Because it's under Federal jurisdiction and the Corps of Engineers won't
let them? Because the Federal gummint takes sucha huge chunk out of
everybody;s income in taxes that they don't have enough left in local
budgets to pay hundreds of millions for levee construction?


wrote:
Louisiana got the biggest chunk of the Corps of Engineers money.

That's because they handle 100% of the commercial traffic on the
Mississippi River. Should we instead apportion the money needed for
infrastructure for the nations biggest trade route to say Idaho?? That'd
be fair, right?

... They
just chose to use it to improve their canals instead of the levee.


See above... plus, bear in mind that the Corps of Engineers is not
always responsive to local inputs. The people of New Orleans, much less
it's local gov't, could well have been screaming for the Corps to do
something about the levees for years.

The real crime will be if they actually build this city back below sea
level. Any building, more than 50% damaged, must be buiilt at 11' or
greater anywhere else in the US. If we make an exception there we are
just setting ourselves up for another disaster.


I agree, but we have limited options and limited funds. Gotta live in
the real world, at some point.


Put all the out of work people in East St Louis (and other depressed
riverfront towns) busy filling barges with dirt and unload them in New
Orleans.

That's a good plan. And not too far from what will end up being done.

... For a lot less than the want to spend on levees that will
still fail with the "X plus a foot storm", they could build New
Orleans on a hill.

I don't think you realize how much dirt that'd take. How about if we
just scoop the whole state of Illinois, down to a depth of 10', and move
it down the river to a place just south of Baton Rouge?

An idea I read recently was to get all the Navy's aircraft carriers and
some very very strong tow rope, hitch it up to England, set full steam
and break it loose... then tow it over to the Gulf of Mexico and jam it
into place where southern Louisiana, southeastern Texas, and the
coastlines of Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle used to be?

DSK