Do you think this is too optimistic?

[Kelarie]

Not to be rude, but the question should be - Should New Orleans build back at the current location?

Geologically NO. This will happen again if they build again in their current location. No matter what engineering controls they put in place. If I put aside the emotional side of this (which is hard) and look at it with my science part of my brain, this is a no win situation. Keep the refineries and ports in tact, but move the city back to where it is feasible to be safe, or in another 5, 10, 20 years, this could and will happen again. As we have seen time and time again, we can't engineered Mother Nature out.

Just my two cents.

[jasons2k]

My question is what do all the people do who had jobs there do? Say for instance you are an office worker in one of the downtown high rises and you evacuated to Houston. You have no family close by to stay with, you have no job, your home is probably gone and it will be 3 months before you can even come back. What if you are like the average American (these days) that doesn't have the recommended 3 months of savings to live on, what the heck do you do? I'm sure that similar circumstances apply to a lot of people from N.O. What a tragedy and how very much life changing! These types of people are hard working, proud people and are not used to depending on others, particularly the gov't for hand- outs to survive, but that is what they face. My heart goes out to them.

Unfortunately many will have to start over somewhere else. Right now all we can do is pray.

[beenthru6]

12 to 16 weeks is entirely too optomistic IMHO.
It took much longer than that to clean up the debris here in south/central Fl last year from much less damage....

...My thinking is that it will be years rather than months before the city can function with any real normalcy for people.

they didn't say 12-16 weeks before things are back to normal. They said 12-16 weeks before people will be allowed to return home. I think that's probably accurate or a bit long. Everything looks horrible right now. But once they plug the levies, I think things will start to look more positive as they drain the water. It looks worse now simply because things get worse by the day. Once they start making positive progress, things will move along quickly enough to surprise all of us.

Yes, I realize what they meant, and I still think it will take more time to make things safe. This is an entire city, not a small town.I sincerely hope I am wrong, but it is a huge task to undertake.

[solarflare]

I think people will be allowed in to return to their homes well within the 12-16 week window discussed here. But that's only to retrieve personal items and evaluate whether their homes are safe to move back into.
Having experienced water intrusion and the resulting molds that follow, I'm not sure how long it will take to actually move back in.

[beenthru6]

I think people will be allowed in to return to their homes well within the 12-16 week window discussed here. But that's only to retrieve personal items and evaluate whether their homes are safe to move back into.
Having experienced water intrusion and the resulting molds that follow, I'm not sure how long it will take to actually move back in.

Yeah, can you imagine the mold situation in 12-16 weeks? I can't imagine there will be hardly any homes left in NO that won't have to be completely razed down to the ground.

[scostorms]

All this talk about NO, what about the surburbs, and towns in the vicinity? Are they all facing the same situation?

[Persepone]

My question is what do all the people do who had jobs there do? Say for instance you are an office worker in one of the downtown high rises and you evacuated to Houston. You have no family close by to stay with, you have no job, your home is probably gone and it will be 3 months before you can even come back. What if you are like the average American (these days) that doesn't have the recommended 3 months of savings to live on, what the heck do you do? I'm sure that similar circumstances apply to a lot of people from N.O. What a tragedy and how very much life changing! These types of people are hard working, proud people and are not used to depending on others, particularly the gov't for hand- outs to survive, but that is what they face. My heart goes out to them.

I'm sure this is about 90% of the population of New Orleans! (The 80% who evacuated and the 10% there working in hospitals, as police, fire dept. and manning the pumps, etc. as they can). It is truly a human tragedy!

I'm sure that those of us posting on the boards are thinking of them even as we respond to posts about what can be done, the apparent slowness of local officials to recognize the magnitude of the problems, etc.

I think there is a very real question of what will happen to New Orleans and how it will be rebuilt (and/or perhaps even "where" it will be rebuilt.) In an ideal world, perhaps the answer is to repair what can be repaired and rebuild, after making sure that there are stronger levees, pumps on higher ground, hurricane "escape hatches" in roofs, etc. (Don't laugh--our last house actually had just such an "escape hatch" built in by the owner).

But the daunting task will be economic rebuilding for the people of New Orleans--even those who did have the recommended 3 months' worth of savings, etc. will see that depleted!!! So then they have no cushion for the next thing that befalls them in their lives... And if the business they worked for is damaged or destroyed, they don't have a job to go back to. If they have lost family members or friends, then that increases the load on them--perhaps financial, perhaps emotional--perhaps both.

Perhaps we need a couple of other forums--a Katrina forum with a temporary housing thread and job wanted/job offered threads and an "items needed" thread or something similar.

