Thanks for mentioning the Mississippi Coast. A lot of people tend to forget that we were even hit. When I was listening in the dark in Gulfport after Katrina hit that a levee had broke, I was praying for you guys in New Orleans. When I heard about the others breaking later, I was worried about some friends over there.

I don't understand why people keep saying New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Where would the New Orleans port facilities go so that farmers in the Midwest can ship their goods across the world? Where would all the support companies for the oil industry go?

New Orleans has always been a vibrant city and helps drive the economy on the Gulf Coast. A lot of our customers are New Orleans businesses and slowly but surely they are coming back.

>Speaking on behalf of the entire state of
>Louisiana, we'll keep the oil and you guys
>don't have to pay for the levees. Deal?

Preach it, brother. ;-) I seldom agree with Mary Landrieu but I saw her on CSPAN yesterday explaining why the Feds should pay up on levee repairs and upgrades, the significance of New Orleans as a port city and our area's impact as an oil producer, and the one comment that stuck with me was "We are NOT a charity case." Damn straight.

>Thanks for mentioning the Mississippi Coast. A lot of people tend to forget that we were even hit.

seawitch- But for the levee breaks, you guys would be the story. In a way you guys are getting short changed in all this.

Absolutely correct. (And it kills me to have to agree with anything Sen. Landrieu says.)

I agree with the idea of the feds paying to rebuild NO in this case. Paul's argument is a very good one. My concern comes with the next disaster. People aren't going to care what the reasons were for the Feds rebuilding NO. They will only want to know when the Feds are going to show up and rebuild their town, regardless of the circumstances.

Everyone believes that his town is vital to the economy of the free world. However, people will tire of seeing their tax dollars constantly being used for rebuilding other people's stuff.

I have been to New Orleans many times and I was stationed at Air Force bases along the gulf cost in both Mississippi and Florida for years, so I know the area. Your point that New Orleans would have flooded if it were 3 feet above sea level is true, but if it were 50 feet above sea level it would have stayed dry except for runoff pooling.

Elevation does matter when building levees. The lower the elevation the higher the levees have to be, and the higher they are the more they cost to build and maintain. Also, the soft saturated ground in the New Orleans area makes building strong and high levees an expensive process.

Another important point is that if New Orleans was 3 feet above sea level the flood waters would have drained away just like they did in hard hit areas of Mississippi. We wouldn't need to be rescuing people from roof tops days after the hurricane.

The port New Orleans needs to be where it is, at least until we allow the Mississippi to change it's course as it has been trying to do for over 100 years. However, the city could be moved to high ground. It would be far cheaper to build a high speed rail link between the high and dry city of New Orleans and the port New Orleans than to build even category 4 levees around the city.

Lets not spend billions setting up a house of cards only to have the next hurricane knock it down again.

Paul - As always, I love the blog. "Hiring" Jay has been a great thing. And I certainly feel for your struggles living in the thick of it.

But when you go and say something silly, I have to wonder what you were thinking....

If you have a car wreck because your breaks go out while you are going 60mph on the interstate, you don't blame the interstate.

Of course you'd blame the Interstate. Who else has that kind of cake to support you for the rest of your unmotivated and lackadaisical (I looked that one up, it is spelled right regardless of the warnings sounds going off in your head right now) life?

Got my blockquote goofed up, sorry... Final para was me.

Paul,

As a taxpayer, I would oppose spending any money to rebuild New Orleans until the citizens of Louisiana rise up and replace your officials with people of at least minimal competence.

Americans will support just about any program to replace and improve a city damaged by a natural disaster; however, the one thing they will not stand for is wasting billions through inept and corrupt management.

We cannot, in good conscience, send one dime to New Orleans while Broussard, Nagin and Blanco continue in any position of authority. Until the residents of your state take responsibility for installing leaders who will spend our tax dollars honestly and competently, let them sleep in tents and cars.

If you would get rid of all the crooks in the goverment in La. you would have plenty of money to fix it all.

