It was built on a flood plain. The French settlers were smart enough not to build in those areas, so they built on the highest ground around: the French Quarter. The right decision would have been not to build there in the first place, and let the land flood naturally and regenerate itself as it has done for millenia. This is a golden opportunity not to make the same mistake twice.

Don’t rebuild it! I know it hurts, because we all like the culture there, but let’s be smart and not make the same mistake twice.

I was thinking that a houseboat with one or more strong anchor chains attached to it, the anchor chains cemented in the ground, and also a way to secure the houseboats by anchor chain higher up the chain near the top of the anchor chain, so that hurricane winds do not blow the houseboats over, but that you can then detach the short anchoring, leaving the long anchor lines in place, so that when New Orleans fills up with water, the house boats merely float at the surface, attached to their anchor lines so they don’t float away, and when the water subsides they settle back down. Then they are put back onto their properties by cranes and the short anchoring is secured again.

The result is way less financial losses and disruption to homeowners and to the City. Property fences would need to be pretty low or nonexistent, so that when the house boats settle down, they are not resting crooked on a fence.

by the way interesting quote to live by for some stuburn ppl on this:

great minds discuss ideas
average minds discuss events
small minds discuss people

While they look odd, domes seem the way to go… hurricanes and tornados go up to about 400psi on the surface of a structure. Normal, even strongly-built conventional structures go down at far lower than 400psi. Domes can stand over 2,000 psi of direct pressure, and this isn’t factoring in the fact that a dome is also more aerodynamic and will not be affected in the same way as a conventional structure. You can get as much as or even MORE square feet of space in a dome for the same cost/amount of material used as a conventional structure. heating/cooling is apparently much much cheaper for a dome. People have been worrying over how much MORE it’s going to cost to “storm-proof” communities bordering the gulf and atlantic… how about NO additional cost? Just stop building with wood. There’s a dome in florida that’s been through 3 hurricanes with essentially no damage whatsoever:

http://www.domeofahome.com

http://www.monolithicdome.com (these seem to be a superior product, comparable price to conventional structures, apparently very little maintenance required)

http://www.aidomes.com/ (CHEAPER than conventional buildings… probably only a litte less sturdy than the monolithic type but still much more resilient than standard wood frame, a little more maintenance required)

…or if you absolutely must have a home that looks conventional (they say they are competitively priced vs. conventional homes)
http://www.concretebuilthomes.com/

if people will only rebuild with one of these, they won’t have to rebuild again… and the taxpayers won’t have to bail them out again. The rule should be, rebuild like this or move inland. We don’t need to spend more money for this to happen. We need to spend the same amount of money on something OTHER THAN wood frame construction.

The problem was reliance solely on the levees. There was nothing in place to protect or help people if the levees didn’t hold. There was nothing in place to prevent the levees from getting overrun by the lake.

The whole gulf and atlantic coast needs better zoning laws. While they look odd, domes seem the way to go… hurricanes and tornados go up to about 400psi on the surface of a structure. Normal, even strongly-built conventional structures go down at far lower than 400psi. Domes can stand over 2,000 psi of direct pressure, and this isn’t factoring in the fact that a dome is also more aerodynamic and will not be affected in the same way as a conventional structure. You can get as much as or even MORE square feet of space in a dome for the same cost as a conventional structure. heating/cooling is apparently much much cheaper for a dome. People have been worrying over how much MORE it’s going to cost to “storm-proof” communities bordering the gulf and atlantic… how about NO additional cost? Just stop building with wood. There’s a dome in florida that’s been through 3 hurricanes with essentially no damage whatsoever:

http://www.domeofahome.com

http://www.monolithicdome.com

Most of the city has been destroyed and damaged. I agree that there is a nostalgic affect on people that visit that area. I have been there and all along the gulf about 15 times over 20 years.

It would cost less to salvage all the historical locations, than to rebuild and restore them. Pick a place up the Mississippi river some place and plan a grand new New Orleans, making a bigger and better French quarter for more tourists, and the annual Mardi Gras, which could be bigger and better. Plan a new and modern city that the people of Louisana would be proud of.

Our climate is changing, and there will be more and bigger storms coming in the years following in that region of the world.

Moving a city because of a unsafe location has been done in the past, and the new locations has proven successful to that community.

You may loose a few buildings, but you don’t loose the attitude and spirit of a people.

The state of Michigan is experiencing the devistation of the Emerald Ash Borer. This bug native to Asia made it’s way here in the mid nineties and is killing millions of these hearty trees. These dead trees are still the perfect source of strong, hard wood. Many healthy ash trees are being cut right now to help stem the tide of this pest.

While most of the trees are being chipped and burned for electricity, why not save the trunks which are almost always straight, and cut them into 2X4s. The entities cutting down the trees GIVE this wood away to anyone that will take it. The federal government should set up mills here in Michigan and cut this FREE natural resource into usable quality lumber. Then it should be shipped down to the towns that need it.

Or they can help deplete current lumber sources and line the pockets of Weyerhouser and Georgia Pacific.

