New Orleans is Sinking Faster Than Originally Thought
Thursday, June 1st, 2006Turns out that one of the reasons that the levees in New Orleans failed during the Katrina mess was because the land beneath them was sinking at the rate of 1 inch per year:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Everyone has known New Orleans is a sinking city. Now new research suggests parts of the city are sinking even faster than many scientists imagined – more than an inch a year.
That may explain some of the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and it raises more worries about the future.
The research, reported in the journal Nature, is based on new satellite radar data for the three years before Katrina struck in 2005. The data show that some areas are sinking four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly.
“My concern is the very low-lying areas,” said lead author Tim Dixon, a University of Miami geophysicist. “I think those areas are death traps. I don’t think those areas should be rebuilt.”
Coupled with the re-election of Ray “School Bus” Nagin as Mayor, these are the definitive reasons not to rebuild New Orleans with taxpayer money. Why should the taxpayers provide upwards of one or two billion dollars to rebuild a city which is just going to be laid waste the next time a Katrina-type hurricane hits it?
New Orleans, on the land it is currently situated, is almost certainly going to be visited by hurricanes and tropical storms for the foreseeable future. Between the fact that it is below sea level to begin with and the fact that parts of it are sinking more than 1 inch per year, what sense is there in rebuilding a large city in this location? I feel bad for the residents who have lived there for most of their lives and who would surely miss it, but that isn’t any reason to waste billions of dollars in taxpayer funds on rebuilding something that will surely be destroyed.
Now, if a method were to be developed that would permanently raise the land to above sea level and support a levee system, I could support using taxpayer funds to rebuild the city. Also, if the city were to relocate to more stable ground, I could support using taxpayer money to rebuild the city. However, short of these two options, it’s just a waste of resources.
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