Well put, Paul, but I think you'll have to agree that the reason floodwaters in New Orleans didn't drain *after* the city flooded was because the water had accumulated in the areas which were below sea level (or at least below breach level, which was no doubt a few feet above sea level). In that sense the "bowl" analogy which was used so much at the time of the hurricane was quite apt.

Does anyone know how Galveston or other coastal cities' surge protection systems are designed to respond to overtopping? Since they're above sea level I'd suspect there's some kind of a sluice or channel which could be opened to let flood water drain more rapidly.

Paul, when you're wrong you're wrong. And you're wrong. First off, let me start by saying I've never been to New Orleans and I'm no expert. But just as you asked me to read your whole post before making up my mind or starting to form my rebuttal, I'd ask the same of you.

Cities above sea level can flood, this is true. Cities below sea level have a harder time with flooding because there is nowhere for the water to drain. It has to be pumped out.

Your argument is that New Orleans did not flood because it was below sea level, it flooded because the levees broke. Sure, the levee breaks let the water flow into New Orleans. But the fact remains that New Orleans is a bowl surrounded by water. Water that is higher than the city itself. The water from the levee breaks flowed into New Orleans because it is below sea level.

So you can argue that it was the levee breaks that actually caused the flooding, but it is the fact that the bowl sits below sea level that created the real need for the levees and set the stage for the disaster that followed Hurricane Katrina.

You don't have to take my word for it, you've blogged on the this very topic.

Arguing that being below sea level had nothing to do with the flooding is silly.

I agree with Paul wholeheartedly that the arguments against federal assistance in rebuilding New Orleans, on the basis that it's below sea level, are just plain crackpotted.

J.West, though, does raise a concern that ought to be examined and dealt with in the process of rebuilding the city.

It seems to me that the most accurate thing to say is that New Orleans flooded because it was NEAR* sea level. It STAYED flooded because it was below sea level.

*(Near enough for storm surge to be a problem).

Was there this bickering and division after Galveston? Mass graft again in Louisiana. They're too busy getting Creoled. Didn't really care about the po' folks.

Dam was damned years ago. What happens when Hurricane Huey comes in next? I think he's there already in the form of Blanco and Landrieu. Check out what Gov. Blanco's doing for relief this Christmas right here.

Fine analysis! Think of the energy needed to raise a city three feet. Wow!

So some follow up questions.
1. When were these levies built?
2. Who oversaw the contractors?
3. Were the CoEE's who approved the project the same as the ones who inspected it. , accepted it, -signed off as complete.
4. How was the contract awarded. Anything unusual?
5. What are the parties involved doing now.
6. Are any Vince Foster?

OK, I have a proposition for you.... Louisiana could pay for every penny of the restoration out of its own pocket if we were given the same cut of the oil taxes that every other state in the union gets. We produce 24% of the oil produced in this nation. We'll sell OUR oil on the open market and pay for everything ourselves.

Are you confusing the consumption tax paid at the pump for some newly created Paul-'production'-tax or is this some other straw for which your grasping for to rationalize argument ? And I was unaware that the State of Louisianna owned such vast oil deposits. Curious.

- MikeB

Why should Americans with the good sense to live where hurricanes do not flood low lying land pay money to Americans who chose to live in NO? If you stay, you must pay.

Don't tell fairy tales about the benefits to the rest of the USA from the 'port'. It was charging all the traffic would bear and was delivering no favors to anyone; except maybe your corrupt officials.

But it was a great idea to keep your oil in the ground. It will increase the price and we in Alberta will happily take over your customers. Thanks for that and thanks also to American enviro-loonies for stopping drilling in ANWR.

I believe the proof of what you're saying, Paul, is that NO was, for the most part, just fine immediately after the worst of Katrina had moved northward. Does anyone else remember the big "Whew!" expressed by meteorologists? How many times did we hear that NO had "dodged a bullet"?

As for rebuilding...what other natural disaster has occurred where people have pointed to the victims and proclaimed the disaster to be a self-inflicted wound? Perhaps seaside, multi-million dollar homes falling into the Pacific Ocean, but they don't count...they're rich. (just jokin'!)

