[HN Gopher] New Orleans levees passed their first major test
___________________________________________________________________
New Orleans levees passed their first major test
Author : yread
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-09-05 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.com)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I'm not sure they were really tested what with the track to the
| west.
| ahnick wrote:
| As the article rightly points out, levees will do nothing for a
| slow moving hurricane like Harvey that dumps tons of rain or for
| a large cat5 hurricane with storm level surges that are much
| higher than Ida. The place is sinking while sea level rise is
| already locked in with current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
| The only solution is relocation, but nobody wants to hear that.
| It is an inevitability that New Orleans will be uninhabitable.
| The only question is when.
| malkuth23 wrote:
| That might be the only solution you can think of, but that does
| not make it the only possibility. What you are really saying is
| you don't think New Orleans is worth saving. New Orleans
| infrastructure consists of far more than just levees. Our
| pumping system is currently rated to remove 1 inch of rain the
| first hour and 1/2 inch each additional hour. We can remove
| this much rain with wooden screw pumps that still run on 25
| cycle power. Upgrading or adding to the pumps in New Orleans to
| handle more water makes far more sense than giving up on what I
| believe is the most special city in America.
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-orleans-wood-screw...
|
| You say that nobody want to hear your hot take on abandoning
| New Orleans, a city with one of the most important ports in the
| country, yet I hear this proposed constantly (and upvoted) by
| people that have almost no specialized knowledge of
| infrastructure. It is armchair nihilism and imo not helpful at
| all. The army corps of engineers thinks differently. Agencies
| like the CPRA are working to restore land on the coast. There
| are ways to mitigate the damage, to reduce the risk and protect
| the city. Yes it is expensive. No it is not cheaper than losing
| our ports, our people, our culture.
|
| https://gnoinc.org/news/ports-of-south-louisiana-new-orleans...
|
| Soon enough, if we don't invest in NOLA, you will likely be
| right, but I doubt it will be because there was no other
| option. It will be because we as a country made a huge mistake
| and failed to act.
|
| The truth is, a lot of America does not care about people or
| cities in the south. New Orleans gets a bit more attention
| because tourists had a good time on Bourbon once, but overall
| it is treated as an oddity and not an essential piece of the
| both the economic and cultural fabric of America. There are
| people down here that feel the same way about California with
| its earthquakes and wild fires and I make similar arguments
| when arguing with them. Speaking of which, NYC fared far worse
| against the remnants of a storm we took head on. Should we
| abandon it or improve it? Hell no we should not give up on NYC,
| nor SF with it's earthquakes, or LA with it's water shortages,
| or Baltimore with its crime, or Detroit with its collapse of
| industry and definitely not New Orleans.
| ahnick wrote:
| It's not the only solution I can think of, but it's the only
| practical one. Sure you could build giant sea walls around
| the area or bring in land and start literally raising all the
| buildings above sea level (similar to what Chicago did in the
| mid 1800s), but you are talking billions of dollars, maybe
| hundreds of billions. Once you get into that situation it
| just makes sense to move everything upstream and perhaps only
| fortify key infrastructure like ports until even those pieces
| have to be relocated.
|
| The army corps of engineers is not given the option of not
| trying to save New Orleans. People in government tell them to
| go build levees and protect the city from flooding and they
| do the best job that they can, but they are fighting a losing
| war. The time to introduce relocation assistance programs is
| now, so you spread the cost and process out over many years;
| otherwise, you are going to just end up doing the same thing
| later, but it will cost more money and more lives will have
| been lost.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| How does New Orleans compare to the Netherlands in terms of
| long term flood risk?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| This is my fear as well. All of these coastal cities are at
| risk for relocation, who's footing the bill for the government
| to buy the houses, relocate the people, provide them new
| houses, jobs, etc? There is a ton of self interest in keeping
| people in places like New Orleans (and even growing the
| population), but we need to accept the reality that these
| places will be uninhabitable in the near future.
