As many, many people have pointed out: everyone should have seen the New Orleans disaster coming. The danger was never a secret. Only blind luck has kept it from happening sooner. The May edition of Popular Science discussed ways to solve the New Orleans problem. Further back, Popular Mechanics discussed this scenario as far back in September 2001.
I think once the city is drained, a lot of hard discussions will need to take place. One thing’s for sure: the city of New Orleans as we know it is gone forever.
The links on how the Army Corps of Engineers’ Southeast Louisana project has suffered massive budget cuts to pay for the war in Iraq are also fun reading. Plus the reports that put a hurricane in New Orleans as the third most disruptive event in the country behind a terrorist attack in New York (1) and an earthquake in San Francisco (2).
Regardless of how we feel about this awful STRAGEDY…i think it is fairly safe to say that planners now have a more acute awareness of what the flaws and weaknesses of the holistic civic plan now is.
Perhaps this could have been prevented 100 or so years ago. But with no one really caring donw there (the Big Easy) and the legal drinking age being lowered to 12 years old…I think it is about a century overdue.
Rebuild Nawlins…but rebuild it on higher ground and with a plan this time.
Sincere wishes to the survivors…you are in for a long haul.
The superdome i think has earned its name this go round.
God bless those lovable folks in the big easy. really, who doesn’t love cajuns?
Do you think the authors of these articles should be sending out resumes fight about now???
Here’s another one, from National Geographic. It was eerily prophetic of the devastation.
“No one could have anticipated the breach of the levees.” – George W. Bush, Good Morning America interview September 1, 2005.