After a $14-Billion Upgrade, New Orleans' Levees Are Sinking

[Ohiogal]

The $14 billion network of levees and floodwalls that was built to protect greater New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was a seemingly invincible bulwark against flooding.

But now, 11 months after the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of the largest public works projects in world history, the agency says the system will stop providing adequate protection in as little as four years because of rising sea levels and shrinking levees.

The growing vulnerability of the New Orleans area is forcing the Army Corps to begin assessing repair work, including raising hundreds of miles of levees and floodwalls that form a meandering earth and concrete fortress around the city and its adjacent suburbs.

“These systems that maybe were protecting us before are no longer going to be able to protect us without adjustments,” said Emily Vuxton, policy director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, an environmental group. She said repair costs could be “hundreds of millions” of dollars, with 75% paid by federal taxpayers.

“I think this work is necessary. We have to protect the population of New Orleans,” Vuxton said.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/after-a-14-billion-upgrade-new-orleans-levees-are-sinking/

[Freethinker65]

1. Love New Orleans, but...

I think eventually nature is going to win this battle.

[cloudbase]

11. Mother Nature always bats last. n/t

[gratuitous]

2. More brooms!

We'll sweep this rising tide back out to sea if we just put more brooms on the beach.

But I'm confident that the men who have made themselves so wealthy in the petroleum industry in Louisiana will freely share their wealth to save the citizens of New Orleans and other threatened communities. Right?

[SoCalNative]

5. And rakes

I'm sure those will come in handy too, even if no forests.

[Botany]

3. New Orleans is screwed ... I hope the pumps and levees work

Last edited Thu Jul 11, 2019, 01:14 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/la/new-orleans/70130?cm_ven=localwx_10day

Nothing but rain for the next 3 days.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Plus the Mississippi is rising...

Starting to look like they're threatening Katrina-like flooding, without the full scale hurricane.

Best wishes to NOLA.

[TheRealNorth]

12. Storm surge

I heard yesterday they were worried about a storm surge combined witj the flooding to reach up to 20 ft with the current storm. They said the levees were constructed to deal with a surge of no more than 20 ft.

So let's hope the surge isn't higher.

[MFGsunny]

4. Ouch!

When climate changes faster than ............

[USALiberal]

6. Our tax dollars at work! Nt

[VMA131Marine]

7. New Orleans may be effectively uninhabitable by 2100

The study asked 22 ice-sheet scientists to make predictions about how global warming might affect zones in Greenland and Antarctica, using new data tools geared toward the study of such continents where excess water is currently trapped in melting ice sheets. The scientists say their observations show glaciers in these regions melting much faster than expected.

Bamber explained it this way: "For 2100, the ice sheet contribution is very likely in the range of 7 to 178 centimeters [2.75 inches to 5.8 feet] but once you add in glaciers and ice caps outside the ice sheets and thermal expansion of the seas, you tip well over two meters [6.6 feet.]"

The scientists acknowledge that the study of how global warming may affect ice sheets and sea-level rise is uncertain, but new tools give better predictions of less-likely outcomes than previous studies could represent.


https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1123227_sea-level-rise-by-2100-could-be-double-previous-estimates-scientists-predict

[RockRaven]

8. Start abandoning the city now, stop spending money on the lie that the status quo can be

maintained if only we do X, Y, or Z.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Mother Nature eventually wins...