged Destrehan Wildcats this year, assuming they get to play. Yes, I know, that's 2 high school football teams in the same division with the same team name...go figure.)
- There are, of course, those who could not walk/bike/drive to safety, and it is for them that I reserve my pity and my disaster relief donation dollars. If the idiots had gotten out when they were told to, the emergency services currently being used to airlift Boudreaux, Scioneaux and Arceneaux (yes, those are real names) off the roofs of their houses could instead be used to evacuate the few elderly, handicapped, and infirm.
My "haughty presumption of superior intellect" is based upon the fact that about 80-90% of the people down there did leave, meaning the ones left behind are the dumbest 10-20% and those who physically couldn't leave. I'd bet my next paycheck that the former outnumber the latter 10 to 1."Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Because they are the poorest of the poor, who could not afford to leave the city and who are now hungry and scavenging for food and drink. There are some looting of high value stuff, but 'stealing' food is perfectly acceptable actually and probably perfectly legal under these circumstances.
Oh well, what the hell...
Maybe this might be the very chance to maybe do what could be the greatest engineering project of the 21st Century: replace New Orleans and carve out a new, safer outlet for the Mississippi River.
It could be breathtakingly expensive (maybe as much as US$3 trillion in 2005 dollars), but it may be worth it if not only do we get a city that will be far less flood-prone to both the rising Mississippi Rive and the the occasional hurricane, but also a completely new, state-of-the-art shipping port that could be the biggest and most advanced in the world.
Yeah, standing by the side of the highway, exhausted after a 12 hour walk, is a great way to face a hurricane.
> No legitimate contingincy plan in case of asteroid colision.
Plan in case of Asteroid Collision:
1. dress in all black, except for white sneakers
2. castration
3. cloth over your head
4. take heroic dose of something
5. lay down, wait for the comet
6. !?!?
7. Prophet!
"It's 8 miles (give or take) from the Causeway Bridge to Chef Menteur Highway."
:)
Nit-pick: The Causeway ends in Metairie, Jeff Parish. On the East Bank I can't remember where Jeff ends and Orleans begins, but I do know Causeway ain't it.
"A great majority of the people in New Orleans has feet and the ability to use them. Even getting to La Place, 25 miles west on either I-10 or Airline Highway, is better than sitting in New Orleans."
Uh... no. Assuming they would allow pedestrians on the interstate in an emergency, starting west of I-310 in St. Charles Parish and going well into St. John, I-10 is elevated over water, probably not the best stretch of road to be caught on when the storm starts coming.
Airline is even worse. For example, the Airline/I-310 exchange is notorious for being the first place in St. Charles to go underwater when it starts to rain, even though that's supposedly part of the hurricane evacuation route for St. Charles Parish. Closer Orleans, I hear Airline is closed and sandbagged over in order to suplement the levees there.
As for LaP lace itself, if Lake Pontchartrain has breached the levee in Orleans Parish, why do you believe the situation is any better for other parishes on the lake?
"the emergency services currently being used to airlift Boudreaux, Scioneaux and Arceneaux (yes, those are real names) off the roofs of their houses"
You forgot Thibodaux, or is he still waiting for the airlift?
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
"I don't think anyone would take issue with it as long as he kept up the anti-American rhetoric."
:-(
Frankly, this should concern us. How is it that someone can gain popularity by saying they hate America?
Sigh... I remember when they used to cheer for our President when he went on trips to foreign nations. Sad that was only 5 years ago now.
Slashdotters sure are a rude and discompassionate group of people.
This is required viewing for all people of prayer.
Yes, because those of us who don't pray wouldn't have the moral capacity to care. Never an opportunity lost to show off that cross on your sleeve, huh?
"Led a military coup against an elected Venezuelan president (unsuccessful, 1992)"
You left out the fact that this President Carlos Andrés Pérez was impeached and convicted on corruption charges in 1993. The fact that Chavez tried to oust him actually made him more popular in Venezuela.
Pérez was a bizarre president.
