[Editors Note: This was sent to me by Paul yesterday. Since he hasn’t been online today (missing a chance to appear on CNN’s Situation Room), I’m going to run it for him. – K]
If you read my “Pray” post and you read my predictions about what was going to happen in the Superdome, it should be pretty clear I understand the dynamics of the situation…
Now consider this…~10 feet of water in a city for ~10 weeks.
Most homes will simply dissolve. Basically anything under 3 stories is gone…
But the big concrete buildings including the office buildings are safe right? We just replace the interior of the bottom floors right? Not so fast….
In New Orleans (and many other places) our buildings “float” via a system of modo [sic] sized pilings. The mud is too soft to actually support them but the friction holds them in place. — Now take that same mud and let it sit underwater for 10 weeks.
The foundation of our 30 to 40+ story skyscrapers will erode. When that happens they will start to lean…. 40 story buildings don’t “lean” too well.
My discipline is electrical engineering not civil- but it seems to me that there is a large chance many of the major office buildings will tumble like dominos.
Further, the roads will all buckle. They do that after a regular spring flood — this is 10 weeks.
Lastly, all but 2 of the telephone switches are underwater (assuming 10 feet of water). The 2 standing switches probably blew down anyway, but they are most assuredly without power even if they’re still standing. The copper in the ground will corrode, so we basically have no communication infrastructure. Ditto the electric (generically speaking, I have very little knowledge of the electric infrastructure so common sense applies). The cities water system is in danger of being beyond the point of repair, etc…
Not to be a fatalist, but I don’t think we even understand the half of it yet…
hey… Instead of this complaining about building it again below sea level, we could do what has been done to California beaches for years. Truck in Earth and Sand and basically fill it in, and start a new (maybe even add in a few sea walls to help block some of the swells)
New^2 Orleans might be the first big city to have a modern infrastructure from scratch.
No landlines. Lots of cell towers (microcells, actually). Decentralized electric grid.
Hmmm.
Frankly I question rebuilding a city below sea level.
Paul: I am an Electrical and Civil Engineer and basically agree with your pessimistic assessment. Any rotating equipment (electric, diesel or gasoline motors, pumps, generators, etc.) will need to be replaced, unless they were sealed and submersible (doubtful), because of bearing damage and silt deposition. All electronic control equipment will need to be replaced. Power transformers and substations will need to be replaced. The telephone land-lines are a total loss because every switching station and junction box will need to be totally redone. Due to silt, all interior wiring will have to be redone to prevent shorts in breaker and connection boxes.
The water system is probably the least damaged. Water lines are constructed to minimize infiltration, therefore it may be that all that is necessary is to repair the treatment plant(s) and flush and disinfect the mains. The sanitary sewer pipes and manholes will be totally silted up, but perhaps can be flushed clean a section at a time (though this might be doubtful).
Because I suspect NO has high ground water, I doubt the foundations are friction piles, but instead that the buildings actually “float” by having a sealed substructure which displaces enough saturated soil to support the structure (a modified Archimedes principle).
If it were up to me, I would declare it a total loss, raze the entire city and bring in about 30-40 feet of fill before rebuilding.
I can’t quite comprehend who thought it was a bright idea to build a city in that location in such a way to begin with. Unless gigantic changes are done, I don’t think New Orleans should be rebuilt at all, seeing as how this could just happen all over again. I think it’s time we humans started respecting mother nature and figure out that it is not safe to build and live wherever the hell we feel like it. This tragedy shows how true this is. We challenged mother nature to a duel, and we lost, horrendously.
With that said, if people still want to live there and risk this happening all over again, fine, but don’t tell the rest of us you weren’t warned! The same thing goes for much of Florida and other places. How many times does mother nature have to slaughter us until we understand that there are just places we just shouldn’t be inhabiting?
I guess I am just immensely frustrated with so many people suffering tremendous losses because we stubbornly challenged Gaia to teach us a lesson.
We just can’t have people keep dying and suffering from these types of disasters. Why don’t we ever learn??!?!
Seixon (et al), you forget your history.
