Rebuilding New Orleans With Science

EccentricAnomaly writes "The New York Times has a discussion of flood control methods in use in Holland, England, and Bangladesh that could be used in the rebuilding of New Orleans. Of particular interest is the $8 billion Delta Works built by the Netherlands in response to the North Sea flood of 1953, which almost destroyed the city of Rotterdam, but for a heroic captain who plugged a breach in a dike with his ship." From the article: "While scientists hail the power of technology to thwart destructive forces, they note that flood control is a job for nature at least as much as for engineers. Long before anyone built levees and floodgates, barrier islands were serving to block dangerous storm surges. Of course, those islands often fall victim to coastal development."

Comments

Re:Learn from nature

[AKAImBatman]

Did you read the next sentence?

Long before anyone built levees and floodgates, barrier islands were serving to block dangerous storm surges. Of course, those islands often fall victim to coastal development.

That kind of destroys the entire point of a break island. :-)

Re:howmuch science is needed?

[argStyopa]

OK a light hearted comment, but I just read in the NYT a great column on the contrast: NYC was hit with fire, NO hit with water.

NYC could deal with fire, because we've learned to fight fires locally. We build to prevent it, and we all pay a premium on goods and services through the system due to the costs of sprinkler systems etc in the supply chain. We spend city $$ on fire services, and emergency response capabilities.

NO couldn't deal with water, because since the 60's the Federal gov't has taken over response to floods. Local officials are reduced to writing plans that ultimately read "wait for the Feds to arrive with help".

Moreover, with an agency like FEMA, and federal subsidies for flood insurance, he makes a persuasive argument that US gov't policies have, in effect ENCOURAGED the building of homes and businesses in flood prone and coastal regions.

If those homeowners and businesses had to pay a MARKET cost for insurance, how many would have built there? And if there wasn't a FEMA (which has historically compensated flood/hurricane victims even or especially if uninsured) would people be so lasseiz-faire about their families, dwellings, and belongings in the path of destruction?

Persuasive reading.

Bottoming Out

[Doc Ruby]

The broken canal walls are all up near the Lake seawall built in the 1930s, reclaiming land once swamp (and lake bottom). City Park is a giant park through which the Bayou St. John still flows, along its ancient path, into the middle of town (thru some big pipes in places) to the center of the bowl, the bottom of New Orleans. All that is totally under water now: the 17th Street Canal was the main burst that flooded the town, and runs along the West edge of City Park, past the Bayou.

We should expand City Park to encompass the entire Bayou area, with no development, and lots of canals. Expand the Bayou itself in the bottom to become a giant reservoir. When storms approach, pump out the reservoir. Make all drains pass through the reservoir, a giant buffer. When rain and failed seawalls allow water into the city, funnel it into the reservoir, buying time. Pump the reservoir into the Mississippi and the Lake.

The seawalls and levees themselves are not fault-tolerant. They're static, brittle, and take the whole city with them when they break. Those walls should all have rail lines along their inhabited sides, separated from the water by the wall. When a storm approaches, dumpable sandbags can be rolled into place behind risky sections, or into broken sections, or just into staging areas for delivery by helicopter, boat or amphibious vehicle, or even human "bucket brigades" when all other vehicles fail. Ahead of the storm, the rails can carry cars of evacuees out. And the other 99.5% of the time, without emergencies, they can carry cars instead of highways (most cars on I-10 are "just passing through"), passengers and freight.

Or we can just put the Dutch in charge of the city. Then they'll do all those things I mentioned, and probably something with windmills. Amsterdam and New Orleans have a lot more in common than just negative elevation - and I'm not referring just to decades of Spanish dominion ;). But at least the Dutch will actually do it: they actually do things. Instead of leaving it up to the Army Corps of Engineers, which now must be spelled Corps e , which totally failed their mission - though it looks like they were set up for failure by the civilian leadership, for decades.

Or we can just let New Orleans rot. Along with the rest of the country. If it can happen to a city everyone loves so much, that's so important to our economy, where everyone knew it was RISK #1, why shouldn't it happen everywhere eventually - and not as slowly as in the old World Capital of Molasses.

Re:Learn from nature

[lgw]

There was actually a plan for storm surge control put together for the defense of New Orleans in the 70s (when the current levee system was planned), based on what works in Europe. It was shot down because of environmental concerns.

A similar plan was proposed this year. The New York Times hated it. Here's the quote:

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects - this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.

The Government Accountability Office and other watchdogs accuse the corps of routinely inflating the economic benefits of its projects. And environmentalists blame it for turning free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of wetlands - usually in the name of flood control and navigation but mostly to satisfy Congress's appetite for pork.

This is a bad piece of legislation.

Hard to tell whether it was genuineely a bad plan, or the NYT hated it simply because it was Bush's proposal, but we are at least considering the ideas used in Europe.