In his first term he ranted against the International Monetary Fund calling it ""Neutron Bomb that killed people, but left buildings standing.". At the start of his second term he took a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF with all the nasty strings that come with those.
Pérez is actually the one that nationalized American oil and steel interests in Venezuela which presumably put him on America's hit list. You have to wonder if maybe the U.S. wasn't backing Chavez's coup attempt at the time. America HATES it when a Socialist nationalizes American business assets.
"Arrested Roberto Alonso, one of the main opposition leaders, on trumped-up charges"
That one is certainly open to debate and depends on who you listen to. It may also be that he had 55 Columbian paramilitaries on his ranch in Venezuela as part of a new coup attempt in 2004. The right wing government in Columbia is best friends with the right wing government in Washington and they both HAVE been trying to overthrow Chavez. Though its impossible to tell who is telling the truth on this one exactly.
This is the most interesting part of the Wikipedia article on the supposed 2004 coup attempt:
"In June 2004, a Cuban Miami TV channel broadcasted a program featuring the Florida-based Comandos F4. Rodolfo Frometa, the Comandos F4 leader, said that his group was ready to carry out violent attacks against the Cuban government. Former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo García described the help he received from Comandos F4 to organize similar violent actions against the Chávez government. According to the TV program maker Randy Alonso, the US government would have recently earmarked $36 million to support such paramilitary groups. [7] U.S. officials and opposition figures in Venezuela have dismissed this claim. Alonso went into hiding. Many media reports, and his official website, suggested that he had fled the country."
"Maintains a sizable paramilitary militia loyal to him personally, outside the normal civilian and military command and oversight structures"
Uh so, this is not suprising when under constant threat of coup attempts which is Chavez and are high on the Bush administration's list of people it would most like to topple or assassinate. Interestingly the Army that staged the coup against Chavez put him back in power when they realized they guy trying to seize power with Bush administration backing, Pedro Carmona Estanga, was going to implement a dictatorship. Chavez appointed the army officer who lead the coup to his government soon after, pretty crafty.
@de_machina
OK, what has happened is unfortunate, nasty and tragic. However, a few things spring to mind...
1. Yes, humour is how we cope. I'm English and we have plenty of London bomb jokes already. This doesn't mean I find the idea of bombs going off or people being flooded out of their homes remotely funny, it's just a coping mechamisn. If you really look at what's going on in the world, humour's the only way to stay sane.
2. Think about the people in the Superdome without air conditioning? Please. Think about the majority of people on the planet who have never had air conditioning, reliable clean water, cheap power and fuel. Given disasters like this and worse happen all the time, they are lucky to have the resources of the richest country of the world to help them. A few days or weeks of inconvenience is all they have, then the vast majority will be right back to their normal fat western lifestyle.
3. This happens in the US, and it's our (in England) top news story. WHY? Much worse disaters happen all the time in India, China, Africa, South America, and they get far less of a mention. Makes me sick. I'm not anti-American as such, but our media seem to have a bit of a fixation the general population here don't share.
Anyway to wrap up, nasty, horrible, tragic, yes. But why, given a whole ocntinent to play with, build cities below sea level next to huge rivers and oceans? Same reason to build SF and LA on the San Andreas fault, I suppose. They had days of warning, and live in weak wooden homes close to sea level in a known hurrican-prone area. They are not starving to death like many thousands did in Africa on the same day.
What happened? Did the dykes all pull their fingers out of the real dikes at the same time and cause flooding?
That's why you need to go into business for yourself. It is the only way to build wealth other than being a professional and heavy investing.
In India there are 2 classes of commoners: The low class and the merchants.
Why do you think so many east Indians own 7-11's in this country? None of them would dare work a wage job trading time for money because it doesn't lead anywhere except to a lifestyle living from paycheck to paycheck.
That's what America is about- the opportunity to start your own business! If you don't like how things are working out for you, you can change them. Yes it invovles risk but success is 10% intelligence and 90% effort.
Congrats on moving out of LA, BTW! That is a good start.