|
| I already foresee a bunch of folks getting tons of money for
| Hurricane Ida claims only to rebuild houses in the same exact
| spot. We should encourage them to take the money and move away,
| not stick around.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Government doesn't need to do a thing.
|
| Assuming flood insurance prices are realistic (not propped up
| by government), eventually no new construction will happen
| because no one will approve/afford insurance.
|
| Existing places will get cheaper / hell hole as rates keep
| going up.
|
| Federal flood insurance has distorted market prices
| drastically in many places
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| New Orleans and Port Fourchon are pretty vital to US economic
| interests because of their ports.
| Animats wrote:
| It's mostly river deltas that have this problem. A small sea
| level rise reduces flow at the river outlet, causing flooding
| out of proportion to the sea level rise.
|
| The only big river delta in the US is the Mississippi. East
| Asia has far worse problems. Most of China's port cities are
| on river deltas. Tapei is on a river delta. Ho Chi Min City
| is on a river delta. Singapore is on a river delta. These are
| all areas where the land to water slope is very low.
|
| The western US is mountainous enough that there's more than
| enough land rise to prevent flooding more than a short
| distance inland. Even in places that look flat, like LA near
| Venice, go three blocks inland and you're tens of feet
| higher. Places that built on fill, such as San Francisco and
| Foster City, do exist, but are small enough for barriers and
| not fed by upstream rivers.
| bostonsre wrote:
| I can't imagine flood insurance is very cheap in these
| locations and I don't think this is an imminent domain type
| situation where the government would buy houses. At some
| point, people will be ruined financially and won't be able to
| rebuild.
|
| Other wealthier places may be able to use municipal bonds to
| fight sea level rise. In the valley in Foster City, the
| choice was between pricey flood insurance and a cheaper
| municipal bond to construct a robust levee and the latter was
| chosen. The city is small enough and the residents were
| wealthy enough to do it.
|
| I'm kind of curious if anyone will attempt to damn up or
| construct locks under the golden gate bridge. I think the
| valley could be wealthy enough to do it.
| mcast wrote:
| People said the same cynical comments about not being able to
| build skyscrapers alongside the coast of New York City, which
| would be impossible to excavate deep underground without
| flooding the city. We should look into improving the
| infrastructure and innovating our urban planning layouts to
| better handle these natural disasters rather than just
| abandoning them. Yes, hurricanes will continue to strengthen,
| but improving building codes and adding more canals and
| waterways for flood control can mitigate many of the deadly
| problems. For what it's worth, New Orleans is a historic city
| with a rich culture.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> For what it 's worth, New Orleans is a historic city with
| a rich culture._
|
| Nobody wants to lose New Orleans. It's a great city. But the
| problem is accurately summed up by the OP: "How much can
| places where millions of people live be fortified? At what
| cost? And who pays for it?"
|
| The only good news is that the Port of South Louisiana is the
| biggest and arguably most important port in the Western
| Hemisphere (and that's without even taking into account the
| Port of New Orleans or the Port of Baton Rouge, both in the
| top 10). There is enormous nationwide economic and
| geopolitical incentive to protect the city. The bad news is
| that New Orleans would be sinking even without rising sea
| levels.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The article fails to point out that New Orleans' drainage
| system is actually better than Houston's.
| MR4D wrote:
| I live in Houston and can attest to that being ridiculously
| true. This is completely due to government incompetence
| (mostly local, not state or federal). The lack of remediation
| after Harvey is just sad. So many missed opportunities. Bill
| White was the last major who did anything about it, and he
| took a long term view that his successors have basically
| ignored.
| dangerbird2 wrote:
| Moving ungodly volumes of rainwater away from homes and out
| of the streets is one of the few things New Orleans'
| infrastructure does _really_ well. I remember times when I 'd
| be walking down the sidewalk through knee-deep water to get
| to class, and on my way back 45 minutes later it's basically
| all gone. A Harvey-level rainstorm would certainly cause
| damage, but NOLA would probably handle it better than any
| major city in the country.
