Rebuilding New Orleans the Right Way

By any measure, the rebuilding of New Orleans presents daunting obstacles. One thing is certain: Unless the Gulf of Mexico’s devastated coastal wetlands and barrier islands are restored, New Orleans is doomed to yet another catastrophic event, according to experts who tried to raise public awareness even before this week’s devastation, reports Paul Koring, an a piece featured today in Canada’s Globe and Mail.

Restoring coastal wetlands, which play a crucial role in absorbing devastating storm surge, the most dangerous part of a hurricane, is a critical first step.

Likewise, until barrier islands, which “once girded the coast” are rebuilt, another powerful storm will bring flood waters into the city, these experts contend.

Even if both of these conditions are met, the question remains: With roughly 80 percent of New Orleans under water, how much of the city can be salvaged?

The answer undoubtedly hinges on another thorny question: Whether the federal government “should continue to backstop flood insurance in high-risk locations such as holiday homes built on the shifting sands of barrier islands barely above the high-tide level.”

Just exactly what form a reconstructed New Orleans will take remains another looming question, considering the immense infrastructural breakdown, coupled with the brain drain, that has taken place within the city within the last few days.

As Nicole Gelinas observes in the City Journal:

“…to anticipate what the city must go through now, after damming up its broken levees and pumping the floodwaters back into Lake Pontchartrain, is heartbreaking. No American city has ever gone through what New Orleans must go through: the complete (if temporary) flight of its most affluent and capable citizens, followed by social breakdown among those left behind, after which must come the total reconstruction of economic and physical infrastructure by a devastated populace.”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at September 2, 2005 02:23 PM | TrackBack