Libertas in infinitum
Okay, New Orleans was built at sea level, only to subside under the weight of the built environment. Why, then, didn't anyone take action to raise the city back up before the inevitable occurred? The idea isn't as crazy as it sounds. Chicago did exactly that between 1850 and 1880--raise its street level by up to 14 feet with vaulted roads and sidewalks, and jack up all of its buildings, inch by inch, to match. A building's occupants often weren't even aware it was being raised until they left work in the evening.
So how come wasn't this done in New Orleans? Lack of funds? Engineering problems? Structural instability?
I'm also not sure about most of federal spending being in the North. The North had far more infrastructure, to be sure, but it was paid for parimarily by private money, and secondarily by state funds. The age of federally funded improvements really only came in 1864, when the Republican Congress enacted the Homestead Act, transcontinental railroad subsidies, land grant schools, etc. And then, as now, most military spending was concentrated in the South and West.
So in the absence of sources, I don't believe a word of your snark.
Military police? Civil affairs? Engineers? Transportation? The whole point of the post-Vietnam Guard reorganization was to take these critical units out of active forces, so a major war would require substantial Guard activation. It worked. And so many of these critical, front-line units are deployed overseas right now, including many from the region like the 1088th ENG Bn and 199th Support Bn of Louisiana, and the 150th ENG Bn and 106th Support Bn of Mississippi. Where do you think most of the LA and MS Guard's best equipment is? In Iraq with the fighting units, or back home working to save New Orleans?
Check out these pictures:
h otos_tc_afp/050830194101_mzffh1jl_photo1
9 13/w083049ajpg
"Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store in New Orleans, Louisiana."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/p
"A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday. (AP/Dave Martin)"
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/1
So when it's a young black man it's called looting, but when it's a white woman it's called 'finding'?
Why not wait to see the full impact of this disaster before you reflexively respond with sarcasm and wit? Please.
Mostly because the all-night bars in New Orleans were open, and had signs to the effect of: "We won't die sober!!!". The city itself is a dark, grim humour, and...yeah, something insightful here. There's plenty of time in the day for reverence. Here, we come to laugh. (c'mon, it's Slashdot. Nothing is reverent or serious.)
What williamyf conveniently ignored, was the fact that Chavez, in 1999 actually accepted USA aid, machinery and engineers; but USA also insisted in deploying US Marines, something unacceptable for us.
Our offer to the United States is sincere. I don't know what George W. Bush will do, or not, but its not an offer to the USA central government, its an offer for the people, the organizations helping people, local governments, religious groups, etc.
This type of aid has been offered to the countries in the Caribbean who had been suffering the past hurricanes. We have helped with supplies and rebuilding in Jamaica, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, etc. We also sent people to Sri Lanka and India after the tsunami, along with monetary donations.
Let me return you the favor: if you ever come to Venezuela, look me up and i would gladly show you around, so you can see the truth by yourself.
Let me clarify that we in Venezuela have no problem with the people of the United States. What we have issues with, is with the current administration, because they have actively worked against our country. It is not a personal matter either, if Bush stopped attempting to force his vision of what a country should be, and started respecting our sovereignty, i'm sure normal relationships with the administration would be restored. As it is right now, they don't even accept talking with our ambassador in Washington D.C., despite permanent attempts and support from Democrats and Republicans in the US congress.
If you are interested in knowing more about Venezuela, let me suggest these links:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/
http://www.vheadline.com/
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
... and what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?
... rings a bell?
Well, let's start with number one:
Have that Airhead that is in charge over there at your place finally sign the Kyoto protocol and reduce greenhouse reason nummero uno, which is CO2. I'd like to add that the US has the highest per capita output of CO2. Y'know, global warming, change of climate, stronger storms and all that
On goes it with
Don't build below sea level. Maybe? No?
Then:
Don't build with egg-carton but with real bricks.
I could go on, but those are the most pressing.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Indeed... have you seen this?