Roads and rail leading up to Baton Rouge (only 75 miles away)”

I’m sorry but… are you out of your mind? No one is going to live near the port? There’s no NEED for anyone to live near a port? People are going to drive or ride trains 150 miles a day, 3-4 hours out of their day every day running your port from their new homes in Baton Rouge??? Name a single commercial port that DOESN’T have people living within a mile or two of the port facilities… right, you can’t because you need people closer than 75 miles away to run the port facilities. Then you need people to feed, clothe, police, entertain, them, then they get married, they have kids, the kids need teachers etc etc and there you’ve got a city. That’s why every commercial port is a CITY.

A good comparison for the rebuilding of New Orleans would be to take a look at the building of St Petersburg in Russia.

a.) First and foremost, the loss of life from another future flood makes rebuilding a criminal enterprise

“A Category 4 or Category 5 storm, geologists long theorized, would exploit the eroding Louisiana coastline and the gradual settling of the city’s earthen foundation, and compromise the more than 500 miles of levees and floodwalls holding back the river and lake. Armed with computer models, they predicted that hundreds of years of engineering would make little difference.”

b.) The selection of the site for the city was itself a mistake to begin with:

“In 1718, French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ignored his engineers’ warnings about the hazards of flooding and mapped a settlement in a pinch of swampland between the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and a massive lake to the north.”

c.) The city is sinking due to subsidence (the silt it is built upon is compacting)
d.) The river is rising (millions are spent annually to dredge the river bottom)
e.) The seas are rising (global warming)
f.) Hurricanes are becoming more powerful (global warming)
g.) Marshlands are disappearing (a direct result of the levee system)
h.) As a result of the loss of marshland, the coast is gradually creeping closer to the city
i.) An earthquake along the New Madrid Fault could cause even more damage to New Orleans
than Katrina did through a process called soil liquefaction (see below)
j.) Rebuilding the city at a location above New Orleans will boost the economy, provide jobs for those displaced – and most importantly – as the new is being built the old city will have time to drain and dry so existing property, goods, toxic wastes, metals, and gas and fuel depots can be properly salvaged. It will also assure that future storms will not result in such a massive human tragedy.
k.) The ease with which a break in the levees can flood the city also proves that New Orleans is extremely vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Terrorists desire visually stunning acts of terror. A few well placed explosives at key places along the levee system would destroy even more of the city than Katrina did – resulting in millions dead. New Orleans had been over 95% evacuated when it flooded. What about a city packed with residents and flooded in the middle of the night with no warning? I am not saying we need to cave in to the idea that terrorists may strike New Orleans, but in the face of all other considerations, why should we build them a ready made disaster?

While it true that the country does need a port that serves the same function as New Orleans, and a city to support the port.

However, it does not need a port that is located in the same place as New Orleans. The sheer loss of life that WILL occur again if New Orleans is rebuilt in the same location is reason enough to relocate. All the human suffering now visible just doesn’t justify doing it all over again in the same place.

A port need only consist of the bare mechanics necessary to get the ships loaded and unloaded and a road to move the goods to the support city – which could be many miles, inland. Piers, wharves, and whatever else is needed can be built above sea level and just up river of New Orleans. This type of port will serve the nation’s needs more safely than the present site of New Orleans. The port itself can be evacuated very quickly with no damage to homes and no loss of life. We don’t build cities in cofferdams next to oil platforms and there is no need to build a city (with residential areas) next to a port.

Roads and rail leading up to Baton Rouge (only 75 miles away) already exist and it would serve as a much better support city for such a port. It sits at a higher elevation, is more resistant to flooding. Good roads already exist leading down to Donaldson and Reserve and there are other sites that do not sit between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River in a bowl [cofferdam] below sea level.

There are additional reasons for relocating at Baton Rouge, or another city to be built farther inland – in fact, there are two reasons. Baton Rouge sits on the continental shelf, New Orleans does not.

“The north American continental shelf ends at Baton Rouge, La and land comprising the Mississippi Delta south of Baton Rouge has been built of soil carried by the Mississippi River.“

Why is this important? – Because of another natural disaster that awaits New Orleans, one little known to the majority of Americans.

Three words – New Madrid Fault. Remember what happened to areas of San Francisco that were formerly marshland (now fill dirt) during the Loma Prieta quake in 1989? The frequency of the vibrations from the quake turned the soil into a kind of temporary quicksand – the process is called soil liquefaction and it happens in areas that are comprised of marshland, silt, or fill dirt during an earthquake.

Soil liquefaction also happened along the coast closer to the epicenter of Loma Prieta as well – I know because I saw it. I was living in Salinas at the time of the quake. In fact, my bedroom view was of Loma Prieta Mountain just a few miles away. In many places along the coast, the soil and sand had “boil” marks where bubbles of air literally percolated out of the ground as the soil liquefied.

Large areas of San Francisco were damaged as a result of this phenomenon.

Geologists and engineers predict that when (not if) the next New Madrid quake hits New Orleans could suffer even more damage than that visited by Katrina. The 1811 New Madrid quake devastated the Mississippi Valley – at that time there was a small fraction of the millions that live there now.

I have included background information on the subject(s).

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMadrid/

As far as the levees breaking, they have been saying it as long as I have lived around the city, since 1970. I’m not sure who’s responsibility it is to build levees and make sure they are safe, but whoever that is, its their fault for not doing.

Now, all of you just shut the fuck up, because while you are all bitching on the internet, there are people dying regardless. Either get to work to support the economy, make a donation, or get your ass out there and help with the relief effort.

Thames Barrier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_barrier

The Holland dam/levee system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works