Breaking News=Hundreds dead, maybe thousands in New Orleans

[Liberty30]

Sadly, I am not suprised either. Once disease, the violence caused by the storm, residual long term health effects, etc come into play, it certainly seems possible that the studies prior to the storm projecting a death toll into the tens of thousands will turn out to be accurate. CNN seemed to hint at that, saying they had several reports from law enforcement officials of much higher numbers than they were reporting.

[PuertoRicoLibre]

It seems to me that the obvious thing to do now is to rethink the concept of New Orleans all together. If rebuilding is to be allowed in areas destroyed (and whether that should happen is a good point for discussion), the city needs to become a city of medium rise (6-10 story) concrete buildings as opposed to one or two story wooden houses. Frankly, they should consider turning the lowest areas of the city into park land. The expense of protecting these areas against future threats may be too much.

[LSU2001]

It seems to me that the obvious thing to do now is to rethink the concept of New Orleans all together. If rebuilding is to be allowed in areas destroyed (and whether that should happen is a good point for discussion), the city needs to become a city of medium rise (6-10 story) concrete buildings as opposed to one or two story wooden houses. Frankly, they should consider turning the lowest areas of the city into park land. The expense of protecting these areas against future threats may be too much.

What don't you understand. The entire city is a bowl with almost all of NOLA proper below sea level. It is not like they have any high ground to work with. If you don't build on low lying areas you do not build. It is much too early to talk about where to build and where not to build. Right now people are DYING in NOLA. From what I am seeing the National media is not really getting out the full scope of this disaster. Local channels are doing a much better job IMHO. Remember that right now human suffering and human life is much more important than any discussion about rebuilding.
TIm