(Summary: News clipping showing a black man pulling food through the water, captioned 'A young man wades through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store...'; and another clipping showing two white people pulling food through the water, captioned 'Two residents wade through chest deep flood water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store...')
Where public safety is contracted out to the lowest bidder.
Perhaps when coastal population centers occur blow sea level, safety measures should be over-engineered?
I'd hope that Underwatertown, Florida with an average hight of 20 feet below sea-level and a population over 500,000 located on the beach with a large tourism industry, would look at the worst case scenario and then be
prepared for something twice as bad
I'd want levees that could handle 50 feet of storm surge and 220 knot sustained winds without breaking a sweat.
I'd want independantly powered (or at least secure underground lines) forced drainage.
I'd want a magical pony that would drink all the water in the case that one of the levees broke.
I'd also not put a prison in a place where the inmates would be evacuated and held on an on-ramp
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
Yeah, that's what I don't understand. You have a huge millitary over there, they must have a million trucks. Why weren't they dispatched to evacuate the poor of New Orleans? Seems a lot harder and more expensive to move them out with helicopters now...
I can understand that there was little time. I'm both shocked and impressed at the US government response to the crisis. Impressed, because I realize that giving a mandatoy evacuation order in the US is something controversial and quite brave. Shocked because they apparently expected everyone to get on their own.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
That was the GP point. GWB decided to start a war. That has to be paid for (otherwise you are unamerican and against "our brave boys" - bad mojo). Therefore congress has to cut the budget because of a decision they could not stop. A decision that shrub made.
Adam Smith spoke about what the world would is like, when people ignore the common weal in order to exclusively persue short-term personal gain:
"Life, in a state of nature, is nasty, brutish, and short."
It's funny how many people who identify themselves as "Capitalists", would be completely appaled at the statements he made, if they actually bothered to read Adam Smith's books.
Why is it that people insist on building, rebuilding, and rebuilding again in areas where they are almost certain to get knocked down after a sufficiently long (yet still human-scale) length of time? Let's build on this unstable clay hillside. Sure, people who've built here before have repeatedly died due to mudslides, but... Let's build in this hurricane corridor. Sure, the only reason there is space now is that the previous houses got tossed into some nearby ocean, but... Darn, our city got shaken to pieces in an earthquake. Let's invest in rebuilding everything in the exact same region. Yeah, there'll be another quake, and worse, but... Aw heck, this river system flooded again. Well, hundredth time's the charm, right? Let's build back in the floodplain. Sure, it might make sense not to do the same thing again, but... What is this, a mass response to global overpopulation? "Hey, if we keep trying to live in places like this, eventually the population may go down!" And if so, why do folks in these regions keep producing brand-new children at the same time?
as long as you keep your top on.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The US ratifying the Kyoto protocol would be a good start. Hopefully this disaster will provide incentive (as if that should be needed) for the US to finally join the rest of the world in really trying to combat this problem.
Don't bother trying to fix it. You're fighting a losing battle. Same goes with the Atlantic coast beaches.
I have two words for you: PRIVATE FUNDING.
You want to live below sea level in a hurricane zone? Fine by me, but don't ask me to bail you out. Want to build a million dollar house at the beach? Fine, but don't ask me to spend billions of dollars to rebuild the beach for you.
It all goes back to foolish people doing foolish things. If it were me, I'd deny insurance claims to anyone wanting to rebuild, and I'd require that anyone rebuilding MUST place their first floor above sea level on a flood-resistant foudnation which can withstand 145mph winds.
What? That sounds too extreme? Guess what, dumbshit, THAT'S THE THE REQUIREMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL (i.e. US) BUILDING CODE!* They rebuild all these historic strucutres without these requirements because they've been "grandfathered". They shouldn't be rebuilt.