[milankovitch]

i'm not exactly sold out on this completely. where would they be umping the water? back out into lake ponchy? like you said, the high water level will make it impossible to pump for some time, because there are hundreds of millions of gallons of water in the city (maybe billions? i don't know). pumping it out will force the lake level to rise. a lot.

Rough calculation 470 km^2 Orleans County, 470 million cubic meters of water per meter in parish, 125 billion gallons of water per average depth in meters in parish.

[Mello1]

I learned today from someone with first-hand knowledge of the situation that one of the huge luxury hotels next to the Superdome (I think it is the Hyatt) has been determined to be structurally unsound and will eventually be demolished.

This is very telling to me as far as what might be left of NOLA after this is all over, if a top-flight building with steel superstructure is going to be demolished.

I don't doubt it. And I bet it has more to do with the Hyatt not wanting to spare the expense of rebuilding. By declaring it unsound, it's a write off both tax wise and insurance wise. More corps will be doing the same.

The question becomes will they be willing to rebuild?

[jasons2k]

I learned today from someone with first-hand knowledge of the situation that one of the huge luxury hotels next to the Superdome (I think it is the Hyatt) has been determined to be structurally unsound and will eventually be demolished.

This is very telling to me as far as what might be left of NOLA after this is all over, if a top-flight building with steel superstructure is going to be demolished.

I don't doubt it. And I bet it has more to do with the Hyatt not wanted to spare the expense of rebuilding. By declaring it unsound, it's a write off both tax wise and insurance wise. More corps will be doing the same.

The question becomes will they be willing to rebuild?

That's the all important question and I'm afraid the answer is tragic. When you are talking about rebuilding on this scale, it probably will never happen. People, particularly businesses, rebuild with their $$, not their hearts.

[otowntiger]

My question is what do all the people do who had jobs there do? Say for instance you are an office worker in one of the downtown high rises and you evacuated to Houston. You have no family close by to stay with, you have no job, your home is probably gone and it will be 3 months before you can even come back. What if you are like the average American (these days) that doesn't have the recommended 3 months of savings to live on, what the heck do you do? I'm sure that similar circumstances apply to a lot of people. What a tragedy and how very much life changing! These types of people are hard working, proud people and are not used to depending on others, particularly the gov't for hand outs to survive, but that is what they are looking at. My heart goes out to them.

You do what I am doing at this very moment - you pray. I am in that exact situation. I don't know when I will be able to go back to work to earn my living. It is not looking good at this point. So you pray.

Of course, that is what I'll do. I'll pray that you and yours will be back to normal way before any could predict. Did you go to Houston and if so are you staying in a hotel? I know this has got to be agonizing, so much you could worry about, but prayer is definitely important and should be done performed by all of us much more than we do, but especially now. My heart goes out to you and all of the good, honest hard working citizens of N.O like you who detest what you are seeing on t.v now.

[Mello1]

My question is what do all the people do who had jobs there do? Say for instance you are an office worker in one of the downtown high rises and you evacuated to Houston. You have no family close by to stay with, you have no job, your home is probably gone and it will be 3 months before you can even come back. What if you are like the average American (these days) that doesn't have the recommended 3 months of savings to live on, what the heck do you do? I'm sure that similar circumstances apply to a lot of people from N.O. What a tragedy and how very much life changing! These types of people are hard working, proud people and are not used to depending on others, particularly the gov't for hand- outs to survive, but that is what they face. My heart goes out to them.

Unfortunately, the million or so folk from that area will likely have to start to make some long term plans.

--Relocation
--Jobs
--Debt repayment alternatives
--Schools, etc.

I say 4-6 months to get the town dry, remove remains and assess all buildings in NO.

50-60% will be deemed not livable and will come down.

Then the feds will have to decide just how much disaster support they want to put into rebuilding NO.

Many will not return to the place I'm afraid. They will start over some place else. The ones who can afford to will rebuild.

[Mello1]

i realize that a large portion of the damaged structures will have to be demolished during the rebuilding phases, but what do they do with all the stuff???? where does all the storm debris and construction debris go?

Into landfills...all materials have to be disposed of properly. And because of the probability of contamination, the materials might have to be disposed of in a hazardous landfill. Now, here is the hard part. Trying to find enough places that are going to be willing to take that much stuff. All of that material when it is loaded will have to manifested. Someone will have to pay to dispose of it. There will have be testing done on it - that is if they want to show that it is not hazardous.

This is my type of work. There are alot of ways this could go.

