Tough choices

Paul Recer argues against providing insurance to people who insist on building in hurricane prone areas. It's appealing.
I'm thinking that a sea wall a given distance from the actual shore would be a good precondition. People who build in front of the wall know they won't get insurance or federal aid for rebuilding.

Jack Shafer argues that the romantic view of the city is a false facade. That it's famous "Let the good times roll" image masks a really hopeless life for the city's black residents. The corruption of both the city's businesses and its government are legendary. Mardi Gras is basically an annual celebration of every vice imaginable, as if daring God do do anything about it. This is apparently the same conclusion that many others besides me arrived at pretty quickly. The tempting of fate by continuing to occupy an area where the sewage has to be pumped out or it will literally rise up and drown the residents, is staggering. Expert after expert has been interviewed saying this was their worst nightmare and they have dreaded it for decades. It makes you want to tear your hair, especially when you hear what measures were taken to prepare for such an obvious danger. Basically they were relying on evacuation to save everyone without any assurance that everybody would be able to comply! If the mayor weren't black himself, he'd be accused of racism like George Bush is being. The more you hear about the performance of state and local government, the more you wonder how such incompetents were allowed to occupy their offices. I've said before what Brigham Young would have done about this, but on further reflection, I think he would have told them to get out long before this. He did, after all, lead an Exodus from the shores of the Mississippi to those of the Great Salt Lake.

I would take a position that New Orleans should be only partially rebuilt. No residences below sea level. The port and the oil industries make the city indispensible. Too much of our imported oil, as well as domestic production, comes through NOLA. Too much of our agricultural exports rely on the Mississippi and New Orleans for transportation. The port and essential industries must be rebuilt, but that's all the more reason to restrict the city's occupancy. If there's sufficient economic benefit, structures will be repaired or rebuilt, but homes and housing projects that are susceptible to flooding like we've just seen have no business being built in a sub-sea-level city that is still sinking. The areas next to the river are higher because the river deposits soil along its banks that keeps them high, but the rest of the Delta is made of sediments from the river. That's why it's called a delta, because natural river deltas are in the shape of the capital Greek letter of the same name.

We have prevented the natural behavior of the river at its mouth because of human trading and transportation needs, and I don't see any good way to resolve the conflict. New Orleans has to be accessible from the ocean and that means keeping the Mississippi in its channel and running fast enough to prevent it from silting up. That means that, until somebody, comes up with a way to restore the rest of the old delta, or they start building on piles that won't sink or drift, New Orleans will not be a safe place for residential use, other than hotels. There'll have to be a New New Orleans built or the residents must scatter to other cities and towns. Workers in the industries that remain will have to commute.