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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.
"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?
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.
Much to Mullah Robertson's dismay, the infidel Hugo Chavez has pledged aid in the form of food and fuel. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050829/pl_afp/usweat hervenezuelaoil
web design experiments
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.
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.
I do agree that most people who flock toward the coastal areas now do so for reasons other than that they make their living from the sea, but expecting people to suddenly see the light and move to Oklahoma is not realistic (besides tornados suck too).
cheers, ben
cheers, ben
Never miss a good chance to shut up -- Will Rogers
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.
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.
...how many foreign countries are sending aid to the US now?
I might take this opportunity to point out that all our troubles are the fault of the French. Yes, the FRENCH.
If those French colonists hadn't chosen such a poor location to found a city in 1718, we wouldn't be flooded right now!
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 am a venezuelan.
As per rules and regulations of foreign policy. The Aid will not be delivered until it is requested.
When we had our desaster here (Vargas 1999), Mr. Chavez was ofered aid from the USA, and he declined it because his administration feared that there would be spyes infiltrated in the relief personel.
I guess Mr. Bush will go by the same token. The only difference being that the USA is in a much better position to reject the aid than venezuela was in its time.
Think of it as just another outburst in an already agitaded foreign policy between the two countries.
If you all did not notice, I do not like Mr. Chavez, or Mr. Bush, albeit, for different reasons in each case.
Suerte a todos y feliz dia!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
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.
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.
Chavez is mainly pissed off by the way the US condoned the coup attempt in 2002. His policies inside Venezuela may be socialist but why don't you wait and see if they actually help people first before screaming communist all over the place?
Venezuela has a huge amount of poverty and he is actively doing something with state money to change that. If it works, good for him. If it doesn't then you can unfurl your anti-communist slogans and cry for war or something.
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.
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
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.
Do you not have any empathy? Can you imagine bringing home less than $200 dollars a week in the city you were born in and having a car that won't make it more than a few miles without fixing it yourself? Can you imagine being told to pack everything in your POS car (if you're lucky enough to have it)and get away from the only thing you've ever known? Not everyone is fortunate enough to be born and raised in privelege. Even in your own country. I know a little about it. Born and raised in rural Arkansas.
Considering he is the democratically elected leader of a souvereign, peaceful and poor country i find it highly disturbing that some American politicians want him dead, only because he has a socialist policy. So much for spreading democracy. :-/
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
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.
You cavalier attitude shows you don't seem to understand the situation, and your incorrect use of the word "socialism," shows that you don't know what you're talking about.
Here's why the federal government must, should, and will pay:
1. New Orleans is a major sea port. It is pretty much THE agricultural export port for the entire United States east of the Rockies. The loss of the port is a major hinderence to not only the national economy, but the world's, since the United States is the world's number one agricultural exporter. The federal government has a duty to maintain the health of the national economy.
2. All the states, except for about 5 (I know, Vermont and Delaware, but I don't remember the others. They were all small states though.), don't have any money. In fact, they're bankrupt. Even if they did have budget surplus, they wouldn't have nearly enough (early estimates place the amount of damage at 1 trillion dollars). With the complete loss of the major city and several of the major industries (tourism, agriculture and trade, oil and gas, and tourism), Louisiana doesn't have tax base anymore, so even if they had to come up with their own funds, they have no way of doing so.
3. This is a humanitarian disaster the scale of which is unseen in the history of the United States. The devastation is vast. Litterally millions are homeless. With high, stagnent water, in what is effectively swamp land, could lead to wide spread outbreak of disease. This means that the longer it takes to clean up, the worse the situation is going to get.
4. One of the roles of government is doing what others can't do for themselves. The people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and all those along the Gulf Coast, can't clean help themselves. They are our countrymen, and they're in dire need. If you were a civilized individual with any ounce of decency, you'd recognize that.
Then I spen two summers in Ecuador. The first summer I was in the tourist section of Quito in a Spanish immersion class. I saw families -- families -- mom, dad, and kids -- living homeless on the street. On the street. The little girls would lift up their skirts, squat, and pee, right on the sidewalk. That's something you don't see very often in the US.
The next summer I spent with an indigenous family, living in thatch-roof huts, playing cards by candle-light at night. These people had absolutely nothing. Their huts were built of wood they had cut down themselves. They carried babies around in shoulder sacks made of sheets. Their children were malnourished -- a 5 year old kid looked like a 3 year old.
I'll bet you're one of those Americans who have never been in a 3rd world country, witnessing actual poverty -- people literally living in dirt. Americans are incredibly, incredibly wealthy. Even the 'poor' ones.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Check out these pictures:
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"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'?
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.