The unfolding of the New Orleans disaster has been strange for me
because of [an article I read in Scientific American in October of
2001](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa006)
Prior to reading the article, I was entirely unaware of the situation
New Orleans was in. If you had asked me about New Orleans and
hurricanes, I would have said “well, it’s on the gulf coast, so I
suppose it’s in danger of being hit by a hurricane.”
The article shocked me. It isn’t at all subtle. It talked about how
the land sorrounding New Orleans has been receding like crazy. And
because the entire banks of the Mississippi are all walled up, none of
the sediment that built the Delta land in the first place could
continue to do so, or even do anything to slow down the land
recession. And, furthermore, that this port city is almost entirely
below sea level, and that the only thing keeping it from being
underwater already is the fact that it’s entirely surrounded by levees
and that they literally pump out all of the water that rains into it..
having nothing else to do with it, they pump the water into the lake
right on the other side of one of their levees. In short, it left me
with the pretty much indiputable impression that the natural forces of
the Earth were pushing this land into the ocean. My thoughts about
New Orleans have been altered ever since. I literally haven’t thought
about the place since then without thinking that it is doomed…
And, the article makes clear that a deciding event around its
destruction will almost certainly be a hurricane. And, that it’s
bound to happen. So, every time since then that a hurricane has been
in the gulf I wonder if this is the end of New Orleans. And, so far,
it hadn’t been. New Orleanians would talk about how important their
city is to them and how they’d rather die than evacuate. I watched
them thumb their noses at storms, drinking cocktails called
“Hurricanes” as storms approach.
I honestly feel that I can sympathize with everyone involved in this
situation. As much as I love life, there are many things that I’d be
willing to put my life on the line about. I enjoy the feeling of
being able to build things, to know that our human knowledge is strong
enough that I can feel just as comfortable in a building when it’s 110
outside or -40, whether it’s clear, a hurricane, or a blizzard.
But, while I’m not a doomsday-sayer in general (if any of you knew me
in the months leading up to the big “Y2K” moment, you’ll know this), I
could definitely see the arguments of the author of this article and
the people he interviewed. And, like I say, it seemed pretty clear to
me. Eventually, a storm was going to ruin this city. As impressive
as our human knowledge is, I’ve learned about enough times in human
history when people thought they could beat the forces of nature, and
were dead wrong. And this had all of the hallmarks.
So, when Kynthia informed me “Katrina turned towards New Orleans, and
has been upgraded to a category 5” I had to say “And neither of us
ever went there…”
At first, I thought, like the reporters that I was listening to, that
the city had dodged another bullet. During the storm, I kept
listening to the reports of the wind damage and such. Hurricanes are
very impressive, and the reports were indeed striking. But, really I
was saying “every city that experiences a hurricane gets wind damage.
What could kill New Orleans is the water”. The storm passed through,
and the reports of flooding were seemingly average for a bad storm.
But, as the song keeps reminding me in my head… “if it keeps on
rainin’ the levee’s gonna break” (it’s the Led Zeppelin version in my
head, which is a shame, since I’m sure they stole it from some
Mississippi delta blues man). When I’d heard that the levee was
breeched, I really thought “woah, this really is it.” If someone
asked you to build a football field 6 feet below sea level in the
middle of the ocean… what do you tell them? I mean, if you pump the
water out, where do you pump it? And that’s assuming that you’ve got
pumps that can pump it out faster than it’s coming in!
My hat is off to the people of the City for knowing a REALLY bad thing
when it was there. The article had warned of possible death tolls in
the hundreds of thousands, and even the city’s mayor’s warning today
was two orders of magnitude less that than… in other words, if the
predictions are anywhere near correct, the actual death toll will
likely be only 1-2% of the estimate. I’m very relieved that so many
people fled and sought shelter.
I’m glad all of those people didn’t die. But I guess my mental state
about New Orleans and the fact that I’m quite removed from the
disaster (no close friends or family there, for instance) that my
thoughts are less direct. For instance, instead of thinking things
like “Wow, thousands of people killed, because of an event with only a
week’s warning” as I would in most such disasters, I find myself
thinking things like “I’m so glad those people got out so that
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS didn’t die.” And, instead of thinking about the
rescue efforts underway, I find myself thinking about the question of
rebuilding. Rescue people are good, I’m glad they are there, I trust
that they know a great deal about rescuing people from disaster. So,
I’m not thinking much about it. My brain naturally focuses on what
seems a more interesting/challenging question:
Do you try to rebuild this place? They could spend billions of public
dollars on it, and end up with it in the exact same situation that it
was in, just waiting for another hurricane to knock it out. In the
past few years, I’ve definitely found my sympathy lessening for people
who choose to live in disaster-prone areas, and this is a prime
example.
I don’t have any decisions made about what I hope happens. I do feel
that the City was an archetypical example of Humanity’s Hubris against
nature, and I even feel some sense of an environmentalist attitude of
“You can’t beat nature, ok”. I do hope that we come away from this
whole thing with some sense of humility.
But beyond that… I don’t know. I agree with just about everyone,
that New Orleans is/was a vastly important city to our nation,
economically and culturally. After xie went there several years ago,
I remember including it on a very short list of cities in the US that
are, in my opinion, incomparable to any others. I am sad that I’ve
never been there, and I would like to experience it. But I don’t
think it makes sense to build wherever you can dream it. When xie and
I were in Alaska, we learned of towns rebuilding themselves in
different locations after the Good Friday Earthquake/Tsunamis of 1964.
This makes a great deal of sense to me. However, New Orleans wouldn’t
be the same if it weren’t on the delta.
Like I say, I (for once) am not advocating a particular position. I
don’t have a defined opinion about what I think should happen. But,
it is definitely questionable to me whether the city should be
rebuilt. If nothing else, I do hope that we as a society give a
little more thought to this that “How sad, we need to help them.” It
is sad, and I do want to help them… But it’s a complicated issue.
David