New Orleans was an economic powerhouse well over 200 years ago, long before there were such things as levees and flood control structures. Through its history, the city didn’t mind much who ran it (French, Spanish, French, Americans) because it did, and does, have a mind[set] of its own.
As to filling in the city with backfill, that’s a huge area to backfill. Not saying it can’t be done, but it will be horrendously expensive. New home construction in many places in the metro area, since the mid-1970’s, had to be built on lots that had been raised to at least 1.5′ above sea level.
Finally, keep in mind that the last “true” disaster of this nature happened on 9 September 1965 (Hurricanes Andrew, Georges, Ivan, Floyd, Camille, etc notwithstanding).
You think that we live on this planet at “mother nature”‘s behest. Wrong. As an old saying goes, we earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and we make do where we can. Oh, and where are you going to relocate over 1 million people, if you decide that New Orleans “shouldn’t be rebuilt”?
New Orleans will be rebuilt. Wether on purpose as part of a grand scheme or gradually by the sheer will of the residents is yet to be seen.
Filling it up with sand would take so much sand and time as to make it ludicrous.
The solution is to modernize the arcitecture, infrastructure, and the levy systems.
Implementing a nation wide CIVILIAN rescue system should be the logical outcome of this scenario. Perhaps a sea based flotilla of rescue craft that could be maneuvered along the atlantic and southern coasts to provide IMMEDIATE water treatment, search and rescue, and food.
Our systems are all land based, and are inadequate for this type of relief. Of course, this type of relief is only needed in in very limited cases, but it would still be nice to have.
We have to stop counting on military forces to handle civilian emergencies.
I can see rebuilding some of the shipping related facilities and home etc that support that industry.
However a large block of New Orleans is tourism. There’s nothing essential about tourism having to be there in that exact spot. They need to rebuild elsewhere. Otherwise we’re rebuilding for people to go through this disaster again for no reason.
If they are determined to rebuild, how about asking the Netherlands how they do it? Of course, they don’t have hurricanes
It might be nice to have a “Venice of the South”.
raising the level of the city is not without precedent. the entire city of Galveston was raised after the 1900 hurricane, beginning at 17 feet by the sea wall and sloping down to the back of the island.
Granted, this would be much more expensive and difficult in New Orleans, but if you’re going to rebuild and everything is going to be razed, might as well do some raising of the city as well.
I am hearing that the government diverted almost half of the funding for levee maintenance to Iraq. So Bush becomes the first American president to take out a major American city.
Hmmmm.
” Implementing a nation wide CIVILIAN rescue system should be the logical outcome of this scenario.”
Actually I think a national water grid would be a better idea. As a nation we have nation grids for many essential products such as electricity, transportation and communication but, for some strange reason, not water. Instead water management is left to local or regional companies.
If we setup a system that hooked up these local and regional systems with enormous trunk pipelines that connected the entire country then flooding like this might be averted in the first place. And, if it can’t be avoided, then there would be an infrastructure for pumping out the water.
Such a system would, perhaps, pump excess rainwater or floodwater to catch-basins and resevoirs in more rural and drought ridden areas. The water that has destroyed NO would be a blessing to the farmers and ranchers in the midwest and the north-midwest.
Either the water could then be treated for commerical or residential consumption or it could simply be left to evaporate and contribute moisture to form clouds/rain.
But right now we don’t have any sort of system to deal with national water management, and yet water is the single most cited resource for determining whether or not a specific population is sustainable. The city of Las Vegas for instance needs to add an enormous amount of water to it’s system in order to support growth, yet there isn’t any water to be had without taking it from someone else.
The water from NO, pumped to various places around the country, would provide a much needed benefit to those who need it, and for those who don’t need it in NO.
Such a system would also enable the buying and selling of water on a national market. Local & regional governments, along with businesses, could manage their water risk on such a commodities market and ensure that they won’t run out of water at a critical time. It would also provide an additional source of income for those areas that do not want to commericalize their properties.
By preserving the water habitat these entities would be preserving the value of their properties when the current model largely punishes them with few income models.
