# This Slate author's thesis is that New Orleans is doomed. Do you agree? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 5, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085 "2006-03-05T00:18:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Antonius\_Block](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Antonius\_Block](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antonius_Block)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/21 "2006-03-07T04:22:42Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Well, it’s going to be even less near the mouth of the Mississippi River when the river changes course to the Atchafalaya. This is only a matter of time, one extremely heavy spring melt and New Orleans isn’t on the Mississippi River anymore. Flood problem solved. [/QUOTE] I don’t think the expected course change of the Mississippi would help New Orleans flood problem, much if at all. The water that flooded NOLA during Katrina came from Lake Ponchartrain on the north edge of the city, not from the river. [QUOTE=John Mace] I might consider living there if we contracted out the flood control engineering to the Dutch. They have come up with some creative ways to keep out the sea while working with Mother Nature as much as possible. But even then, I’d have to really think about it first. [/QUOTE] The Dutch are indeed good at land reclamation, but land area is much more important for them since the country is so small. The [USA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) has over 200 times the land area as [the Netherlands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands), and one-fifteenth of the population density. The Dutch engineers may be superb, but the ROI (return on investment) is going to be much less in Louisiana than in the NL. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/22 "2006-03-07T04:57:15Z")
[QUOTE=Duckster] New Orleans is no where near the mouth of the Mississippi River. [/QUOTE] \ Yes, I know that you have to go quite a ways downriver from New Orleans before you hit the open ocean. “Mouth of” was short for “The spot on the river nearest to the open ocean that a large city/port can practically be located”. And by that definition, as others have pointed out Baton Rouge may become the “mouth” of the Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/23 "2006-03-07T07:05:27Z")
[QUOTE=Antonius Block] The Dutch are indeed good at land reclamation, but land area is much more important for them since the country is so small. The [USA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) has over 200 times the land area as [the Netherlands](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands), and one-fifteenth of the population density. The Dutch engineers may be superb, but the ROI (return on investment) is going to be much less in Louisiana than in the NL. [/QUOTE] Yep. The joke is that the Indians called the area that is now New Orleans \, which means “do not build your village here, it floods all the time”. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/24 "2006-03-07T14:42:36Z")
As we speak, the Louisiana congressional delegation is slavering at the prospedt of 80 billion+ Fedral 's to be appropriated for NO “reconstruction”. All of this while engineers are reporting that the levees are in worse shape than initially thought. Hurricane season is just 3-4 months away. What do we do if another storm causes a massive levee breech? Atr Nagin and company going to scream racism by hurricanes? Part of leadership is knowing when a cause is hopeless. Why can’t the people of NOLA be relocated? it would give most of them a much better chance for a better life, and starting over (with a new infrastructure) is much better than trying to repair an ancient, failing city. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/25 "2006-03-07T16:54:23Z")
New Orleans will continue to survive, in some (much smaller) form. After all, there are parts of the city that survived more or less intact, and are fully occupied. But three-quarters of the people have dispersed, and with each passing day, the likelihood that they’ll return decreases. My attitude is that if you’re going to spend $80 billion, you should do something to heal the ecology of the region – meaning fewer levees rather than more. Interesting quote by Witold Rybczynski linked to in the article cited in the OP: “Research has shown that while cities grow extremely quickly, they decline slowly, since people’s homes—and their attachment to a place—act as an impediment to moving. Katrina cruelly removed that impediment for many New Orleanians.” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/26 "2006-03-07T17:10:09Z")
If New Orleans had been a thriving city before Katrina, the destruction would have just been a chance to clear away outdated infrastructure and build new. But New Orleans was a declining city for years, because the port operations that used to be the reason for the city’s existance are now almost completely automated due to containerized shipping. Instead of a hundred guys unloading a ship by hand, you now have one guy operating a crane unloading containers. The ships are much bigger but there are fewer sailors, and the ships turn around quickly. Here in Seattle the waterfront is unrecognizable from 40 years ago. No more flophouses, no more sleazy waterfront bars, no more prostitutes, no more pawn shops, no more anything except cranes and stacks of containers. New Orleans is the same way. All those poor people from New Orleans used to have jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry. The only industry New Orleans has left is cultural tourism. New Orleans was already being turning into Disney New Orleans, except for the inconvenient poverty. Why would someone who had no future in New Orleans before Katrina come back to New Orleans? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/27 "2006-03-07T17:21:03Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Here in Seattle the waterfront is unrecognizable from 40 years ago. No more flophouses, no more sleazy waterfront bars, no more prostitutes, no more pawn shops, no more anything except cranes and stacks of containers. [/quote] What? No Starbucks??? In Seatle?? 