| malkuth23 wrote:
| Our pumps are so old many are still using wooden screws and
| run on 25 cycle power. Think how much water we could pull
| out if the system was upgraded? New Orleans is more
| prepared to survive than any other city with a few hundred
| miles of it, including mega cities like Houston.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Vastly better than Houston's. Not even remotely comparable.
| The same rainfall amount that would put Houston under water
| would have a few streets and underpasses rendered impassible
| for a few hours in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. My
| hometown was on the east side near the eyewall when the storm
| stalled over them for a few hours. Tons of wind damage,
| virtually zero flooding aside from parking lots and one levee
| that was damaged from the storm surge.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Do you think the surge in your hometown was high enough the
| old levees wouldn't have handled it?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Those are the old levees. They didn't even approve the
| new levee system for that area until this year.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| In some ways, levees make it worse by damaging the delta, which
| ultimately protects the city.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Nope. Different levee system. The system that harms the delta
| is the one that keeps the Mississippi from cutting a path
| wherever it wants. This other one is a system that simply
| protects populations from storm surge.
| reddog wrote:
| >New Orleans will be uninhabitable. The only question is when.
|
| A very, very long time from now. According to the IPCC Sixth
| Assessment Report sea levels are projected to rise between .57
| and 1.25 meters by 2120. So unless you have waves currently
| lapping against your back porch you, your kids, your grandkids
| and your great-grandkids will be OK in NO.
|
| For context, sea levels have risen about .3 meters over the
| last hundred years and we have adapted without city evacuation
| and relocation.
|
| https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ipcc-ar6-sea-level-projection-tool
| ahnick wrote:
| The midway point in the sea level tool you linked is actually
| 1.41m by 2100. That's 4.6 feet of sea level rise by the end
| of the century and this is based on our current models where
| we are continuously discovering more and more positive
| feedback mechanisms that is accelerating sea level rise.
| (https://www.science.org/news/2020/11/seas-are-rising-
| faster-...) Now those levee walls that were originally 13
| feet high are now less than 9 feet from the water and no
| longer really capable of doing the job they were designed
| for. So we better build bigger walls to keep all the water
| out, so let's go back and spend billions and billions more to
| have bigger walls, which by the way encourages more and more
| people to move into flood prone areas. Then you really set
| things up for a black swan event where something unexpected
| causes a levee failure (b/c that's never happened before) and
| then a bunch of people die.
|
| So maybe you and your kids MIGHT be okay, but your grandkids
| and your great-grandkids? probably not.
| reddog wrote:
| >The midway point in the sea level tool you linked is
| actually 1.41m by 2100.
|
| No. Not sure where 1.41m is coming from. Take a closer look
| at the linked NASA site. You will need to click on the link
| labled "View global projection" (sorry, there isn't a
| direct link). You will see a graph labeled "Projected Sea-
| Level Rise Under Different SSP Scenarios". The midpoint
| highest rise of all seven of the scenarios for 2100 is just
| .88 meters and that's for the most pessimistic SSP5-8.5
| _Low_ _Confidence_ scenario. The more likely scenarios are
| about 1-2 feet.
|
| Your great-grandkids will be fine.
| nknezek wrote:
| 1.41m by 2100 is the projection for "Grand Isle", the
| closest location in the model to New Orleans. Sea level
| and sea level rise is not uniform worldwide, so local
| predictions are very important. This is also true for
| temperature and other climate change impacts, and is one
| of the biggest improvements in the latest IPCC report.
|
| It looks like all model scenarios agree fairly well out
| to 2100 both in the global projections and in projections
| for Grand Isle. Thus, I'd wager good money that New
| Orleans will see 1-2m sea level rise by 2100 regardless
| of any climate mitigations we perform.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Grand Isle (which Ida did a number on) is well south of
| NOLA in Jefferson Parish, and not part of the metro area.
