New Orleans is not The Netherlands

One of Hugh Hewitt's callers make the point that in the Southwest you aren't allowed to build in a arroyo in the desert because of flash floods and wondered why they are not insisting that New Orleans be rebuilt on high ground. Hugh answered him by pointing to the Netherlands.

Here's a good summary of what it's like in the Netherlands:

Since the Dutch system was designed 50 years ago, scientists have discovered that seas are rising faster and the country is sinking faster than expected. It has fallen 12 feet in the last 1,000 years and the rates are increasing, according to Dutch statistics. The surrounding seas, in turn, are rising about 23 to 39 inches per century, the figures show.

Dutch scientists say that both the country's politicians and its younger generation have become complacent in the last 50 years. A generation that has never experienced a catastrophic flood is questioning the need to funnel billions into research and new systems.

The Netherlands have lost tens of thousands of citizens to floods. According to the National Geographic special the other night, they've spent $2.5 trillion over the past 50 years to build their seawalls and repair dikes that have failed. And the distances involved are miniscule compared to our Gulf Coast.

Their efforts and engineering are truly awesome, but their whole country is tiny compared with the areas we'd have to protect, and the distances involved are miniscule compared to our Gulf Coast. I wonder what having sea walls across their ocean views would do to property values down there.

Then there's this:

But now environmental, engineering and flood experts say those defenses might be insufficient. In the 21st century, population growth and climate change caused by global warming have left the country's interior, through which flow the Rhine, Maas and Schelde rivers, more vulnerable to flooding than ever, they say. High river dikes -- similar to those built in the United States to regulate the Mississippi River -- are now seen more as a contributor to major flooding than a protection against it.

A five-year study due to be published in January is likely to include disturbing new calculations of flood threats to the Netherlands and gaps in the country's readiness, according to experts and government officials familiar with the findings. Major deficiencies in evacuation plans for the most populous Dutch cities are likely to be outlined in the study.

They have concluded that the areas with the lowest population density will have to be sacrificed to the floods, and the land owners repaid for the loss of their homes.

They can't move to higher ground without leaving their own country or building up their polders higher. They're already one of the most densely populated areas on earth. New Orleans can, but its businesses and people don't want to abandon it. I think that Katrina and insurance costs in the area. If they want to live like this, they're welcome to it, but they had better start a trust fund or endowment from taxing the oil and gas industry and the port and an independent federal-state-local agency to monitor the situation and make sure the various walls are solid. And people who don't have their own transportation shouldn't live there.

The Netherlands is not a model we should be emulating, but at least as far as I'm concerned.

The attitude of people living on coastal areas is fatalistic. They seem to just accept the fact that they're going to be flooded every so often and a few thousand deaths are inevitable.

That's why Louisiana and New Orleans were so ill prepared. But now this stuff is being used to badger the rest of the nation and all the blaming and complaining is pretty ugly.

The Netherlands has no choice but to accept living below sea level. They're stuck, unless they start building up their land, knowing that it will continue to sink at a few feet per century. That's how they built their country. For us to build sea walls like theirs would take a whole lot more more than $2.5 trillion.

They have to deal with it. We don't! There's no reason to allow huge tracts of houses to be subject to the flooding we've seen. Make 'em build on higher ground.
The original city was built on high ground along the banks of the river. That's why it wasn't flooded in places like the French Quarter. The skyscrapers will remain, and some of the city can be filled in and built up by bringing in a lot of rock and concrete. But the residential areas can't afford that.