🙂 > [@](#): > > New Orleans is the same way. All those poor people from New Orleans used to have jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry. The only industry New Orleans has left is cultural tourism. New Orleans was already being turning into Disney New Orleans, except for the inconvenient poverty. Why would someone who had no future in New Orleans before Katrina come back to New Orleans? That’s too much of an exageration. From the Wiki article on NOLA: > [@](#): > > Like Houston, New Orleans is located in proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and the many oil rigs lying just offshore. There are a substantial number of energy companies that have their regional headquarters in the city, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell Oil Company. The city is also home to one Fortune 500 company, Entergy Corporation, an electric power provider. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/28 "2006-03-07T17:28:19Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] If New Orleans had been a thriving city before Katrina, the destruction would have just been a chance to clear away outdated infrastructure and build new. But New Orleans was a declining city for years, because the port operations that used to be the reason for the city’s existance are now almost completely automated due to containerized shipping. Instead of a hundred guys unloading a ship by hand, you now have one guy operating a crane unloading containers. The ships are much bigger but there are fewer sailors, and the ships turn around quickly. Here in Seattle the waterfront is unrecognizable from 40 years ago. No more flophouses, no more sleazy waterfront bars, no more prostitutes, no more pawn shops, no more anything except cranes and stacks of containers. New Orleans is the same way. All those poor people from New Orleans used to have jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry, or jobs supporting people supporting people who had jobs in the shipping industry. The only industry New Orleans has left is cultural tourism. New Orleans was already being turning into Disney New Orleans, except for the inconvenient poverty. Why would someone who had no future in New Orleans before Katrina come back to New Orleans? [/QUOTE] You are absolutely right! the proof of this has been evident for years-nobody was putting up new buildings in NOLA..and the generally decrepit condition of the sidewalks, streets, etc., gave me a clue about the place. Face it, when 26% of the city population is on some form of public assistance, things are NOT going well. Recently, a local newspaper ran a story about NO people who have moved away-many were so happy to live in a nice neighborhood, haveb a decnt job, good schools, etc.. So let Ray Nagin rave about his “chocolate” city-a lot of the people are not going back. And it makes no sense to rebuild something that is likely to be hit by major damage in the coming years. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/29 "2006-03-07T18:04:31Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] What? No Starbucks??? In Seatle?? 🙂 [/QUOTE] Well, there’s two parts of the old waterfront. There’s the part that’s still a working waterfront. That’s strictly cranes and boxes. No Starbucks, nothing but concrete lots surrounded by chain link fences. Then there’s the “downtown” part of the waterfront. This isn’t a working waterfront anymore. No ships come in except the ferries from the Kitsap and Vashon Island and tour boats. There all the docks are converted to tourist restaurants, tourist knicknack shops, the Soviet submarine tour, t-shirt stands, the aquarium, the IMAX theater, and yes, Starbucks. All of these businesses are there to serve tourists, none are there to serve dockworkers. But there aren’t any Starbucks at the actual port of Seattle, because there aren’t enough people working or passing through there, it’s just a giant parking lot filled with containers, and you can’t go in there unless you work there. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/30 "2006-03-07T19:00:18Z")
BTW, has all the water been pumped out of the flooded areas of NO yet? I haven’t heard that mentioned in the news recently. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/31 "2006-03-07T19:07:39Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Then there’s the “downtown” part of the waterfront. This isn’t a working waterfront anymore. No ships come in except the ferries from the Kitsap and Vashon Island and tour boats. There all the docks are converted to tourist restaurants, tourist knicknack shops, the Soviet submarine tour, t-shirt stands, the aquarium, the IMAX theater, and yes, Starbucks. All of these businesses are there to serve tourists, none are there to serve dockworkers. [/QUOTE] Sounds a lot like Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. ([Inner Harbor - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Harbor)) Which once was an actual working waterfront, but is probably too small for modern freighters in any case. (The actual working “Port of Baltimore” is further out towards the Chesapeake.) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/32 "2006-03-08T12:55:54Z")
In addition, most of NOLA’s p[ort activity consists of transferring grain/soybeans/wheat, etc. off of Mississippi River barges and into freighters. This is highly automated and uses little direct labor. mark Twain (“Life on the Mississippi”) wrote about the river’s tendency to meander-I’ve often wonder why the river doesn’t break out above NO and blast a new channel to the sea. if that happens, NO is finished. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/33 "2006-03-08T14:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] mark Twain (“Life on the Mississippi”) wrote about the river’s tendency to meander-I’ve often wonder why the river doesn’t break out above NO and blast a new channel to the sea. if that happens, NO is finished. [/QUOTE] There is a water diversion point above Baton Rouge where controlled water diversions are made into an old Mississippi channel (Old River) and then into the Atchafalaya. As the silt keeps building up downstream into the Gulf of Mexico the water level at Old River keeps rising slightly and the pressure on the Old River Control point gets higher and higher. I think it’s just a matter of time before a heavy snowfall amd wet spring with consequent rapid snow melt and runoff overwhelms this control. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/34 "2006-03-08T17:09:26Z")