| It exists for fishing and tourism.
| Muromec wrote:
| >The place is sinking while sea level rise is already locked in
| with current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
|
| Biggest airport in The Netherlands is 3 meters below the sea
| level, but at least we don't have hurricanes here, just North
| Sea
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Airport_Schiphol
| kibwen wrote:
| Europe is generally protected from hurricanes due to how far
| north everything is, but as the north Atlantic warms tropical
| storms will become more frequent, potentially graduating into
| legitimate hurricanes every once in a while.
| beerandt wrote:
| This is alarmist BS.
|
| I worked on the surveys and cors equipment that directly
| measures subsidence in Louisiana, and have worked on many of
| the levees and other coastal civil works.
|
| Relocation? For a problem that hasn't happened yet and isn't
| likely to happen in the foreseeable future is absurd.
|
| New York City is at a much greater risk and will be inundated
| long before New Orleans.
|
| The fastest rate of subsidence in New Orleans is/was due to
| organics in the soil decomposing once the groundwater table was
| lowered (drainage projects going back 300 yrs), allowing oxygen
| to infiltrate. This decomposition is mostly complete in most
| areas of the city.
|
| Piles under everything from skyscrapers to personal homes
| penetrates the organic layers, so buildings don't subside even
| if the ground does.
|
| The biggest risk to the city and state is environmental
| activists, the EPA & the Army Corps of Engineers, and the
| largely untouchable Mississippi River levee system, preventing
| the delta land building process that counteracts subsidence by
| depositing new sediment in yearly floods.
|
| Additionally, erosion/ runoff prevention and dams through out
| the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river watersheds have
| decreased the amount of sediment flowing down river, and
| results in less sediment available for natural land building.
|
| The coastal barrier marshes and islands are dying because we've
| stopped the natural processes that sustain them. Each mile of
| marsh results in the natural lowering of storm surge by 1/2' to
| 2'.
|
| The federal government, environmental groups and others fight
| the restoration of these natural processes. For example, they
| argue fresh water introduction will hurt dolphin populations in
| coastal bays, but they are only capable of being there in the
| first place because of man made interference: the bays were
| freshwater until the levees cut off their natural supply of
| freshwater.
|
| As for global warming? Infrastructure, business and homes are
| amortized at 30yrs or less. Maybe up to 50yrs for very large
| civil projects.
|
| Worst case sea level rise estimates easily gives New Orleans
| 300+ more yrs, likely much longer, a time frame longer than the
| current age of the city.
| pfisch wrote:
| It is and it isn't. His scenario won't happen but what will
| happen is fairly similar.
|
| No one is going to make large capital investments in a city
| that gets blown away all the time. Every time New Orleans
| takes a big hit like this people leave, and less money is put
| back into the city.
|
| The population of New Orleans was higher in 1980 than it is
| now. I am from New Orleans, and since Katrina the
| infrastructure has been getting worse, not better.
|
| There probably isn't going to be some big dramatic event that
| kills New Orleans. It will just keep shrinking and pulling in
| towards the French Quarter as it gets hit repeatedly by
| extreme weather events. It will just become smaller and more
| impoverished over time until it is maybe abandoned at some
| distant point in the future.
|
| It will be a death by inches.
| beerandt wrote:
| Cities across the country will die much sooner from
| economic and political reasons than New Orleans will die
| from subsidence. (Although New Orleans is likely included
| in that first set as well, based on current leadership.)
|
| But we don't discourage economic development in those
| places. My amortization comment was perhaps not explicit
| enough, but as long as people think the city will last
| beyond amortization periods, future
| abandonment/inundation/end-of-days predictions are not a
| rational reason to preclude investment.
|
| Most businesses shoot for a payback period of 10 years or
| less.
|
| I expect you're right about slow death, but it won't be for
| climatic or geologic or hydraulic reasons.
|
| _Fear_ of those reasons might contribute, but then we 've
| gone full circle back to "alarmist BS".
