New Orleans: Possible Solution

[gpickett00]

I think this would be a realistic solution to prevent this city from another future catastrophe. Shipping ports would have to be moved west to the new river but it would save the city.

[ohiostorm]

Well what are you going to do when you have another surge like this come in? Still going to push the Gulf water towards the city and the lake. This would only work if there was a flood on the Miss.

[TSmith274]

Well, unfortunately, it isn't the river that we have problems with in New Orleans. It is Lake Ponchartrain. One possible solution to keep water out of the lake during major hurricanes, suggested by local authorities, would be to install a floodwall along where the I-10 twinspans traverse the eastern edge of Lake Ponchartrain, near the Rigolets.

This would block water from entering Lake Ponchartrain, and thus preventing the horrible scenario we are seeing now.

[wxmann_91]

A good solution would be to restore the wetlands. Sometimes we humans indirectly create our own disasters.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

Two possible solutions:

1. Rebuild New Orleans on North Shore Lake Ponchartrain, build a 30 foot seawall on Lake Ponchartrain, dedicate entire lakeshore to Katrina Memorial, and redirect Mississippi into the Lake.

2. Build a concrete seawall along Ponchartrain and Mississippi, and create a series of levees between Ponchartrain and Mississippi so that if a levee breaks, it only floods a section of the city.

[Lori]

Consult the Japanese engineers who built the airport and terminal on the ocean. Japanese engineers who know how to build typhoon resistant structures. NOLA needs an engineering "marvel" to be rebuilt and survive.

[JQ Public]

You've gotta save the marshes. Not allowing the normal flood silt that helped to build up this natural barrier has led to it becoming a part of the ocean once again. let the natural silt deposits build up the marshes again. It'll take a long time to see the benefits but our children will be safer.

[StrongWind]

1. The river is higher than Lake P. so you can't drain the lake that way.

2. Messing with the river even more will destroy the wetlands and delta. Eventually the ocean would swalllow NO.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

You can't drain the lake anyways...its more or less a bay, but considering where the Mississippi would flow if we took out all of the control structures south of Baton Rouge (aka flowing into Lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain) it might just work

[Indystorm]

I like the idea of rebuilding and development on the north shore of the lake. It is above sea level....your main worry would be surge from the south and east during future canes......you would still have access to port facilities along the river.....and yes, restore the marshes southward because all that newly developed shoreline as a result of Katrina's rearrangement makes the city more vulnerable if they decide to rebuild in the same place.

[NC George]

There is no need to dig a canal. Open the floodgates at the Atchafalaya River, and let nature do what it's been trying to do for the past century: Divert the main flow of the Mississippi so it flows to the GOM down the Atchafalaya River. If it weren't for the dam complex, this would have already happened.

The main problem with LA sinking into the ocean is we have forced the Mississippi River to go down one path for a century. This starves the rest of the delta for silt it needs to stay above sea level. The natural way is for the river to meander and change it's course to the GOM as land builds up underneath it, always taking the shortest route to water, and thus always replenishing silt where it is needed most. A natural negative feedback loop.

[coriolis]

Look at this map. You can see where the Mississippi river channel was in the past. It's south and west of the existing channel. There's an old delta and everything.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.862083,-90.738831&spn=1.151757,1.852570&t=h&hl=en

[Rob Beaux]

do you realize why the refineries are on the river, not to mention a nuke power plant...cooling water. Your solution just ended at least 3 refineries, an aluminum plant 5 grain elevators and displaced more people who happen to live in path of your river. Besides, no ocean going vessel could come up teh river without a major dredging effort..that area is shallow

River water diversion is a process which is used to build marsh..check on the LA DNR site... Canaravon, Davis pond or otehr diversion sites that you could look up if you dont believe that it helps.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

yeah channeling down atchafalaya might be a little extreme, but in the end, morgan city and towns like that down there are going to be underwater anyways...even if the mississippi went down that channel. The best way is through Lake Ponchartrain and just to avoid building south of it.