I’m not sure the taxpayers should be ponying up a trillion dollars to rebuilt the Gulf Coast. We won’t be able to afford it given the recession that $6 a gallon fuel will usher in. (The world temporarily loses 2% of its refining capacity, but gasoline prices go up 300%, most likely permanently. And they don’t dare call it gouging.)
I can begin to see why some of the opinions about New Orleans frustrate Paul so.
When New Orleans was founded, the site was above sea level — think, people: nobody had the technology to build a city on ground that was below sea level, c.1800.
As for this drivel:
I’m not sure the taxpayers should be ponying up a trillion dollars to rebuilt the Gulf Coast. We won’t be able to afford it given the recession that $6 a gallon fuel will usher in. (The world temporarily loses 2% of its refining capacity, but gasoline prices go up 300%, most likely permanently. And they don’t dare call it gouging.)
I’ve seen exactly one picture of exactly one gas station that had a price even close to $6 a gallon, and I’m betting that’s a station that still had gas to sell after the ones advertising $3 a gallon were run out by the panic mob.
When I saw how people had descended on gas stations yesterday I could only shake my head in disgust at how stupid people can be. Relying on rumors and anecdotal stuff like that one picture, people created a shortage that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Meanwhile the gasoline pipelines that were offline, that everyone was panicked about, have already come back online.
As for “they don’t dare call it gouging,” Georgia’s Gov. Sonny Perdue did exactly that, and promises to prosecute the gougers.
…even though the “gougers” had the effect of staving off the panic mobs long enough for their own stations not to run out of gas like the others.
People who don’t understand basic economics are too stupid to live, IMO. If you behave like sheep you’re bound to get shorn.
What bothers me is that just putting New Orleans back the way it was only sets us up for another disaster. When a hurricane wiped out Galveston in 1900, fill was hauled in to raise the entire city. In 2005 New Orleans is much bigger than Galveston in 1900, but so are our earth moving tools. If we can’t raise the entire city, then at least the levee system needs to be brought up to category 5 hurricane specs. However, probably the cheapest and best option would be to just move New Orleans to higher ground. The President did say no options were off the table.
I survived Hurrican Andrew, and the one thing I have not seen a lot of commentary on yet is that most of the service industry jobs just disappear after an event of this magnitude. There is not a reason for many people who evacuated to go back unless they were a property owner. If they were a renter; their job, their apartment, and their belongings are gone. They might as well settle wherever they got to when they evacuated. There were many homes and businesses that were never rebuilt after Andrew; and Homestead was not under 20 feet of water for three months.
mike orzechowski. i think you’re at the wrong site. you want the kozkidz.
No one is going to raze New Orleans.
Wanderlust is right — we have to remember that the city was built a couple of centuries ago.
There’s a reason that the French Quarter is the only part left dry — the people who founded it in the early 18th century knew that that area was the safest piece of land.
With the advent of more modern levee and canal technology, more areas of the city became habitable. After the early 1900s, they added electric pumping stations.
These pumping stations are the heart of the problem. They are plainly inadequate and obsolete. They fail when they are submerged, for starters. NOLA needs only an improved levee and pumping system to be virtually 100% safe.
It’s all about the pumps and levees. Higher, concrete levees. Together with triple-redundant, modern pumps (which would be relatively cheap), the city could be virtually impervious to flooding.
I hope my irreverence will not offend anyone, but all this razing/raising/rebuilding talk really makes me want to play SimCity instead of getting any work done today.
Speaking of levees — how hard would it be to build them with a movable gate every couple of thousand feet?
Something that can be raised and lowered, like they have on dams, so that if they need to let water out, they just OPEN THE GATES!
And did I mention — levees made of concrete. Again, like dams.
Mike Orzechowski,
You, sir, are a complete & utter idiot, who should be disemboweled and staked out over a fire ant nest, along with the looters in my once fair city. Anyone who would politicize a disaster like this has given up their claim to membership in the human race. If you had a shred of honor, I’d demand you pick a second and make your choice of weapons. Of course, if you had a shred of honor, you wouldn’t have made such an assinine comment. The ocean of filth and sewage that my home now sits in pales besides the one that you wallow in, in the depths of what I’ll charitably call your soul.
