Saving the hurricane coasts.

Watched a program on the National Geographic Channel about the sea walls built to protect the Netherlands from the North Sea.

In 1953 a killer storm surge floods the Dutch coastline and claims over 1800 lives, inspiring the construction of the biggest, most sophisticated flood defenses on the planet. Costing billions of dollars, the systems of giant concrete and steel sea wallsand retractable floodgates include one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World. But with sea levels rising across the globe, the fierce North Sea and swelling rivers threaten to breach the defences again and wipe out the Netherlands.

Including a pair of gates to close the shipping channel to the port of Rotterdam, the busiest on earth.

They've spent $2.5 trillion in the past 50 years and have budgeted another $26 billion for the next 100 years. Climate change is expected to create more floods coming in from the higher lands to the East and South. They have designated areas to be sacrificed in such a case. I'm doubtful of the Global Warming predictions, but I think that we're going to have to deal with it, whether it happens or not on the schedule predicted, we can't just assume it won't happen. These are natural cycles that raise and lower sea levels over time. The costs of abandoning Southern Florida may justify that of building sea walls around it. Expect windmills to pump out the ocaean.

The Netherlands is a very similar case to that of Southern Louisiana: built on marshlands, subject to storm surges from the North Sea, land is sinking as it dries out and the organic matter in it decomposes. It's sea walls will continue to become ineffective as sea levels rise.

Their sea coast is much shorter than the US coastal areas affected by hurricanes. Even if we build walls to prevent flooding by storm surges, they couldn't prevent the winds and rains accompanying hurricanes, nor would they stop the loss of wetlands in the Delta, which is caused by the channeling and levees of the Mississippi. Expect a lot of resistance from environmentalists.

I have to say that the case of the Netherlands doesn't make me feel any more positive about rebuilding NOLA. If that country spent $2.5 trillion over 50 years ($50 billion per year) to protect a much shorter main coast line, how much would it cost to protect the major population centers on both the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coast that could be hit by hurricanes.

Rita stands to be a repeat of the horrors of earlier hurricanes like Audrey, Tropical Storm Claudette, Alicia, Carla, Gilbert, T.S. Allison, and the 1900 hurricane that killed between 6,000 to 12,000 people when it destroyed Galveston. Rita is expected to be a Cat 4, possibly 5, hurricane before it's done and exceed Carla which hit the Texas Coast in 1961. Maybe the best idea for NOLA would be to require that homes in the low areas be floatable like those being built now in the Netherlands, along with windmill-driven pumps to supplement those they normally rely on. I wonder how many trillions it would cost to make all these areas safe, not including all the environmental litigation. East step in category means 10 times the damage of the previous one. Carla was a Cat 4. Rita could be a Cat 5.