| pfisch wrote:
| You're being unrealistic about the reality of living in
| New Orleans and the level of capital investment in New
| Orleans vs Baton Rouge or other cities that aren't under
| constant threat of destruction.
|
| People just aren't going to come in and build nice
| shopping centers in New Orleans. It isn't happening and
| hasn't happened. Why would it when they could build in
| another city where it won't get destroyed and it will be
| more profitable?
|
| It is extremely stressful every year watching hurricanes
| and wondering if your house is going to be destroyed.
| Then when your house is destroyed it is no fun at all to
| be involved in gutting it and rebuilding it. On top of
| that no one is making investments in the city so it
| hardly has any good jobs.
|
| It isn't alarmist to recognize what is already happening.
| The climate is creating more extreme weather events that
| are undermining New Orleans. It doesn't need to be some
| fake "The Day After Tomorrow" style disaster that people
| can easily recognize. It is an insidious, slow, hollowing
| out of the city.
|
| How many water boil warnings have their been since
| Katrina? How often has electricity been inconsistent in
| the city? I can tell you it happens a lot more now than
| it did before Katrina, and it is going to be even worse
| after Ida.
| beerandt wrote:
| Climate isn't the problem with any of those issues,
| politics is.
|
| It's not fear of flooding that prevents anyone from
| investing in, eg New Orleans East. It's two decades of
| zero policing.
|
| And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a
| completely separate corporate entity in the city, and
| it's not because "used to be nopsi".
|
| The water guys can't even operate a billing system, let
| alone engineer the distribution network. They ran through
| probably a dozen companies post- Katrina just to do an
| assessment and map and maintenance plans, and they all
| quit for having to deal with the city.
|
| That's why they can't keep the water on. But an
| unnecessary new airport? They had no problem throwing a
| billion dollars at contractors for that.
|
| If people were afraid of sea level rising, they wouldn't
| just be moving into another swamp/marsh outside of city
| limits or across the lake. People don't want to live at
| sea level without a levee on the North Shore, they just
| don't want to live in New Orleans, despite the +20ft msl
| and up levees.
| jsight wrote:
| How many homes were destroyed and will need to be rebuilt
| due to ida?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| People are perfectly happy to come and drop hundreds of
| millions on developing apartment complexes in the CBD for
| some reason, so why not shopping centers? The good jobs
| bit I agree with, I am about to leave Tulane with a PhD
| and barring some remote offers from Houston I can't find
| a means, motive or opportunity to stay here as much as I
| enjoy it.
| beerandt wrote:
| Still gonna argue that's more politics than fear of
| flooding.
| lostandbored wrote:
| Honestly, that is a great a reply.
|
| I especially agree that some dams on the Mississippi need to
| destroyed and have agriculture be moved away from the river,
| as the dead zone in Gulf of Mexico is caused by upstream
| agriculture states.
| ahnick wrote:
| 300+ years? And the biggest risk to the city is environmental
| activists and the EPA? You must be joking.
|
| The biggest risk is the fact that according to our best
| estimates by 2050 sea level rise will be another 1.5 feet in
| that area. (https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ipcc-ar6-sea-level-
| projection-tool) For an area that is already on average 7
| feet below sea level. New Orleans topography is basically a
| bowl between Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico.
| Couple that with stronger and more frequent hurricanes and
| there will be few places left to live in New Orleans and the
| surrounding area.
|
| People who give other people a false sense of hope is what
| endangers lives and sets up future generations for
| devastation. If you really want to help people you need to
| break the cycle and subsidize relocation costs for those who
| currently live there that can't afford to move. All these
| mitigation efforts like restoring the natural coastal
| barriers may delay some flooding (so sure do it), but it will
| not prevent the inevitable and it is coming much sooner than
| 300+ years.
| beerandt wrote:
| >For an area that is already on average 7 feet below sea
| level.
|
| There are areas as low as -22' msl. Maybe -25'.