*I happen to be a strucutral engineer, and have the building code next to me. I design flood foundations. I design for hurricane winds. I happen to know that most builders and building officials outside of Florida wouldn't know proper high-wind construction if it fell on them. And as for the 145mph winds...well, grab a copy of ASCE 7-02 "Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures". Page 37. The 140MPH contour happens to pass right over Lake Ponchitrain. The next contour, which covers the entire coastal area is 150MPH. In fact, the entire coast from Houma, LA through MS and AL all the way to the FL border is a 150MPH zone. If all the buildings were up to code, there wouldn't have been anything but extremely isolated structural damage. But you don't listen. So you die.
I'd like my 7mil in cash, if you wouldn't mind.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Funny thing about the looting. Food is one thing. I don't consider looting of food and necessities in this case to be looting. But looting anything else like electronics and jewelry, which I have seen in some reports, is like lipstick on a pig. Even if you find a way out of the city, you can't take that shit with you.
Interesting. If you're a professional thief, the kind that arranges shit months in advance, and has money in reserve to conduct a big heist...if you can find a way into the city, you could have the run of the lot. There's got to be untold wealth in bearer bonds alone that you could get to. Wow. I'm scared that I actually thought of this.
New Orleans was built by morons who thought they could outwit Mother Nature. The city's time finally came due. Why should my tax dollars, and the tax dollars of every citizen in this country, go towards rebuilding a city that shouldn't have been built? It's going to literally take trillions (not billions) of dollars to rebuild the city. And what happens when another major hurricane strikes? We do this all over again?? We've already done enough damage by building flood levies along the Miss. River and choked off VALUABLE wetlands that not only could have lessened the damage of this hurricane but also keep the Gulf of Mexico healthy. We've allowed silt from the Miss to pour into the Gulf, choking off valuable wildlife and natural resources instead of letting it replenish the wetlands. It's time to reverse that damage. The city should remain permanently evacuated, the remains of buildings and infrastructure torn down, the levy system removed and let nature take its course.
I'm sure there's enormous political pressure to rebuild this city, but like many places that learned their lesson after the great tsunami, there are just certain places that should NOT be rebuilt. And that includes the coastlines from Texas to Florida and beyond. It's time we stopped supporting frivolous and dangerous development. We have to pay each time a Florida beach is wiped out by a strom. Why? Because special interests demand it. It's time this maddness ends.
Seattle was rasied as well.
In many places the second floor simply became the first floor while the first floor ended up being underground.
There's even a small tourist business around giving tours of the accessible parts.
http://www.undergroundtour.com/
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
"When I took a riverboat ride, I saw thousands of homes over the levee that are clearly below water level. I couldn't help but think "what the hell are these people thinking?" These are brick homes with cars in the driveway, not shacks."
You were on the river. Which bank were you looking at?
"Look at the place on maps.google.com and learn what you're talking about before you post crap like this."
How about I just live in Saint Charles Parish for five years or so instead?
The "nice places" you were talking about tend not to be in New Orleans, I'd wager you were looking at the West Bank when you saw those homes. But even if you did find someplace decent-looking in Orleans Parish proper, they have a habit of ending very abruptly, much moreso than you'd expect coming from points further north (I grew up near Baltimore for reference). Most of those nicer neighorhoods are gated communities, and its a whole other world once you drive outside that gate. A few years back I helped the fiance of a friend move out of a nice little gated apartment complex in West Jeff, and pretty much from the gate looking out you could see the Friendly Neighborhood Crack Dealer.
I've also driven a bit around southeast Louisiana (specifically the third Congressional district), and many parts of the more rural parishes are similarly iffy. Sure, there are small towns/cities along the river, quaint little places you'd expect to see on a postcard from the beginning of the Twentieth Century, but it's also very easy to hop on a road leading away from US 90 and away from civilization. I was mostly driving between post offices, and I was in a number of delapidated old buildings that are smaller than the two bed/bath apartment I live in now. And they were both larger and in better condition than some of the houses they served. Even driving along River Road along the West Bank in Saint Charles Parish what you can see from the road changes quickly.