New Orleans was a prosperous community that was an asset to the rest of the country. I think it's about time we put some of our tax dollars to work rebuilding true American interests.

The coastline is shrinking, how much longer until New Orleans is an island surrounded by dikes/levies?

Rebuild New Orlean on high ground, keeping the port for cargo and the French Quarter for tourists. Make the rest of old New Orleans into a park honouring the peole killed in the huricane. Use Federal money and built the relocated New Orleans as a model city. New Schools, new places of employment, break the cycle of poverty. New Orleans could be the model for rebuilding teh inner cities of America or it could be put back, as is, and wait for the next disaster.

Folks, the arguments to rebuild New Orleans ignores geology.

The soil of the lower Louisiana Delta is primarily silt, and over time, silt compacts. The Delta is constantly sinking, and the entire city of New Orleans is sinking from fraction of an inch to many inches per year based upon the exact underlying soil composition of a given area of the city.

The levees that protect the city are now killing it, as the yearly flooding of the Mississippithat once provided silt to reinvigorate the delta is now directed, wastefully, into the Gulf where it is washed away. The city sinks and the delta marshes, unable to rebuild because of the wasteful levees, wash more rapidly away every year.

New Orleans is dying in a trap of man's design, and the city will join the Gulf of Mexico between 2050-2090 according to experts from the Corps of engineers, LSU, and many other coastal and marine studies experts.

Even if massive sea walls were built completely around the city to make it an under sea level island, the silty soil base would one again fail from below.

The most logical, cost effective way to save New Orleans is to move it inland, or in this instance, upriver.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of costly renovations are tempory solution to the orginal problem of a very poor location.

Steve L

>I agree with the idea of the feds paying to rebuild NO in this case. Paul's argument is a very good one. My concern comes with the next disaster.

>people will tire of seeing their tax dollars constantly being used for rebuilding other people's stuff.

When was the last time this happened in Louisiana? When was the last time the in Florida? Or California?

Just wondering.

-----
Mac
> the city could be moved to high ground.

Ok Right after we move Miami and New York.
-----

j West

>As a taxpayer, I would oppose spending any money to rebuild New Orleans until the citizens of Louisiana rise up and replace your officials with people of at least minimal competence.

I think the same thing every time I see money going in Washington DC

-------
Sean:

>Arguing that being below sea level had nothing to do with the flooding is silly

Nowhere in your whole post -which i read- did you explain who being below sea level made LOLA flood. You just showed that it slowed the drainage process. We all know that.
-------
Tommy, you get your own reply.
-------

MikeB

>Are you confusing the consumption tax paid at the pump for some newly created Paul-'production'-tax or is this some other straw for which your grasping for to rationalize argument ? And I was unaware that the State of Louisianna owned such vast oil deposits. Curious.

No, do some research and get back to me. (or I hope to blog it in the next week.)

--------------

And Fred Z humorously opined....

>Why should Americans with the good sense to live where hurricanes do not flood low lying land pay money to Americans who chose to live in NO?

>we in Alberta...

Fred... You live in alberta... If the power goes out you fucking freeze to death. New Orleans gets a hurricane like this every 300 years. You get winter every year. Dumbass.

(I knew it was going too good. ;-)
---------------

New BR

>The coastline is shrinking, how much longer until New Orleans is an island surrounded by dikes/levies?

Sigh, do your home work and get back to me.

----------

I must say... If people keep making sane and rational comments to my post, I'll think I'm on the wrong blog.

All I can figure is that the Disney servers must have melted from the load.

Just when I thought there were no true dumbasses, we get one.

>New Orleans is dying in a trap of man's design, and the city will join the Gulf of Mexico between 2050-2090 according to experts from the Corps of engineers, LSU, and many other coastal and marine studies experts.

Are you watching 60 Minutes again? So in 45 years the city will join the gulf of Mexico?

Too stupid for words.

And it is a shame because you mention good points... then piss the whole thing away with stupidity.

Tommy's questions, my answers...

1. When were these levies built?

Heh- Well I think they stated in 1850 or somewhere there about. The floodwalls that failed were built in the late 1990s... Less than 10 years ago.