Suggestion like the following are being gathered and discussed at Discussions on alternatives to rebuilding New Orleans.
And considering politicians inclination to emotionally, reflexively and pre-emptively promise the rebuilding of New Orelans, it is not to early to start the disucssion of alternatives. By all means, provide immediate humanitarian assitance first and let’s discuss rational alternatives to rebuilding next.
Constructive Alternative:
The population of New Orleans is about half a million people. Let’s assume that at least another half million were also affected in Mississippi and Alabama; the major areas hit by Katrina. That gives us a starting total of 1,000,000.
Each individual could be relocated (food and temporary housing) for at least 1 year at a cost of $10,000 per person at a total cost of $10 billion.
Where would we place them? The U.S. is a very large country with with at least 100 major cities. Each city could host 10,000 individuals; or less that half the average capacity of a large sports stadium.
Even if we take this back of the envelope calculation and double it to a cost of $20 billion, you’re looking at less than the $25 billion private insurance estimates of liability in the area.
a terrible post. as if people don’t have enough to worry about, we see “eroding” foundations splashed across the internet. the author should consult a professional geotechnical engineer before repeating info like this.
piles derive axial load bearing resistance from either friction in sands, or adhesion in silts and clays. for clayey materials, the friction is calc’ed as alpha*cohesion acting along the surface area of the pile. alpha is a function of cohesion, cohesion is a soil property that can change with moisture content. moisture content has not changed for soil that is perpetually below the groundwater table. those piles are able to hold the same load as they always have. that the “mud” is underwater now is no different than last month. it was underwater then too. you don’t need a garden hose to make a swimming pool in n.o. just dig a hole.
friction piles in sand are calc’ed differently, and are in part a function of effective stress. flooding (raising the gwt from ground surface to above ground surface) does not cause a change in effective vertical stress in previously saturated soils.* there would be no change in the allowable bearing capacity in this instance.
*if the piles were designed assuming that the groundwater table never got above 20 feet below ground surface, and no way would an engineer assume such a thing in n.o., then you would see a reduction in load carrying capacity. in addition, the raising of the gwt through upward seepage would reduce the effective stress, but this did not happen in n.o. – the water was added at the ground surface permeating downward which increases effective stress.
drawing down water below groundsurface will cause some damage, particularly for roadway embankments and retaining walls, but this potential is lessened with a slow drawdown. subsidence of structures supported by shallow foundations could occur during the drawdown period.
equally unimpressed with the pavement buckling comment. flooding by itself can cause pavement failure in high plasticity, moisture-sensitive soils, not silts. poor performance will likely be because traffic exceeds design expections during the critical subgrade condition. other things are going on during a spring flood that lead to poor roadway performance – such as this is normally the time that ice lenses melt creating voids in the subgrade.
the author should have been a civil engineer, for him to expound on a subject matter outside his expertise is unethical.
Hmmmm.
“NOLA needs only an improved levee and pumping system to be virtually 100% safe.”
Actually there is already a project under construction to make NO completely safe from such similar damage, or so I’ve read. The only problem has been construction time, construction delays, NIMBY and continued funding by Congress.
I.e. the usual.
Wanderlust,
I forget my history? At some point in history, someone decided that building a city there was a good idea. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good idea as we have now horrendously learned. So what if New Orleans was an economic powerhouse 200 years ago? What does that have to do with building a city in a completely unsafe place?
Where we can relocate 1 million people? Are you kidding? The US population has grown many millions over the past few years, do you think there isn’t room for 1 million people somewhere else? There’s probably room for 1 million people in Louisiana. Just move the people away from New Orleans, and build up the more rural areas. Not all that hard. It’s bound to happen at some point anyways since the population of the USA keeps growing.
If they are going to rebuild New Orleans, they better damn well figure out something genius to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
I think the amount of flood damage in the city is overstated. Here is a rare factual posting on Kos which appears to get it right. And here is a satellite image showing the flooding in the central part of the city.