So you took a trip to New Orleans and got to see the tourist parts, the parts of the city that actually bring in money. You probably saw the riverfront as far up as the convention center, and maybe as far down as the aquarium. Or perhaps you took a more detailed tour and got to see a litle bit of the French Quater (IMO, the tourist-laden parts of the French Quarter, lined with bars, clubs, and strip joints support my arguments), some of the tree-lined stretches of St. Charles from a streetcar, maybe near the Tulane and Loyola campuses. But I doubt you took Poydras north of I-10. "Seeing the sights" of any city is designed to give you a pleasant experience, but is by no means useful for judging the general character of it. If you just stuck with the Mallthe memorials and the museums, you'd have no idea where Washington DC's crime rate came from.
"what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"
1) First the whole shebang is below sea level.
2) It has this thing called a bayou, which for all intents is another word for swamp.
3) It exists in a flood plain
4) It is close to the Gulf of Mexico where there seem to be an awful lot of bad weather..
5) Is in an area coined 'Hurricane Alley'
How about this for an answer? Don't freakin' live there! Granted this is an over the top event, but I can hardly believe that people didn't see this eventally happening.
Its a lot like those idiots living in trailers in 'Tornado Alley' that 'can't beleve' its happend to them, who would have though that a tornado might blow away a trailer in that area, its like absurd.
That also goes for all your people living on the coast or even a major river. These things flood. That is what flood is. Add a storm, and you get big flood. Florida you know who you are. Like when I see on TV some guy were his house has been washed away, for like the THIRD time in a single year. Take a hint... (don't build there anymore). Certainly don't bitch about your insurance either.
Anyways thats the end of my little rant.
It's not MULTIBILLION contracts to FRAUDULENT corporations like Haliburton, not the war in Iraq, not the war in Afganisthan, not the rising price of oil, not overspending and pork-filled bills for Big Companies With Big Lobbies, nooooo, it's fucking federal disaster aid.
Ridiculous. There's A LOT more stuff you need to cut before DISASTER AID you clueless idiot.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Flood insurance is only offered by the federal government. Private insurance companies don't offer it, at least to anyone in a flood plain, because they have recognized that to do so is to subsidize this cycle of flooding/rebuilding/flooding/rebuilding ad nauseum.
I wish the government would figure this out too. The homeowners in the area with homeowner's insurance are covered for damage due to wind and wind-driven rain, just not flooding.
The problem with the first floor idea is that there are 3 story buildings with the roof just sticking out of the water. You'd have to add at least 3 or 4 stories of building to be sacrificed to flooding, at which point it makes more sense to raise the ground level to at least 10 feet above sea level.
Well...This guy says it's not global warming.
He said in a Salon article: "When we looked at the historical record, we found that the frequency of storms globally hasn't really changed at all," Emanuel said. "It's about 90 per year, plus or minus 10. The frequency globally appears to be steady."
He's also arguing that over development in these areas is the culprit of so much destruction. I.e. There is more stuff that gets damaged.
The whole article:
Aug. 30, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina has turned New Orleans into "a wilderness," said one public health official, who begged evacuated residents not to return to the city for at least a week. Rife with poisonous water moccasins and fire ants, downed trees and power lines, without fresh drinking water, power, gas or sewage, the storm has made the battered and flooded city uninhabitable.
Katrina is just the latest in a rash of powerful hurricanes that have been pummeling the Atlantic in recent years, including a record-breaking 33 between 1995 and 1999. It's made many wonder if global warming is bringing the wrath of the planet down upon all our heads. Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has studied historical records of hurricanes around the globe, said the answer is yes and no.
In a recent paper, "Increasing Destructiveness of Tropical Cyclones Over the Past 30 Years," published in the science journal Nature, Emanuel found that as sea temperatures rise, the duration and intensity of hurricanes are going up, too.
The reason for the correlation is pretty straightforward: "Hurricanes derive their energy from the evaporation of sea water," Emanuel explained in a phone interview. "When you evaporate water from the ocean you actually transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. A similar effect happens when you come out of the shower in the morning. You feel cold because water is evaporating from your skin, and taking heat from your body. That heat energy doesn't disappear." Instead, it fuels the intensity of hurricanes.
