For the money that is going to be spent on New Orleans, we could move everyone of it's citizens to a condo in Miami Beach, and probably save a bundle in the process. Let the damn place sink!

I love that, "New Orleans Not Quite Stormproof". New Orleans will never be "stormproof." No matter how much money is spent, or how many evacuations plans planned, there will always be tha chance of another storm blowing New Orleans away. If you don't want to flood, move to where it doesn't flood.

It has come to my attention that a certain "segment" of New Orleans society now refers to the catastrophic event of last year as "The Katrina."

Palmateer - I haven't heard anyone here refer to it as "the Katrina." Perhaps I don't hang out with the right segment. Everyone I come across calls it the storm or Evil Bitch Storm from Hell, but usually only church people say that.

fmragtops - every city is vulnerable to something. New York is incredibly vulnerable. San Francisco, Miami, St. Louis (that crazy New Madrid fault is going to go off one day). And if we all left, we'd abandon enormous industry, not to mention that whole sea port thing that imports and exports half of what goes in and out of the U.S. - including 60% of the petroleum. So, you might want to rethink your position.

Oh, so Miami is less storm prone than NO????

epador:

It's not 12 feet below sea level.

P.S. My apologies to the prople of Miami!

"For the money that is going to be spent on New Orleans, we could move everyone of it's citizens to a condo in Miami Beach, and probably save a bundle in the process. Let the damn place sink!"

It is people like this that make it imperative that Louisiana get its fair share in offshore oil royalties so the state can protect itself from flooding and not rely on "the kindness of strangers". We have found out from this disaster that kindness is not in the vocabulary of many Americans.

Popular Mechanics published a great article in March, some of which raises more questions.

Just as significantly, the five Gulf Coast states accounted for half the total of repetitive-loss costs nationwide. Taxpayers across the country are paying for a minute number of people to rebuild time and time again in the path of hurricanes.

Folks in Tornado Alley and along the San Andreas fault don't get federally backed insurance, so why should taxpayers subsidize coastal homes, many of them vacation properties? Before we start rebuilding "bigger and better," Congress should reform the flood insurance program. A good start: Structure premiums so the program is actuarially sound and clamps down on repetitive claims.

New Orleans can be made safer with proper engineering and billions of tax dollars, but it's unlikely that it can be made safe against a category 5 hurricane.

Allowing market forces to set insurance rates that reflect the true risk to property would force depopulation of costal areas. One way to achieve that depopulation without destroying individual's investments in their homes is to not allow rebuilding of property destroyed by hurricanes. The government pays to move people out of the danger area just like they did along the Mississippi river. Tax payers pay more one time rather than paying and paying and paying.

Allowing market forces to set insurance rates that reflect the true risk to property would force depopulation of costal areas. One way to achieve that depopulation without destroying individual's investments in their homes is to not allow rebuilding of property destroyed by hurricanes.

I completely agree and this would not depopulate all of NO. Contrary to popular belief, not all of NO is below sea level, but the portions that are probably should not be built residential, though they might make fine business districts with a few areas kept up as historical districts (or at least great places to watch people get drunk and make fools of themselves).

Throw away link? I thought the lines

"nearly two thirds of the flooding could have been prevented had the Corps simply fortified the weak soil conditions that ultimately caused the levees to collapse."

"Most of the levees withstood the hurricane's initial volley, only to collapse when water cascading down their dry side eroded the soil around their foundations"

Pretty important stuff there.

USMC Pilot - "For the money that is going to be spent on New Orleans, we could move everyone of it's citizens to a condo in Miami Beach, and probably save a bundle in the process."

Not true by a long shot. New Orleans is where it is for a reason. If you look at the largest ports in the world with very few exceptions they are located at the point where a river and a large body of water meet which occurs at sea level. Many of those ports are below or right at sea level, just like New Orleans. You can't move everyone out of the area and still have the perks - it does not work that way.

If you think rebuilding and coastal protection systems are expensive look at the cost of increased freight charges due to the loss of the efficiencies of the port of New Orleans. Add to that the cost of rebuilding the energy and port infrastructure elsewhere. Much higher energy prices and more vulnerable energy supplies are also significant factors. The cost of moving the citizens are negligible compared to the industrial costs and the security factors. National interest requires this restoration. To say anything other than that is short sighted and ill informed.

"It's not 12 feet below sea level." Neither is New Orleans. There are occupied areas that are 8' below but anything lower than that is canal basins, underpasses or wetlands. Even including those things 10' is the max. Over 49% of the city is at or above sea level and in the end it made little difference. My in-laws live in Lakeview, which was considered well protected. Their house is raised 2.5 feet above grade with puts it 6" below sea level. They had almost 7' inside their house. What difference did that 6" make? The fact is that we would have had "wet ankles" had the levee's held and flooding was limited to topping. Localized flooding in flood prone areas - big deal. With the destruction elsewhere New Orleans would not have been a blip on the media screen.

We have had breaches before. Betsy breached a levee in the lower 9th and caused substantial flooding and damage. You know how you can tell it is not the same thing all over again? During Katrina the houses that were shifted around like monopoly pieces were, for the most part, all over 100 years old.

How many posts have you people written about the rebuilding of Mississippi? What about Florida? The area that just flooded up in the northeast has done so repeatedly in the past 10 years - any posts about shutting that region down? Didn't think so.