New Orleans flooding.

With New Orleans flooding right now, and not all the pumps working, they know they will not be able to keep up with the water that is rushing in to the city. Well I have been thinking about it, and have come up with a VERY controversial idea for how to handle the problem. Here it is; let New Orleans fully flood. I can hear every one now yelling “WHAT?!?! You are an insensitive jerk!!!!” Well let me defend myself before you pass judgment. First and foremost I wish to extend my condolences to any one that lost any loved ones, or property down there. Next for now keep as many pumps as they can going to slow down the flooding so that they can continue the rescue efforts to help minimize the loss of life, which is way to high now as it is. But after the people are rescues (things can be replaced, people can not be) Rebuild New Orleans further in land and let the old New Orleans stay under water. This has some benefits in my opinion. First they will no longer be under sea level. Second it will be cheaper to rebuild further in land since there will not have to be the chemical clean up costs. If we drain New Orleans all those chemicals that spilled will settle into the soil, causing health problems, if we let them get washed out to sea, it might dilute them enough that they might not have as bad of an environmental impact. This will give New Orleans a new tourist attraction, “cave” diving in the old New Orleans, and in 50 to 60 years the old New Orleans would become a coral reef. Also the new reef might help buffer stronger waves, and help prevent future flooding of New Orleans.
Again my heart and prays go out to any one that lost loved ones, or property there, and I hope they can rescue the last of the survivors that are stranded right now.

Max Rossin says:

August 31, 2005 at 7:44 pm

Well, I’m a bit more insensitive and Darwinian about people living in a flood zone near the Tornado Alley for decades… but in reality – your plan, although sounding good, will not work. The problem is that most of Louisianna is below sea level, so you’d have to flood the entire state. The idea IS good though and they should implement the same thing people have done in Boston. Most of the downtown area is built on what used to be small bays and lakes. They filled it up with dirt, sand, gravel, other stuff, to remove the water and stabilize the region. They should do the same to the New Orleans region. We need big projects like that, imagine how many jobs would be created? As much as I’d hate to admit it, even Bush approval ratings may go up. We’ve done the same thing during the depression in the south east by building many dams and other waterways projects. It’s a shame what happened though, I’m just glad I was able to visit New Orleans and walk around French Quarters, it’s really quite beautiful and historic. One of our clients major partners is having their annual meeting there in January and so far, they’re not moving the meeting. My sources tell me New Orleans will be back to normal before then. They’re used to flooding from the Mississippi and they’ll be able to fix it up – it’ll just take longer than normal.

Michael P. O'Connor

New Orleans flooding.