So, as global warming increases, expect hurricanes to get stronger. However, that doesn't mean, as some perceive, that there are actually more of them lately. "When we looked at the historical record, we found that the frequency of storms globally hasn't really changed at all," Emanuel said. "It's about 90 per year, plus or minus 10. The frequency globally appears to be steady."
The recent hurricanes in the Atlantic, Emanuel explained, represent a natural fluctuation. Every 20 to 30 years, since records started being kept in the 19th century, there have been big shifts in the frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic. "For example, in the 1940s and '50s, there were very busy years, whereas the 1970s and '80s were very quiet years," he said. "And we've had a big upswing in the Atlantic beginning in about 1995. That's all natural."
The reason violent Atlantic hurricanes like Katrina may strike people as unnatural, and cause them to blame the CO2 pouring out of their neighbors' Hummers, is not because of their frequency but their destruction to people and places.
"This natural fluctuation occurs in a social environment where there is a huge shift in demographic trends, and this makes a big difference in people's perception," Emanuel said. "In the 1940s and '50s, there were lots of hurricanes in Florida, but there weren't lots of people there. So now that we're having this upswing again, it's being perceived very differently" -- for the simple fact that there is a lot more stuff to be ruined.
Meteorologists performed admirably in alerting public officials to Katrina's rising destruction, allowing them to evacuate New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities in plenty of time. But Emanuel said that other warnings by meteorologists have gone unheeded in past decades
Esta es una firma en Espanol.
The Europeans posting here with comparisons to the Netherlands fail to understand the problem. New Orleans *is* built like the Netherlands. But a really bad North Sea storm surge (like the 1953 surge which killed 2000 people) raises sea level by 3 meters. New Orleans has had *two* storm surges *twice* that high in the last 50 years.
The people saying "it's their own damn fault for building below sea level" don't understand how cities grow over centuries. When New Orleans was founded, it *was* well above sea level -- the original settlers found it a bit risky, but acceptable. The city is sinking, and the people living in lowlying neighborhoods have always been among the poorest -- for them, it's a choice between a home which might flood, or no home at all. Tight city planning restrictions might have prevented this, but the decisions were made 50-150 years ago, in a climate of intense racism and class division. It's specious to say "it's their own fault", since those at fault aren't the same "they" as those who suffer.
People who suggest jacking up the city like Chicago are on the right track, but fail to understand the magnitude of the problem. Chicago did this in the 1850s, when its population was 30-60,000. Something like half a square mile of downtown Chicago is now raised above the river. Here, we're talking about half a million people, and 50 square miles of city. And even then, remember that Chicago's basement level totally flooded due to a tunnel rupture in 1992.
New Orleans is an engineering and planning failure, but probably not one which could have been prevented. People have no choice but to make the best of existing situations, and what seems wise at one point in a city's long history may only be proven foolish years or centuries down the road. Long-term plans also conflict with short-term needs, and short-term needs usually win.
There is no silver lining to this tragedy, except that it gives us a chance to start over, essentially completely from scratch, and do things right this time. New Orleans is now more or less a horribly blank slate: almost all the buildings in the city will need to be torn down after soaking in water for weeks. As I see it, there are three long-term ways to solve the problem of New Orleans.
1) Abandon the city. This is almost inconceivable. In addition to the massive impact on Mississippi River and Gulf Coast commerce, what do you do with the million people displaced? Even if they scatter across the country, a million poor homeless refugees will be catastrophic to the already-struggling state and national poverty programs. If they all move only to neighboring states, state governments will collapse under the load. Nevertheless, this might actually be the cheapest long-term solution.
2) Stilt houses. No, don't laugh. In Hawaii where I grew up, many coastal houses are built on 10-foot timber or concrete stilts to keep them above the height of storm surges and tidal waves. We could rebuild every single house in New Orleans as a stilt house. It would make the houses more costly to rebuild, but not by much. The next flood would still destroy roads and utilities, but the houses and their residents could be saved.
