Just thinking as I watch the total devastation that is New Orleans.... I hope New Orleans uses this as an opportunity to take the blank check that they will most certainly get from FEMA and the feds to right all that is wrong down there. They need to use the billions they will get to do the best that they can to make sure this doesn't happen again. Use it for a whole new master plan to protect that city by installing new, better pumps, a better levee system that can withstand higher stress levels and to move homes that have no business being unprotected. IMO, the whole city needs to be redrawn to take into account these scenarios. Those homes that are 20 foot underwater do not need to rebuilt.....they need to be rebuilt elsewhere.....closer to Houma if need be. You can't protect from everything but IMO, the city planning down there was a big disaster and was just waiting for this to happen....a sitting duck like no other. I mean if your Gulfport, and the whole thing comes through and blows it all down, that's one thing. But NO has failing pumps, failing levees.....it all failed under stresses that aren't as bad as it gets. Gulfport is gone back to I-10. NO could have gotten it head on like they did.
One thing the feds can do is fix the highways. The quicker people can get out, the better. 1. All outbound Interstate lanes should be increased from 2 or 3 to 4 or 5 in order to accomodate evacuation traffic. 2. A South Loop around BR has to be built. Forget a North Loop, it wouldn't ease the bottleneck at Baton Rouge. The planners tried to get south loop built but the environmentalists ( some wetlands would be crossed) and the fat cats in the Country Club of Louisiana and other upscale neighborhoods killed it politically (too noisey to come near their property). The feds could get the south loop built if they wanted to. 3. I-49 needs to be quickly extended from Lafayette to New Orleans and extra northbound lanes added as well. 4. Hwy 61 north to Natchez and Vickburg needs to be four-laned. 5. Highway 1 south of Port Allen and Airline Highway from Baton Rouge to New Orleans needs to be upgraded with evacuation lanes and more overpasses.
I don't understand this with an I-10 exit at Highland 1 mile from CCLA. Where would such a loop be constructed? Off of I-10 between Highland and Hwy. 73? Where would it end? Now that Bluebonnet goes all of the way to Hwy 30 we can now use 30 as such a "south loop", and in effect traverse the whole of South BR. EDIT: After looking at this map it appears obvious that we need at least two highways to connect 30 to 61 behind CCLA and between St. Gabriel and the lakes. There's simply nothing in that area.
The original south loop plan had the loop leaving I-10 across the river halfway between Rosedale and Port Allen. It would have crossed the Mississippi on a new bridge near Addis and passed south of LSU and Gardere and along Bayou MAnchac where it would intersect I-10 east near Prarieville and continue east crossing the Amite nead Port Vincent and intersecting I-12 between Walker and Livingston. This way Interstate truck traffic on I-10/I-12 could bypass the bottleneck in central Baton Rouge. I-10 Traffic from New Orleans could also bypass BR.
I just don't understand why they didn't "fill in" New Orleans bowl before making a city there? That way the city would've been above sea level or level enough not to be a bowl? Would the ground sink anyway?
New Orleans getting it right... yea right - that will be the day. Politicians in Louisiana know that their pockets are about to get filled, and it's going to come at the hand of us tax payers. Having gotten that off my chest, I am hopefull that through the funding they will at least make New Orleans more prepared in case this happens again.
I don't know if they were aware of the damage such a storm would cause back in the 18 and 19th centuries.
I hear ya man. I wanted to say the same thing but wanted to try to keep it positive. I was hoping that they would steal the money after seeing this total disaster area. We can hope.........I hope the country sees how important Louisiana and the Gulf Coast is now with the price of oil above $70....not to say what heating oil will cost this winter in the northeast.
I absolutely agree here too. I thought of this on Sat. The feds ought to give us the money to at least six lane I-10 in and out of New Orleans to at least Baton Rouge and the same to the east. The problem is that damned bridge and the freak who designed the bridge on-ramp going down to one or 2 lanes in BR. That guy ought to be shot.
Impossibly huge job even today, especially since New orleans has been around for 300 years. Where in the world would they get that much material? Absolutely. Mid-city has subsided over a dozen feet in historic times just due to the pumping having lowered the water table.