Hmmm... here's an idea: Use it as fill to build up the elevation. Cover the materials with some sort of barrier plus good grade soil and compact. Makes the waste useful, while dealing with the contamination and you get a higher elevation to boot. Cuz they aren't going to really bury all of that stuff in a toxic waste dump.

[Mello1]

All this talk about NO, what about the surburbs, and towns in the vicinity? Are they all facing the same situation?

Possibly. But if they are north of the lake there, the water will eventually drain and they could rebuild where they are. Which is why I don't know where a relocated NO will go. There are suburbs all around it, I think.

[sunny]

Of course, that is what I'll do. I'll pray that you and yours will be back to normal way before any could predict. Did you go to Houston and if so are you staying in a hotel? I know this has got to be agonizing, so much you could worry about, but prayer is definitely important and should be done performed by all of us much more than we do, but especially now. My heart goes out to you and all of the good, honest hard working citizens of N.O like you who detest what you are seeing on t.v now.

Thank you for your kind words otowntiger.

I am in Atlanta at the moment. I think we are going to try to make our way to Baton Rouge tomorrow. I have heard there are hurricane refugees there lining up outside of apartments and houses trying to find a place to live. This is an absolute nightmare.

[inotherwords]

Sunny, here's a suggestion, try one of the vacation rental by owner websites like http://www.vrbo.com to see if there's anything around you for rent. In the summer which is off season a lot of FL and even GA properties are not rented and they are cheaper to boot. This is how my refugee family found me. It might be a resource not a lot of people know about yet.

Also check Craig's list, http://www.craigslist.com.

Like I said to someone else in another post, some landlords will work with you until the FEMA checks come in.

Good luck and hugs!

[CronkPSU]

it's just can they ever figure out how to get this water out.

this isnt an unknown...they know how to get the water out...but they have to get the canal wall breaches fixed first....then the pumping will begin.

the high lake levels will make things more difficult for the next few days due to runoff from the rain.

after that pumping should start lower water levels at the rate of a foot or 2 per day.

based on all and assuming no heavy rain events i would look for the water to be out in 2 weeks.

2 weeks??? are you nuts!!!???!

[CronkPSU]

Maj. Gen. Don Reily of the Corps of Engineers said flood levels are now receding at a rate of one inch per hour, but that it's likely to take at least 30 days before all the water is gone from New Orleans. "Lake level has equalized with interior water inside the city,. which means that it won't be any more flowing into the city except for a high tide," Reily said.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp ... tml#075446

[Novacane]

"Not to be rude, but the question should be - Should New Orleans build back at the current location? "

NOLA will be rebuilt. It's not practical to think otherwise. NOLA is the country's largest port and one of the largest (in some cases the biggest) producers of a variety of nationally critical petroleum and chemical based products. You can't simply move the rest of the city miles inland and expect that development wouldn't immediately start creeping back to the places where business takes place. And that doesn't even address the equally enormous costs such an undertaking would require (compared with rebuilding in place).

I'm not sure it's wise or prudent to try and rebuild the city to protect against a Cat5 or a strong Cat4. By all means, tighten up the building codes, raise the levees, build up the pumping system, build more practical disaster planning and recovery infrastructure.... But at some point one needs to be realistic about the inevitable cost/benefit questions that will arise. With so many important needs filled by the public coffers (and a general aversion in most places to increasing taxes to pay for more), where will the (perhaps) hundreds of billions needed to fortify the city from another really big one come from? And even if it could, what about Miami, Tampa, Charleston, Savannah, Norfolk and all the other major cities potentially at risk of being hit by a Cat 5? Eventually the cold, hard, calculus of reality will come into play. To be honest, I'm skeptical that all of the measures that that I mentioned above to make NOLA more hurricane safe will ever be taken. (I couldn't even begin to guess what it might cost to raise the levees another 5 feet or so, but I'm sure the number has a lot of zeros behind it).

As for the suburbs, the problem there is the system of canals and levees that were built to control Mississippi River flooding has prevented replenishment of the natural marshes and swamps that comprise the alluvial delta region. Part of the reason the flooding was so bad there is that so much of the original delta lands are being lost to the GOM due to earlier "engineering" that there was nothing to stop or slow the storm surge.

One potentially beneficial side effect of this tragedy is that funding may finally be earmarked to do the "de-engineering" along the Mississippi that will let natural forces rebuild the delta. The problem has been known about for years, but neither the feds nor the state has deemed it enough of a priority to make it happen. Now that the consequences of earlier engineering efforts have been shown, perhaps lawmakers will decide this funding has more merit than they had previously.

[gtalum]

If they can fix the breech, then in a month or so we can start to turn the corner on this horrific catastrophe. At least then the residents can move to the cleanup stage...