Quote: Tracy E. Brown

Johan, it wasn't Hurricane Katrina that destroyed New Orleans. It was the failure of the levees the next day. They (local,state and federal) should have built the levees correctly after Hurricane Betsy in the 1960's. Then Katrina wouldn't have flooded 80% of the city. You can't relocate New Orleans. It is one of the largest port cities in the world. I don't think even most Americans realize how much of their oil, natural gas,food and consumer goods come thru New Orleans. Build the levees correctly and restore the wetlands and it won't be such a disaster. We would have to relocate 25 to 40% of America's oil and natural gas industry. Not to mention all the cargo being processed. The French built New Orleans for a reason. Location,Location and Location. Easy access from the Gulf and easy access to the mighty Mississippi River along with now easy access to interstate highways.

The breaking of the levees was caused indirectly by the hurricane. every dyke that breaks is wrongly build, per definition. Every dyke, if not replaced in time, will eventualy wwear out and break

I agree that it isn't possible to relocate the city and its economical structure. But keep in mind that there will be more hurricanes in the future and some of them will hit New Orleans. Due to it's location it is a vulnarble place to be at such a moment. Planners have to concidder this possibility when investing in that area. Short term securities versus long term insecurities

Greetings

Johan

I read somewhere that even though they are "fixing" the levees in New Orleans, they are only making them safe up to Cat 3 (which they were at before Katrina, I believe).

Does anyone know if that is true?

That would give everyone some extra incentive to move to high ground and to leave the next time a storm comes through.

I suspect the cost of building levees to withstand a Cat 5 storm would be nearly beyond all reason. It has to be a calculated risk. Cat 5 storms that make landfall at that level are pretty rare. Levees -- storm surge protection -- become pretty irrelevant at wind speeds exceeding 156 mph (Cat 5). For us inland folks a Cat 5 hurricane is roughly equivilant to an F3 tornado in wind damage potential. (Winds 158-206 mph, Roof and some walls torn off well constructed houses; trains overturned; most trees in fores uprooted).

Especially, if we decide to do it for **all** coastal communities. Why should New Orleans get special treatment? Is it any more important than Miami, Mobile, or Galveston?


(added)
Interesting list on Wikipedia ...
In the past 50 years, only 2 Cat 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the US -- Camille(1969, Mississippi, 190 mph winds) and Andrew (1992, Florida, 175 mph winds ). Both were violent enough to get their names permanently etched in history.

Edited by Charlie Snyder (09/15/2008 03:05 PM)
Edit reason: Added Wikipedia link

Wow! Your on my subject! Katrina survivor! I live in St Tammany parish, just 30 miles North of New Orleans. I live in the city the gov. totally forgot about. Yet they all passed threw to get to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. SLIDELL,LA Our city was 1/2 underwater from tidel surge. For that matter everything below I-12 was pretty wet. I live North of I-12 and west of I-59 about 10 min. from Waveland, Ms. Our home was crushed by trees, we basically camped for 2 mths. It took that long to get a power pole to hook ele. up to it. Then we got a travel trailer that we lived in for 18mths. All we heard was N.O. the poor city. I am a native of New Orleans moved to Slidell in "74". What I see N.O. has been basically neglected for about 30 yrs, all the politicians had there hand in the till. Nothing was being fixed and then Katrina came along an oppertunity for the city to get things fixed. Then suddenly we(parishes surrounding the city) were called the New Orleans metro. area. Suddenly we (ST. Tammany) were now part of New Orleans. We as a parish got very little help from the Govt. We are almost all the way back. Slidell's govt. was ran from trailers. A quote from Slidell's Mayor Ben Morris "Yeah the govt.is real good at giving us nothing." Everything here is done by the people from St Tammany parish and we are proud of it. A quote from a weather blogger New Orleans is a bowl that nature wants to take back.Something else Katrina was down played. I was here and went threw it. Saw things wow.. Our Mayor was in the center of town across from Slidell Mem. Hosp. in what used to be our old weather station winds were clocked at 178 sustained with gust much higher. St Tammany parish is known for its trees we lost millions of them. MS.and Louisiana are known for the pine tree farms, now pretty much wiped out. I get so angry. This past storm Gustav the govt, tried to leave us off the list for Govt. help our Gov.B.Jindal got us on the list but, they wil not help us says we were not destroyed enough. We are still digging out the waterways from Katrina. Not to mention the mouth of the Pearl River which is about 50 feet deep naturally was only about a foot after Katrina and beginning to reroute it self, not good. Well there I said it. I get so sick of hearing poor New Orleans...

I believe that there are limits to what a levee can be expected to withstand. I live in an area that has a high flood risk and lots of levees. An expert on levees (professor from UC Davis), has been quoted as saying, "There are two kinds of levees, those that have failed and those that will fail." It appears to be a sad fact that man can only do so much to defy mother nature.