Home Repair forum - Re: New Orleans

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Re: New Orleans - Further Rant

Roger Taylor

2005-08-31, 2:21 am

<maradcliff@UNLISTED.com> wrote in message
news:av7ah1p7gnn8lt1g2lk0v9g85mihps57p0@4ax.com...
> Why was New Orleans built below sea level? That's just plain stupid.
> Apparently what they call the "bowl" must have been a lake or
> something at one time. I can understand the original part of the city
> was built long ago, and probably before they knew what they were
> doing, but you'd think someone would have stopped development long
> ago. The stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. From
> what I have seen on the news, the entire city is or will be destroyed.
> But they will probably rebuild it and all of us will have to pay for
> the rebuilding with our taxes. Dont get me wrong, I feel very sorry
> for the people that lived there, but who allowed this stupidity to
> occur? It seems that the government is adding new laws almost daily
> to protect us from ourselves, yet they did nothing to stop the
> development in that city, knowing that sooner or later it would fail.
> It dont take a genious to know what dangers existed. its pretty much
> basic science. > I am just searching the web to find out how many feet
> they are below
> sea level, but you'd think they would have used fill to at least bring
> buildings at or above sea level. Maybe thats not possible, which is
> why I am trying to find the depth.> They said that even that dome which
> was used for shelter during the
> hurricane is filling with water today. That appears to be a fairly
> new building, yet that too is below sea level. STUPID !!!!
>
> Mark

N.O. was settled by the French about 300 yrs ago, and was the furthest
upriver they could sail against the current before the river turned south,
using the prevailing SE winds, so they made a port and settlement there. In
the 1700's, this river was a key and perfect port, so a town started.
The real mess began when the Army Core of Engineers in the 1920's built up
and extended the natural levees and smaller manmade levees around the french
quarter, so that the greater n.o. area was less prone to annual river
flooding.
Unintended consequence: without the annual overflooding of the levees, with
attendant silting up of the adjacent farm lands, those lands continued to
sink due to crustal sagging, compressing the 60,000+ feet of young water
saturated sediment that lies below the city. Once you isolate the backswamps
and protect the city, the subsidence that has been going on for 30 million
yrs, in response to sediment loading, continues, sucking the city deeper,
without any compensating sediment infill. On top of that, the sealevel
swamps south of N.O. used to greatly slow the winds of incoming storms. Now
that those swamps are also protected from sediment spilling, they are mostly
gone, below sealevel, leaving the city even more exposed to very high,
undiminished winds. There is really no solution to further disasters, short
of abandoning the area, which I favor. Also,building up the area before
building on it would have done no good at all, except for perhaps a half
century, as the forever-continuing subsindence rate is so high.
Bottom Line - you are right, building there was idiocy. But the same can be
said of coastal Miss, Alabama, Florida, and much of the east coast, where
millions of people live in ignorant bliss. Building locations in the nation
as a whole have never been planned at all. As a result, we all pay for this
idiocy thru our exorbitant taxes to fund recovery, aide, rebuilding, and
insurance bankruptcies. Capital Development incentive determines everything,
and logic simply seems not to apply.
There! I feel better already..................

maradcliff@UNLISTED.com

2005-08-31, 4:21 am

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 21:32:22 -0700, "Roger Taylor"
<spamfree@yokel.net> wrote:

>
><maradcliff@UNLISTED.com> wrote in message
>news:av7ah1p7gnn8lt1g2lk0v9g85mihps57p0@4ax.com...
>
>N.O. was settled by the French about 300 yrs ago, and was the furthest
>upriver they could sail against the current before the river turned south,
>using the prevailing SE winds, so they made a port and settlement there. In
>the 1700's, this river was a key and perfect port, so a town started.
>The real mess began when the Army Core of Engineers in the 1920's built up
>and extended the natural levees and smaller manmade levees around the french
>quarter, so that the greater n.o. area was less prone to annual river
>flooding.
>Unintended consequence: without the annual overflooding of the levees, with
>attendant silting up of the adjacent farm lands, those lands continued to
>sink due to crustal sagging, compressing the 60,000+ feet of young water
>saturated sediment that lies below the city. Once you isolate the backswamps
>and protect the city, the subsidence that has been going on for 30 million
>yrs, in response to sediment loading, continues, sucking the city deeper,
>without any compensating sediment infill. On top of that, the sealevel
>swamps south of N.O. used to greatly slow the winds of incoming storms. Now
>that those swamps are also protected from sediment spilling, they are mostly
>gone, below sealevel, leaving the city even more exposed to very high,
>undiminished winds. There is really no solution to further disasters, short
>of abandoning the area, which I favor. Also,building up the area before
>building on it would have done no good at all, except for perhaps a half
>century, as the forever-continuing subsindence rate is so high.
>Bottom Line - you are right, building there was idiocy. But the same can be
>said of coastal Miss, Alabama, Florida, and much of the east coast, where
>millions of people live in ignorant bliss. Building locations in the nation
>as a whole have never been planned at all. As a result, we all pay for this
>idiocy thru our exorbitant taxes to fund recovery, aide, rebuilding, and
>insurance bankruptcies. Capital Development incentive determines everything,
>and logic simply seems not to apply.
>There! I feel better already..................
>

Hmmmmmmm

This is fascinating. So the land keeps sinking and the buildings just
go down too. So th whole city is just built on washed down junk
(mostly sand I suppose). So, adding fill only compresses the silt
more. This is most interesting. I dont think it should be rebuilt
either, at least not at that location.

One news article I was reading said there were people in N.O. that
were trying to fly (in the wind) during the hurricane. Not to cut
down the people in that city, but that sort of fits. The whole city
was trying to fly (achieve the impossible)....

Mark

Andy Hill

2005-08-31, 12:21 pm

Like many things, "damn, it made sense at the time".

Hell, if Venice can do it, why not New Orleans? Go for the ol' "lived-in lake"
look.

Norminn

2005-08-31, 1:21 pm

clipped
>
> Hmmmmmmm
>
> This is fascinating. So the land keeps sinking and the buildings just
> go down too. So th whole city is just built on washed down junk
> (mostly sand I suppose). So, adding fill only compresses the silt
> more. This is most interesting. I dont think it should be rebuilt
> either, at least not at that location.

Well, we need to abandon a few other cities, using that logic. I admit
I don't care for the idea of living below sea level on a coast, but I'm
only about 6 feet above where I live. Katrina would have drowned my
upstairs neighbor.

Anyone remember the Mississippi River floods of a few years ago? Anyone
know a city older than 200 years that wasn't established on a waterway?

>
> One news article I was reading said there were people in N.O. that
> were trying to fly (in the wind) during the hurricane. Not to cut
> down the people in that city, but that sort of fits. The whole city
> was trying to fly (achieve the impossible)....
>
> Mark
>

Folks in Florida, who HATE big gov't tellin' 'em what to do, like to cut
down mangroves to save their cherished million-dollar views. But, soon
as they do that, M.N. comes along and washes away their million-dollar
beach. All of a sudden, the same folks want big gov't and my tax money
to put the sand back on their beach because it left and went to some new
barrier island. Mangroves are funny looking plants that hold islands
and shorelines together and give little fishes a place to hide. Little
fishes become big fishes that fill our tummies at fast food restaurants.
Some of those fishies used to be luxuries because they were hard to
catch and transport. Now we can coat them with grease and eat all we
care to if we are willing to get into our gas guzzlers and drive over to
a restaurant. Of course, if the price of gas goes to $5, I can't drive
as much and I sure as heck am not going to get on a bike :o)

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