Some facts:
1) The French Quarter and most other main tourist areas are mainly untouched by flood damage. This includes most of the high-rises in the down-town section.
2) On the western bank, most of the severe damage is in the residential neighborhoods in the “deep trough” just south of Lake Pontchartrain. This and the heavily flooded neighborhoods on the eastern bank is likely where the greatest damage and fatalities will occur.
relatively
3) Despite sensationalized reporting to the contrary, the French Quarter is dry and relatively intact.
I obviously deeply sympathize with anybody who had loss from this devastating storm. I’m simply saying let’s not allow the commentary to get too out of touch with reality.
That’s good news, Carrick, thanks for the links.
But the satellite photo was from Tuesday, and the MSNBC article from Monday.
The flood waters rose after that. We still don’t know the extent of it as of today.
Actually, New Orleans was NOT below sea level years ago. Continouus silting of the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding areas created a situation where new orleans stayed at its current height, in the meantime, the level of the sea rose around it. 200 years ago, I sincerely doubt that the French had the capabilities to create a system of levees and dykes protecting a city below sea level.
Before you start waxing poetic about such a dangerous spot, historically, humans have ALWAYS built along waterways as the best way to exchange goods/ideas. Why do you think the biggest cities in the United States are at major waterways?
New York – Atlantic Ocean/East River/Hudson River
L.A. – Pacific Ocean
San Fransisco – Pacific Ocean/Sacramento River
Chicago – Great Lakes/Canal System
New Orleans – Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico.
The fact that it was at the meeting point of the Mississippi River was the reason that site was chosen!
Shall we heed the advice and completely MOVE New York, too?
Am I the only one who thinks 10 weeks is an awfully long time for his prediction? Doesn’t that underestimate the people working on this problem? If there’s one thing I’ve learned about America, it’s that in times of great trouble and need, we have a tendency to pull off amazing – miraculous, even – recoveries.
Thanks for the reminder re: silting, and siting.
The French Quarter area is built on a high area, as would have been original settlements. At the same time, don’t forget that the Mississippi likes to flood each year, and prior to the advent of the “modern” earthen levee, there were many, many floods.
Personally I disagree with the idea of a “national water grid” because the point sources are numerous, infrastructure cost is high, no infrastructure is “connected” across regions (other than in places like CA where water sharing and redistribution have historically been necessary), and I believe costs to run it would be extremely high.
As to Sexion’s comments recently, his admonishment of, in essence, “it’s easy to relocate 1 million people in a country of 240 million” forgets that a) the USA isn’t a Communist-style, centrally planned government; b) that people will want to have a choice of where they go; and that c) most of the US is already “built out” in terms of available land near cities. Unless, of course, Sexion has the authority to arbitrarily move people around and take farmland to “give” to displaced New Orleanians.
Right.
Now, a checklist:
Improve lowest-lying areas? Yes.
Improve levees and modernize pumping stations? Yes
Improve local zoning so that new structures have to be built up higher than the current 1.5′ above sea level standard? Yes.
Remember that when a hurricane pushes water into the place you want to pump water into, to get it out of your backyard, that water has nowhere to go (but back into your backyard) if the water levels in Lake Ponchartrain are too high? Yes.
Remember that the location of New Orleans is due to its proximity to the Mississippi River, Lake Ponchartrain, and the Gulf? Yes.
Get your history right (one poster above) and understand that the Netherlands patterned their pumping systems after New Orleans (and NOT the other way around)? Yes.
Stop blaming global warming, George Bush, Karl Rove, the Jews, your mother (who made you eat brussels sprouts as a child and scarred you emotionally for life), or anyone else for this disaster? Yes.
/sigh
Phinn: But the satellite photo was from Tuesday, …
Here’s one from yesterday, the high resolution version is here. From these images (esp the high res one blown up) it is clear that the French Quarter has totally escaped any flooding. As you go towards Tulane University and Metarrie, you start seeing water, but that hardly surprising given that heading west out of the FQ, you are generally going down hill…
… the MSNBC article from Monday.