3) Jack and fill. Like Chicago, but more so. Demolish all the flooded houses. Grab every dredge, barge, and dump truck you can, and start on one end of the city, dumping Missisippi Delta mud onto the ground ten feet deep. On the other end of the city, start building houses with sturdy frames on concrete pier foundations. When the landfill reaches a rebuild neighborhood, jack up the houses ten feet, dump in ten feet of landfill, and continue on to the next neighborhood. As the city keeps sinking over the next centuries, keep jacking up houses and dumping more dirt. It's probably a $100-$200 billion project (it'd be more, but most of New Orleans' houses are very cheap), but it's a solid long-term solution for keeping New Orleans above water forever.
The one thing we can't afford to do is the one thing that will almost certainly happen. The levees will be plugged, the pumps repaired, and the city rebuilt as it stood a week ago. And forty years from now, this will happen again.
The generalization of the McDonald's Rule of War is that people who live in rich places don't fight wars. So the problem is that the Middle East is already too inhospitable, making it more so will only increase the violence (until everyone is dead, which I guess your plan would speed up). Terraforming the Middle East would be much more effective.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that there is no global warming. But I've noticed a growing tendency over the last few years, that any time you have bad weather events, that you get a lot of non-scientists raising the global warming alarm.
It reminds me of a documentary I was watching recently on Benjamin Franklin, and they were talking about the cultural environment of Boston during the late 1700's, and how if someone's house or business was struck by lighting, the Boston FD would put out neighboring houses and buildings, but not the original house or building, because it was deemed that God had chosen to punish the occupents by striking them with lightning.
People never seem to accept that bad weather, lightning strikes, and even severe hurricanes are just a normal part of the weather cycle (even if a hurricane this strong might only happens once or twice a century - in geological terms that would be pretty normal).
I think that Global Warming has become the new superstition of the 20th century. Looking for something to blame fires, hurricanes, droughts, floods, anything you want on? Global Warming!!!!!
my girlfriend and i used all our savings to get here to where the cost of living was cheaper.
The cost of living may be lower, but the wages generally match the cost of living, making it all a wash.
we are from los angeles, my girlfriend has a four year degree in telivision and film which has been outsourced and people are doing it on a volunteer basis while working at mcdonalds. i am a tech worker who's job has been outsourced.
Maybe your job wasn't outsourced. You have a run on sentence, you can't even spell TV, your grammar indicates that your girlfriend's degree was outsourced, and not any job she may have had with it, you misspell "whose," and you haven't figured out what the keys marked "Shift" are for.
Since you have so many mistakes in just two sentences, do you think it might be that you were told your job was outsourced just so that you could be fired for incompetence? If I were your boss, I'd have considered it because of your poor communication skills.
And no, this isn't a spelling/grammar flame. I'm pointing our that all your problems in the world aren't necessarily because the world is out to get you, but that maybe you do have some control in your fate, but you have just been letting it slide. Why don't you go out and get a tech job that hasn't been outsourced yet? I know they are out there. Why don't you take some pride in your communication skills? Practice professional communication everywhere, including here, and maybe they won't decide to outsource your next job.
Learn to love Alaska
There's no looting after the Japanese have an earthquake, either. I wonder if it's possible for slashdot to discuss the cultural differences that lead to looting without everyone being modded to flamebait.
In a few weeks? Try now!
The record high price for gasoline (set in August, 1981), adjusted for inflation, works out to $3.08 / gallon in today's money. Stations in the Kansas City area BROKE that record, this afternoon. We do not, by any stretch, have the highest prices in the nation.
Many of our refineries are in the Gulf Coast region, and shut down and/or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. There's the choke point in the supply / demand equation. The price of crude has hit records, as well, but Uncle Sam is releasing some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to try to keep that from going too high.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
Commerce determines where a city is best built - not safety.
and
after, on the 30th.
Note that these are false color images: clouds are white and light blue, land is green, water is darker blue or blue-grey.