Americans -- Abandon NOLA | TigerFan.com

NoLimitMD · Sep 9, 2005

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/3346460

WASHINGTON — More than half the people in this country say the flooded areas of New Orleans lying below sea level should be abandoned and rebuilt on higher ground. An AP-Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of Americans want the four-fifths of New Orleans that was flooded by Hurricane Katrina moved to a safer location.
Click to expand...

That number is a bit higher than I would have imagined. I guess more people have actually visited NOLA than I thought. :hihi:

CParso · Sep 9, 2005

NoLimitMD said:

That number is a bit higher than I would have imagined. I guess more people have actually visited NOLA than I thought. :hihi:
Click to expand...

:rofl: :rofl:

kcal · Sep 10, 2005

NoLimitMD said:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/3346460

That number is a bit higher than I would have imagined. I guess more people have actually visited NOLA than I thought. :hihi:
Click to expand...

54% those participating in that poll are racist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol:

NoLimitMD · Sep 10, 2005

And THIS guy says to make NOLA an island...I kinda like the sound of that!

New York Times
September 10, 2005
Make It an Island
By BRUCE BABBITT

Washington

AFTER the victims are interred and public officials held to account for the destruction of a great American city, Congress must determine what to rebuild and what to abandon to the encroaching waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

New Orleans will survive only as an island surrounded by miles of open water. It will take a national effort, led by our best scientists, engineers and city planners, to achieve even this reduced vision of an American Venice. We must take the time to redesign the city to function as an island, with an island infrastructure, including relocated streets, highways and utilities. The island will need higher, stronger seawalls and levees sufficient to withstand new threats, including the rising sea levels and bigger hurricanes spawned in warming Atlantic waters.

Sea levels are likely to rise two to three feet in this century. Coastal maps drawn from consensus estimates show that virtually all of the delta lands south of Baton Rouge and below Interstate 10 - some 5,000 square miles - will be submerged by the end of this century.

State and local officials are understandably in denial about the impending loss of so much Louisiana land and heritage. The depth of their paralysis is underlined by a recent program to collect discarded Christmas trees from New Orleans to stack on barrier islands against the tides.

In recent years state agencies assembled a $14 billion project called Coastal 2050. One of its proposals was to cut gaps in the Mississippi River levees, which would provide outlets for the river to deposit some of its sediment onshore to help rebuild the delta. This idea may help in a few areas, but it will do little to offset the vastly larger forces of a rising sea.

Other proposals in the package include building coastal barriers, plugging delta channels dredged by oil companies and re-vegetating barrier islands. But overall the Coastal 2050 projects have as much chance of success as King Canute commanding the tides to recede.

Congress should resist the urge to appropriate huge sums for piecemeal reconstruction efforts. Restoration of the city and the delta will be a national effort, and it should be guided by a national plan. Congress should charge a commission of our best scientists, engineers and planners to asses the alternatives, draw up a regional land plan and recommend a realistic course of action.

Bruce Babbitt, a former secretary of the interior, is the author of the forthcoming "Cities in the Wilderness."
Click to expand...