I guess a couple of links should be given. [Satellite picture of Old River Control](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=31.0768,-91.5979&spn=0.03,0.045&t=k) and [Wikipedia article.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_River_Control_Structure) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/35 "2006-03-08T17:15:41Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] I’ve often wonder why the river doesn’t break out above NO and blast a new channel to the sea. if that happens, NO is finished. [/QUOTE] This would have happened already if it weren’t for constant work by the Army Corps of Engineers. See [Atchafalaya - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchafalaya) > [@wikipedia](#): > > Geologically, the Atchafalaya has served periodically as the main channel of the Mississippi through the process of delta switching, which has built the extensive delta plain of the river. Since the early 20th century, because of manmade alterations in the channel, the Mississippi has sought to change its main channel to Atchafalaya. By law a regulated proportion of the water from the Mississippi is diverted into the Atchafalaya at the Old River Control Structure. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/36 "2006-03-08T17:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] BTW, has all the water been pumped out of the flooded areas of NO yet? I haven’t heard that mentioned in the news recently. [/QUOTE] Yeah, it took a few weeks, but that was done a long time ago. There was some additoinally flooding during Rita, but that’s been cleaned up, too. I saw an article in the paper just yesterday that they are finally started to bulldoze houses in the 9th ward, which I think was the area hit the hardest. It’s going to be really difficult to entice a lot of people into returning to New Orleans. I’m sure it was a wonderfully unique city, but hurricane season is less than 3 months away, and the levees are stil not fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/37 "2006-03-08T18:13:20Z")
I’m afraid I don’t have a cite, but I head yesterday on NPR, the engineers that are working on restoring the levee’s in NO have stated that they are prepared for a Category 3 hurricane, but that there is no way they can be ready for anything heavier than that. Another expert also said that the claim of Category 3 readiness may be overblown. Translation: if another hurricane hits NO with better than Cat. 3 strenght, the town will take a serious hit. Again. ---
**Author:** ![Ivorybill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ivorybill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivorybill)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/38 "2006-03-10T19:24:32Z")
I’m glad to see that some of y’all are talking about my home town and what we ought to do with it. I can’t help but notice that with the exception of a few posters, you’re presenting terms rather starkly. Like any area with a significant population, this is a complex place. Let me address some of the highlights from what I’ve read above from the perspective of a local. (1) It makes sense, long term, for the country to have a city near the mouth of this continent’s largest river. New Orleans is still a viable port, with much traffic in petroleum, grain, coffee, and sugar. As the dry, above sea-level parts of New Orleans (which is a pretty big chunk of real estate, btw) didn’t flood in Katrina/Rita, and as the port wasn’t damaged significantly, and as we’re a major conduit between the oil rigs in the Gulf and the refineries along the river, there will be settlement here. (2) Yes, left to it’s own devices, the Mississippi would change course in favor of the shorter, lower, and more direct route down the Atchafalya, leaving New Orleans along a 100’ - 200’ deep salty canal. The jury is still out as to whether the Corps would be able to put the river back in the bed we now keep it in, and I’ve read (no time to get you cites, sorry) that it would take large scale flooding of the upper river (the stretch above Cairo, Illinois) and the lower river (that below) to put the Control Structure to the test. So you’ll need massive record snowfall in the Rockes, Lake States, and Ohio River Valley and torrential rains in the lower valley in the same year to get what the Corps calls a “design flood.” (3) Yes, parts of town are sinking. These are the back-swamp areas that were part of the Lake Pontchartrain floodplain until the 1940s when draining allowed that land to dry enough to allow development. A HUGE problem was allowing folks to build on grade on slabs, rather than requiring that houses be raised. These areas - - Lakeview, Gentilly, Broadmoor, Pontchartrain Park, Old Metairie - -took on the deep water from Katrina. That’s most of the area (with the exception of Old Metairie (million dollar mansions) that we’re debating rebuilding. The Upper & Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans East, and parts of St. Bernard Parish were inundated as well. Debate is also going on about rebuilding there. Much of the Katrina/Rita flood problem is related to two things (1) the city blocked the Corps from (a) moving the pump stations from the edge of the natural river levees (built at roughly sea level, several miles from the lake, early in the 20th century) where they lifted water and let gravity take it to the lake and (b) gating the canals at the lake to prevent lake surge from getting into town. The Corps is working on that fix at the moment. Breached levee walls flooded the area in the longer list in the paragraph above. (2) The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR GO), an artificial shipping channel linked to the Industrial Canal (built despite objections from those in New Orleans East and St. Bernard), had its levees overtopped and broken as water funnelled up and was concentrated in the