2. Who oversaw the contractors?

ACoE

3. Were the CoEE's who approved the project the same as the ones who inspected it. , accepted it, -signed off as complete.

That would be them.

4. How was the contract awarded. Anything unusual?

Standard issue bid process... I don't recall if there was anything "unusual" about something 10 years ago but there has been nothing in the local paper or local talk shows about it since the storm...

Certainly if there was a scandal back then, we'd be reliving it today.

5. What are the parties involved doing now.

Designing the new levees. Why?

6. Are any Vince Foster?

Nope, he was in his office committing suicide at the time.

Speaking on behalf of the entire state of Louisiana, we'll keep the oil and you guys don't have to pay for the levees. Deal?

No kidding. I'd also like to see all of the midwest farmers FedEx'ing their corn to market too. Or maybe they'd just have to truck it to Los Angeles, who knows...

:peter

How does the (hypothetical) comment that LA could "keep all the oil" (and sell if on the open market) relate to the farmers not having a port through which to ship their harvests? Paul wasn't saying he (hypothetically) wanted to isolate LA from the Union, only that they might divorce themselves from the Fed Gov'ts thumbscrews.

Mike B - A head start on that research:
US Oil Refineries
US Oil Imports, and scroll for a "Price of Gas Comparison"
Crude Production by State

By the way - How goes the movie release? (sorry, couldn't resist...)

"Considering the feds flooded the city, they now bear the cost of fixing it"

So, you're a proponent of the expansion of the welfare state? Why didn't LA take care of protecting itself in the first damn place?

"You all don't mind paying 4 bucks a gallon for gas do you?"

Not if it comes from ANWR.

Nowhere in your whole post -which i read- did you explain who being below sea level made LOLA flood. You just showed that it slowed the drainage process. We all know that.

I just assumed you'd follow the link to read your own words. I also said that NO was a bowl. This bowl is below seal level. This means that any water that gets near it will go down into the bowl. Being lower than the water which surrounds a place causes flooding.

I would have thought that would be obvious.

Lose power in Alberta and freeze to death...right. Us Alberta dumbasses is too dumbass to burn our oil'n'gaz to keep warm and to produce...power.

Likewise, my friends and neighbours in Montana are dumbasses too dumb to live in swampy-silty-hurricane-land because the 'bad' hurricanes only come every 300 years. They're too stupid to buy Alberta oil'n'gaz if you keep yours and they'll freeze too when their power goes out, every Montana winter, like it usually does, they being to stupid to keep it working, and all. Those dolts oughta pay for NO restoration, and they oughta pay extra for the privilege of paying. And don't lets get started on those cheapass Oregonians and Dakotans. Turn'em upside down and shake their pockets.

Knowing what we know about the world there is much less excuse or reason to pay for others to live in places of known risk. Buy a map. Buy an atlas. Move. Or pay.

No doubt the feds screwed up. When they took jurisdiction over NO safety, did anyone stand up and say 'No, that's our responsibility, we choose to live here and we'll look after it.' Nope, you stayed quiet and took the supposed benefit.

Après toi, la deluge.

How does the (hypothetical) comment that LA could "keep all the oil" (and sell if on the open market) relate to the farmers not having a port through which to ship their harvests?

Sorry, I jumped the gun a bit. The whole "don't let the US gov't pay for N.O" is most commonly the opening for an "abandon N.O. to the sea" argument.

By the way - How goes the movie release? (sorry, couldn't resist...)

Yeah, not to many can resist these days =8^]

Although I have to admit that before he got big with Rings it was cool to every now and then get some of his fan email =8^]

"Dude, I love you man, like, Meet the Feebles is my favorite movie. of all time. Dude!"

We don't need to rebuild all of the "sump" parts of New Orleans to keep the Port open and working at 100%. Just keep the current high ground, put in a few more layers of levees to keep the middle parts dry, and let the lowest parts go back to the river.

The *real* screwup in the levees wasn't in the construction of one or two crappy pieces that broke, but in the strategic design that let huge areas of the city flood from a coup