5 years from now in NOLA, there will be many fine, good people living in brand new state of the art public housing. Unfortunately, there are many human vermin who will also be moving there and in 10 years it will be just another trash strewn, graffitti laced, crime and drug infested dung heap.
New Orleans will be rebuilt to it's former glory. I think new standards will be made so that this doesn't happen again. I also see it as an opportunity for New Orleans to become a safer place by putting all the "looter types" in one place, kind of block of from the rest of New Orleans to make it a safer place. In a perfect world I guess.
Well let's hope Fox had it wrong with they said Denny Hassert said he isn't so sure we should rebuild New Orleans. I really don't need to hear that right now.
Expect the population of New Orleans to shrink by 20-40%. Expect these people to move to baton rouge, houma-thibodaux, lafayette, and houston. Many business that will temporarily move their offices to baton rouge will stay. Many of the people with the means who still have jobs will stay. Many of the people who have no transport and generally live off of the state will stay, because its gonna be status quo for them. Many of the people who go back will be working class people who dont have enough money to start new lives and will take the oppurtunity that the rebuilded will present to find jobs. New Orleans will be a working camp for a long time, with temporary housing (that probably wont end up being temporary) and all of the blue-collar laborers that it takes to build. What needs to be done is a Netherlands style buildup on the banks of the Lake. Add another few hundred yards of land and a massive levee. The city should be divided up by a levee system that ensures that no single break can flood the whole city. With such a clean slate, roads can be built to go over these levees, no problem. As much as i hate to squeeze the wildlife, some of the marshland below new orleans (no alot, but some) needs to be converted to dry land to build a southern levee to match the northern one. the FED HAS TO HELP WITH OUR COASTAL MARSHLANDS. THis buffer could have greatly decreased the power of the storm if it was as it was 80 years ago. If barataria was still marsh instead of open water, it would have been another 40-60 miles of land to cover.
Got the name a bit wrong the first time, but I am still burned. Florida continually gets rebuilt, Homestead AFB was rebuilt after Andrew even though it was on the BRAC list. Let's not forget wildfires and earthquakes in Cali. And of course, Oklahoma is a magnet for hurricanes. And every place gets rebuilt. But suddenly, rebuilding isn't a good idea, even though New Orleans went a heck of a lot longer than any of those places without a major natural disaster. **** Hastert. House Speaker: Rebuilding N.O. doesn't make sense Thursday, 2:55 p.m. By Bill Walsh Washington bureau WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask." Hastert's comments came as Congress cut short its summer recess and raced back to Washington to take up an emergency aid package expected to be $10 billion or more. Details of the legislation are still emerging, but it is expected to target critical items such as buses to evacuate the city, reinforcing existing flood protection and providing food and shelter for a growing population of refugees. The Illinois Republican’s comments drew an immediate rebuke from Louisiana officials. “That’s like saying we should shut down Los Angeles because it’s built in an earthquake zone,” former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said. “Or like saying that after the Great Chicago fire of 1871, the U.S. government should have just abandoned the city.” Hastert said that he supports an emergency bailout, but raised questions about a long-term rebuilding effort. As the most powerful voice in the Republican-controlled House, Hastert is in a position to block any legislation that he opposes. For the rest of the story.... http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html#075875
I bet Hastert would change his mind if we kept the power off on the oil and gas pipelines. And don't reopen the the largest port in the country. He should also be willing to relocate all the thugs to Illinois ... they'd fit in nicely in Chicago!
