"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 07 Sep 2005 15:03:28 GMT, Don White
wrote:

Since I'm removed from the 'blame game', I thought I'd move on to the
next step. What to do when the water receeds. If I was an American
taxpayer, I'd be concerned about just returning things as they were.
Ideally, housing would not be re-built below sea level for obvious
reasons...but what can be done?
-simply reinforcing and adding height to current levees...?
-maybe a backup system of aquaducts..that would be mostly dry but could
handle any overflow if original levee breaks again?
-house 'workers' distance away from workplace (high ground) but provide
highspeed rail public transportation?
-simply re-build houses, but on concrete stilts 10 feet above ground?

That's an interesting question - I'm not sure it will ever return to
being an "urban" center like it was and in my opinion, should never
return to being an "urban" center.

On the other hand, how do you service the tourist industry with an
available labor source and how do you take a major port and turn it
into a ghost town.

When I lived in New Orleans back in the '70s, it was entirely
different than it was three weeks ago. There was one "skyscraper" in
town and that was One Shell Square. The oil industry was HQ'd out of
Houston and Dallas. Most of the industry centered around the shipping
industry and was located along the waterfront. The JAX brewery had
been abandoned and the only thing left was the French Quarter and Cafe
Dumond as attractants for tourism. Even Mardi Gras was almost
entirely a local event.

That's what I think New Orleans should return to.

The real question is if anybody has the guts to do that.\

They need building codes that will not allow habital space below the flood
plan. The other half of the problem is that a major part of the city is
constantly sinking.