If destroyed, should NO be rebuilt?

[Xithras]

Many forecasters are now predicting that more than half the homes in New Orleans will be severely damaged or destroyed by the hurricane, and that some parts of the city may be under water for more than a month, guaranteeing 100% structure loss in those areas. By the time all is said and done, 75% of the city may end up having to be rebuilt to make it livable again, and this may end up costing the U.S. tens of billions of dollars.

So the question has to be raised: Should we rebuild it? NO is a beautiful and historic city, but it was built in one of the most unsuitable places imaginable. The land under the city continues to sink, and even if rebuilding included infilling the low areas, the city would be back in its current state within a century. A city built on swampland, surrounded by constantly silting water bodies, simply cannot maintain its elevation against those water bodies.

So what do you think?

[Selatius]

1. Build the city elsewhere after the old one is leveled

Also, let the Mississippi River go. It wants to flow down the Atchafalaya River Basin instead of the one it's currently on. Blow the dam and let nature take it's course. It will win by force if we don't yield.

[AuntPatsy]

2. I don't even want to dare to answer such a question, I hope there is

no need for such to have been asked in the first place...

[jsamuel]

3. Humans have to pay more attention to the natural flow of rivers

we now have the knowledge to PREVENT disasters by simply building in the right places.

[Xithras]

7. That's my thought

New Orleans is a beautiful city built in a terrible place. We have spent the past century and a half rebuilding this city and devising every more clever methods to fight off mother nature, but it looks like she's going to teach us one hell of a lesson with this hurricane. It seems to me that, if the city is truly destroyed, we should look at this as an opportunity to rebuild it in a manner more in harmony with nature. If the river and lake want the city, let them have it. Rebuild the city higher upstream where it wont be blocking the natural drainage of much of the US.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Other river towns

have been destroyed and have had to be rebuilt. Of course, they weren't as big as New Orleans, but they had historic significance. Two I know of are Kaskaskia, first capitol of Illinois, which was swallowed up in a series of floods, and Shawneetown Illinois on the Ohio. Kaskaskia wasn't really rebuilt, as much as memorialized in the White House of the West, Pierre Menard's home.

I've never been to NO, but I've often visited these old towns in Illinois, and I can feel the lingering sadness that hangs around them for what once was.

[jsamuel]

8. NO is different because it is not simply a flood problem

NO is not only prone to flooding, but it should already be flooded everyday. This contrasts the cities hit by the Mississippi flooding a few years ago. If NO gets flooded, we would have to sculpt the earth in order to have it come back. The problem in NO is much more complex than "Other river towns"

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. Oh, I agree

but the sadness that one feels for the past that once was and will never be again....I fear this is what will be felt soon in New Orleans.....

[salin]

5. Good thing we didn't rebuild San Francisco after the 1989 quake

I mean - the whole city was not built wisely - all on top of that fault line, and all....

[crispini]

6. LOL!

[Xithras]

11. The number of differences there is huge.

First off, the 1989 quake didn't do nearly the damage to SF as Katrina is about to do to NO. It did some damage to certain parts of the city, but most of SF was unscathed by the '89 quake.

And yes, if SF were LEVELLED by a quake tomorrow, I'd probably be asking the same question about it. When you have to start over, you should ALWAYS look at what caused the failure the first time around, and try to determine if that outcome can be avoided again.

[salin]

21. that is exactly the point

things that were rebuilt, to my understanding, were done so with technologies and better planning than before. While you are correct in terms of the broad scale - where there was devastation in SF - it was great devastation.

[Xithras]

13. I also have to point out...

Throughout history there have been untold numbers of great, historic cities that have been abandoned or reduced to a fraction of their former selves after economic changes or natural disasters forced residents to reexamine the cities worth. It's never an easy decision, but it's one that has been made countless times in the past, and that we'll undoubtably have to make again. If NO is destroyed, it's perfectly valid to question whether it should be rebuilt.

What was the reason for its creation? Why does it exist now? Are those reasons still valid today? Could those reasons be carried out elsewhere with less risk? Can we rebuild elsewhere for less cost and with greater safety? What do we gain by rebuilding here that can't be had elsewhere?

Carthage wasn't rebuilt after its destruction, and neither were Pompeii or Troy. More recently, the American west is dotted by cities that were abandoned, or which today only have a fraction of their former size and glory (I have one nearby that had nearly 100,000 residents at its peak, but which today only has a few hundred fulltime residents).

The question that should really be asked is this: What is the justification for rebuilding New Orleans?

[skids]

9. Tough call...

...there is also the fact that sea levels will rise over the decades to consider.

[KamaAina]

10. Where exactly would a "New New Orleans" be built?

All the parishes (counties) upstream already have tens of thousands of people in them.

When you think about it, the "New New Orleans" is really Baton Rouge; that's where Bienville was supposed to have founded the city in the first place!

[Xithras]

18. That would work, but South of there would also work.

North of the swamps, and south of Baton Rouge on the east side of the river is a large stretch of dry land that is currently dotted by small towns and oil wells. Without surveying the land (just relying on topo maps) it looks to be the perfect spot. But yes, it is far enough north that rebuilding it would essentially locate it alongside Baton Rouge.

[KamaAina]

12. We need a new Albert Baldwin Wood to step up right now

he's the engineer who developed the screw pump that is still used today to keep the city dry in ordinary storms.

Someone needs to think outside the box: gas-filled chambers underneath the low areas to combat subsidence? And here is a fellow who converts shipping containers, of which N.O. has a surfeit, into houses:

http://www.architectureandhygiene.com/quikHouse/quikHouse_whatQH.html

Edit: The beauty part of this is that the long, thin aspect of the containers fits right in with the classic N.O. "shotgun" house style.

If it happens, we're gonna need to marshal all of our national resources to fix it, even if that means no more $87 billion PNAC invasions for a while. :sarcasm:

[greblc]

15. There are a number of river cities that pour money into...

flood improvements. The question should be how many times should the government subsidies the rebuilding of natural disaster prone areas.

Here is another question.

I live in Minnesota, should Northerners receive National Emergency Funding for Heating Fuel during severe winters ? I've heard estimates that average heating costs could run as high as $700.00 a month this winter.

[true_notes]

16. I'm the "Other" Voice

Flood it! Yeah you heard right. If you rebuild then with the rising seas/stronger 'canes you will be wasting money/lives. It's manmade and therefore expendable by nature.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. A "new" New Orleans might be a good idea...

...somewhere a little safer. On a smaller scale here in Alaska, the city of Valdez was moved a bit to the west after the Good Friday quake/tsunami in 1964, and nothing has been allowed to be built in the old townsite. There is no point in rebuilding NO back in harm's way.

[Xithras]

20. I forgot about Valdez

There have been a number of cities relocated in the US, so it's not without precedent.

On the flipside, there have also been a number of cities that have been raised above floodlevels. I've always been fascinated by the fact that the "basements" of the buildings in Old Sacramento were originally their first floors...they were buried when the city raised itself after a series of serious floods. That is certainly a viable option in NO as well.

[ToeBot]

19. It's not the river or the weather, it's global warming

Move now or move later.