shipping channels. This caused the flooding of St. Bernard (brief, but deep-to-the-rooftops) and the double flooding of the Lower 9th Ward. There is pressure to shut down the Mr. Go. I hope it is done. (4) Most of New Orleans is an old town. Yes, the FQ is older, but the buildings are being maintained, thank-you-very-much. Our soil expands when it’s wet, shrinks when dry, leading to bumpy streets and crooked sidewalks. Much of the old part of town is composed of houses that are pushing 100 years old. We do look shabby, even in well maintained areas, and areas with less attention look worse. It’s just the way it is. You get used to it after a while. (5) Yes, our number one economic engine was tourism. This due largely to backwards taxation policies and social issues among the wealthy locals that kept other businesses at bay. We were making improvements economically before the storm in revitalizing the port, the waterfront, building a film industry, and maintaining our share of the oil business, and I don’t expect the storm to dramatically alter continued progress in those areas, particularly with storm aid coming in. (6) We definitely had a massive and barely manageable problem with education, crime, and poverty. This was largely a class issue, though the main victims were primarily African Americans. Why? The affluent whites never had much to do with blacks if they could avoid it, and blacks with gumption got educated at private parochial schools, got good jobs, joined the middle and upper middle class, and migrated from the urban center to New Orleans East and Gentilly, where they were prone not to get involved in helping less fortunate blacks. Thus my calling it a class problem, though I’m sure other will argue with me about that. The middle class white and black flight to the suburbs left affluent whites and poor blacks in the urban center, at about a 35%/75% split, respectively. This led to about a 35%/75% split among those elected to local political office, and coupled with the French and Spanish colonial legacy (and Huey Long legacy, too) of patronage politics, and you wound up with a bad situation in terms of effective local government. Nagin was a breath of fresh air before the storm - - he was/is honest, businesslike, was modernizing city hall and city services - - but has proven to be a bad disaster manager. We are encouraged by a spurt of civic activism among whites who had felt disenfranchised in the urban center, a couple of strong candidates for mayor, and some successes in reforming state government. We have moved the schools from local oversight to state oversight, and most are now charter schools - - both are changes for the better. So… much to post. New Orleans will be smaller, no doubt about it. If we get another hurricane and flood this year, the likelihood is that flooding will be confined to areas that flooded before. There will be a New Orleans metro area here for quite a while, in my opinion, even if it is confined to higher ground (above sea level) along the natural levees of the Mississippi River. It will take a decade to see what that New Orleans might look like, though. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/39 "2006-03-10T20:43:58Z")
One thing I don’t understand; the control and repair of the levees 9those giant flood barriers0 seems to be in the hands of political hacks/appointed commisioners. Why is such a vital part of the city entrusted to such lowlifes? For example: a levee fails-and the consequences are huge losses of life and property. Then, they find out…gee-the levee failed beacuse it hasn’t been maintained since 1920! The money was spent on other stuff. So, until NO cleans up the corruption, forget about rebuilding the place. Its like deciding to build a new hose on a beach-the next winter storm will destroy it. ---
**Author:** ![Ivorybill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ivorybill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivorybill)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085/40 "2006-03-10T21:13:09Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] One thing I don’t understand; the control and repair of the levees 9those giant flood barriers0 seems to be in the hands of political hacks/appointed commisioners. Why is such a vital part of the city entrusted to such lowlifes? For example: a levee fails-and the consequences are huge losses of life and property. Then, they find out..gee-the levee failed beacuse it hasn’t been maintained since 1920! The money was spent on other stuff. So, until NO cleans up the corruption, forget about rebuilding the place. Its like deciding to build a new hose on a beach-the next winter storm will destroy it. [/QUOTE] In the recent special session of the Louisiana Legislature, a levee board reform billed passed (over the objection of many in the legislature, FWIW) largely at the demand of the business community and by a grass-roots effort begun by Uptown residents. Rather than having a handfull of local levee boards staffed by appointed minor political hacks, there will be one board for the east bank of the river, one for the west bank. These will be staffed by engineers and scientists nominated by knowledgeable interest groups. So while I understand your point, it’s now largely moot. You are correct that the levees were not treated to the level of oversight demanded by the situation in SE Louisiana, but your claim that they weren’t maintained since the 1920s is just preposterous. “Weren’t the Local Levee Boards to blame? Since 1965, the local levee boards have been removed from levee design and construction and they clearly were not responsible for checking the engineering calculations of the Corps. The role of the local levee boards was to levy taxes and use other sources of income to pay for maintaining the levees and to pay the 30% local share of the flood protection [PDF]. Maintenance activities include cutting the grass and reporting visible problems to the Corps.” [http://www.levees.org/facts/factsheet.htm](http://www.levees.org/facts/factsheet.htm) might be of interest to you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-slate-authors-thesis-is-that-new-orleans-is-doomed-do-you-agree/347085.md?page=3)