What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Weathering the Next Katrina

[fcgv]

An interesting read for consideration....

What the Dutch Can Teach Us About Weathering the Next Katrina

News: A 1953 storm that killed 1,835 people forced the Netherlands to change the way disaster protection is done. The same can't be said of the U.S., where innovation has been stymied by pork-barrel politics.

By John McQuaid

In the first part of "Storm Warning," John McQuaid explored lessons we haven't learned from Katrina—even as climate change increases the risk of catastrophic storms and flooding far beyond the Gulf Coast. The Bush administration has yet to devise a national strategy for protecting the nation from such disasters. But the Dutch did it—50 years ago, after a major storm breached a network of dikes similar to New Orleans' levees, killing close to 2,000 people. Today, McQuaid assesses what we can learn from the Netherlands.

—The Editors

In the centuries-long battle to protect New Orleans from rising waters, the hurricane levees are an afterthought. Built over the past 40 years, they are short, weak, and ramshackle structures, especially when compared to the river levees that keep the Mississippi River in its narrow navigation-channel banks. Ports, shipping, and barge companies all have influential lobbies, and over the decades the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers became a one-stop shop for pork-barrel river projects, sometimes justified with cooked cost-benefit analyses. The Louisiana landscape is dotted with these and includes the now-infamous Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shipping channel not far from the Old Gentilly Landfill in eastern New Orleans. Though it hasn't received substantial traffic in decades, it did cause significant marsh erosion and turned out to be a conduit for storm surges into New Orleans. By contrast, hurricane levees have no economic benefit other than preventing disasters, and thus no constituency other than the public itself. The Corps' now-notorious slapdash engineering in New Orleans (see "Broken: the Army Corps of Engineers") wasn't happenstance. It was the logical result of this dysfunctional system.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2...hurricanes.html

Edited September 1, 2007 by fcgv

[bush_cheney2004]

The author doesn't get it....there is no national groundswell of support to protect New Orleans from a Cat 5, and we sure as hell don't want a "national strategy" a la The Netherlands. IOW, do not rebuild in flood plains or low lying deltas. Pork barrel politics and funding appropriations is how the Americans do it. Hurrican Betsy was in 1965...Camille was in 1969....this piece could have been written then and have made just as little sense.

May as well tell the Japanese and Chinese how smart the Dutch are as well. Their interesting project has already been covered on American cable TV:

http://shopping.discovery.com/product-39953.html

$21.95 on DVD...it doesn't get any more "American" than that.

[fcgv]

The author doesn't get it....there is no national groundswell of support to protect New Orleans from a Cat 5, and we sure as hell don't want a "national strategy" a la The Netherlands.

Whatever would be wrong about a national emergency plan?

[Higgly]

Personnaly, I am a great admirer of the Dutch, but they were attacking a stationary target. This no longer exists thanks to people like Geoge Bush, Dick Cheney and Steve Harper: the scope of the problem is simply beyond their ken. Just think. George Bush. Eight years. The scale is logorithmic, folks.

<<edit>> PS: I just noticed that I have reached 1200 posts. This may be a record for a poltical radical around here. We'll soon see.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Higgly

[bush_cheney2004]

Whatever would be wrong about a national emergency plan?

The Americans already have experience with "national emergency" plans of all stripes, going back to civil defense during the Cold War. Hurricanes will come and go, just like the political seasons for the current US administration and every whackjob with an axe to grind.

Every summer my local authorities dutifully sound the tornado warnings, and many of us promptly ignore them. See definition of "American".

[Canuck E Stan]

PS: I just noticed that I have reached 1200 posts. This may be a record for a poltical radical around here. We'll soon see.

Political radical :lol:

About as radical as everyone else here.

P.S. Your political spelling needs radical work.

[geoffrey]

I hate to say it, but it may just have been better to let New Orleans crumble. The city is the most ridiculous concept ever, building it mostly below sea level in a hurricane prone area. Yup. Time to move on.

I wouldn't live there. I wouldn't insure anything there if I were an insurance company. I'd certainly never invest there. So what is the point, really?

[fcgv]

I hate to say it, but it may just have been better to let New Orleans crumble. The city is the most ridiculous concept ever, building it mostly below sea level in a hurricane prone area. Yup. Time to move on.

I wouldn't live there. I wouldn't insure anything there if I were an insurance company. I'd certainly never invest there. So what is the point, really?

Perhaps you wouldn't be so dismissive of New Orleans if you were from the city. I would assume most of the inhabitants would not readily agree with your comments.

Edited September 2, 2007 by fcgv

[bush_cheney2004]

Perhaps you wouldn't be so dismissive of New Orleans if you were from the city. I would assume most of the inhabitants would not readily agree with your comments.

Doesn't matter....geoffrey is right. The first step in any "national emergency" plan should be to stop being stupid. The Big Easy has always been an armpit....a wonderfully diverse, multicultural, textured armpit. But it can't fight Mother Nature forever, not even with clever Dutch tricks.

[Guest American Woman]

Perhaps you wouldn't be so dismissive of New Orleans if you were from the city. I would assume most of the inhabitants would not readily agree with your comments.

That's the truth. And if we applied the same standards to every city/town, we wouldn't have LA because it's built on a fault line; same with San Francisco and every other city/town that's in earthquake area. And of course there's all the cities and towns along the Mississippi, which has been known to flood, not to mention all the cities and towns in Tornado Alley. All of the houses in Florida that have been built on drained land have to go, too. And what about all those houses on Long Island? From what I hear, Long Island is vulnerable to tidal waves.

If the Netherlands can exist under their conditions, New Orleans most definitely can too. In fact, if conditions had been as they should be, it very well may have survived Katrina.

[geoffrey]

Not at all the same. Earthquake proofing structures is a proven science.

Holding off the ocean indefinitely is not. Not when your in the path of monsterous tropical storms every year. New Orleans is really a ridiculous concept beyond belief. Should have just relocated it elsewhere.

People's emotional attachments to things simply shouldn't be taken into consideration when dealing with massive financial losses for every American.