The MSNBC link was meant to only address the wind damage question, not flood damage. This is only a question because of the sensationalized reporting earlier in the week. Hence in the absence of significant flood damage, the French Quarter (and most of the tourist areas) are pretty much untouched.
The flood waters rose after that.
Actually, according to the ACE website, water is returning to Lake Pontchatran on the west side. You can see this in recent photos of the breach.
In terms of the French Quarter, as recently as this afternoon I heard somebody on NPR being interviewed from there, and it was still dry.
I also understand that the 17th Street Levee repairs are nearing completion as of tonight (9/1/05). Hopefully the flooding will soon be totally contained.
The sat image I’ve linked to makes it clear that this region contians none of the water-to-rooftop innudatations the media so gleefully thrusts on the screen. Furthermore going north out of the FQ, as far north as this image goes, you still see little evidence of water even pooling in the streets, let alone encroaching on the houses (which generally are up at least a few feet from the road surface).
New Orleans has a permanent criminal class that never even bothered to hide itself. The police were the most openly corrupt of any police department you’ve ever seen.
every day you’d see people casually committing crimes ALL day. Stealing tires off cars, jimmying open newspaper stands, muggings, murder, rape etc. You learned to keep your head down and keep moving, if you stopped, even for 10 seconds to tie your shoe or check your watch, someone WILL try and kill you for fun. The police didn’t care, and they’d as soon kill you as look at you so dont dare ask them for help.
here is a true story: A guy held up a store. The police shot and killed a plumber working under a house two blocks away.
someone got lost driving home in new orelans. As they pulled onto a side street to check their road map, two guys stepped out in front of their truck and aimed guns at them. Two others crouched carring knives, waiting to rush the guys truck when he stopped. He downshifted to second gear, floorboarded it straight at the two guys trying to block him. They didn’t move until they knew he couldn’t stop, even if hewanted to. Then they jumped out of the way and threw their knifes and fired their guns at hiscar as he sped away. The guy lived to write his story which I am coping this from. he also escaped from New orelans in 1979 having lived there for 2 horrible years….only made horrible because of the people there who delight in rape, muggings, carjacking, murderous home invasions and mindless killing, and this is in the ‘good’ side of town. I hate to see whats in the bad side? hehe..probably the same, only more of it and they probably eat the flesh of their victims…sick fucks!
The grocery store at Carrolton and Claiborne had bullet proof glass at the pharmacy, and a steel door. One of the grocery stores in the Ninth Ward had so many muggings, rapes, robberies involving unessesary murders in the parking lot and in the store itself that they make the box boys carry sidearms to escort people to their cars.
Most of the muggings took place on “Mother’s Day”, which came once a month, when the welfare checks came out. People would cash their checks in the store and buy groceries; when they’d get out to their cars, the muggers would carjack them, rape them if they are female, taking their groceries, money, and frequently delighting further in killing them and hack at their allready dead bodies with knifes just for seriously sananic pleasure.
Many of the looters and killers are having more fun than they’ve ever had in their lives. This is Disney World for them. and they will kill everyone so they can own the ruined city for themselves and kill eachother over who wants to own the flooded section, and who wants to own the disease and stench filled corpse ridden section and so on.
I think New Orleans should NEVER be rebuilt. it was a hell hole then and now its the darkest depths of hell now. if you wanted to rebuild it you have to take these things into consideration
First, it would HAVE to be a Federal project, under Federal control. You cannot give the local politicians more money than they can steal. They would take every dime and funnel it into their own pockets, without providing any actual work.
Second, many of the people in New Orleans had no function, other than to kill, mug, kill, do drugs, kill, rape and collect welfare before killing some more.
The people dont want to be rescued. they want to kill and kill and kill and kill and kill before raping and killing and killing and raping.
Sorry but New orelans is worse than a 3rd world country. I say “Sterilize” it…..NUKE it off the planet and it will get rid of those evil demons who feast on the unfortunate innocents…sorry, but they’re doomed to be slaughtered by the crims who will eat their flesh since all the food is gone.