|
| But that's irrelevant, because the edge of the bowl and
| protection is at a minimum elevation ~+20' msl and up,
| depending on adjustments for things like modeled wave
| height.
|
| Whereas New York's _highest_ protection is currently
| something like +8 ', and isn't a closed loop.
|
| And what's the elevation of the deepest basement/ subway/
| tunnel in NYC? Because I bet it's a lot lower than -22' or
| -25' msl.
| goatsi wrote:
| How is sediment deposition supposed to counteract the
| subsidence of land that has anything built on it?
| beerandt wrote:
| Outside of levee protections, structures are all on piles
| above the flood elevation, so floods literally go under the
| house.
|
| Inside levee protections, as the system currently exists,
| it doesn't, so houses have to have sand pumped under them
| occasionally to fill gaps left by subsidence.
|
| The house is on piles, so it remains in place.
| eloff wrote:
| > Worst case sea level rise estimates easily gives New
| Orleans 300+ more yrs, likely much longer, a time frame
| longer than the current age of the city.
|
| Your argument depends on this but you give neither numbers
| nor citations, so it's unsubstantiated and we have no idea
| how true it is. Numbers I've seen, that are bad, but not
| worst case are 6' by the end of the century and 20'-60' over
| longer timescales. I seriously doubt New Orleans will be just
| fine through that. Many coastal cities will have to move.
| It's not practical to wall in all of the coast to that
| extent. Many cities would end up being islands.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Your argument depends on this but you give neither
| numbers nor citations, so it's unsubstantiated and we have
| no idea how true it is.
|
| Unsubstantiated _on this thread._ I mean, you can look it
| up and find out if it 's true yourself. It's also weird
| that you follow it up with numbers of your own, but also no
| references, so you must think that's alright to do.
| eloff wrote:
| You also don't know how substantiated my claims are, but
| at least with numbers you could look it up. Parent
| provided only an argument from authority. There is no
| easy way to falsify it. You'd have to do all the research
| from scratch.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Piles under everything from skyscrapers to personal homes
| penetrates the organic layers, so buildings don't subside
| even if the ground does.
|
| The sinking building in SF would like to differ with this. If
| a building is not built correctly, all bets are off.
| beerandt wrote:
| The problem in San Francisco is entirely different. It's on
| poorly designed building. Even if every building in San
| Francisco had that problem, it still wouldn't be relevant.
|
| The problem strata in New Orleans is the top 10-20' of
| soil. Mostly whatever's above the pumped-down, controlled,
| water table.
|
| Piles only need to go that deep to suffice, or more
| typically until they hit the first layer of sand, which is
| stable. Literally every slab house built in New Orleans is
| built in these, because before this, everything was on
| blocks so it could constantly be raised and leveled.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >or more typically until they hit the first layer of
| sand, which is stable.
|
| I think this is the first time I have ever seen someone
| claim that a layer of sand is stable. But hey, NOLA is
| one of the craziest places, so sure, sand is stable
| there.
| cronix wrote:
| Yes, AFAIK the piles didn't go all the way down to solid
| bedrock and San Francisco is basically built on a garbage
| dump covered over from previous devastating earth quakes,
| basically. They were improperly installed and if they had
| been the building would likely be fine. So, you're both
| right.
| bitbckt wrote:
| That area of the city is built on infill, but that is by
| no means true of most of the city's area.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Nola has the most shipping tonnage of any port in the
| hemisphere.
|
| There's many billions of dollars of port and plant
| infrastructure there.
|
| Its way cheaper and easier just to rebuild the city every few
| years and pay to buffer it against disaster than to relocate
| all of that.
|
| Just like it's easier to keep a legacy code base that's working
| and making money than fully rebuild it.
|
| Nola's not going anywhere anytime soon.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I mean, the food isn't _that_ much worse in Morgan City long
| term.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I bet there's amazing food there.
|
| They just don't have the Alcoholism.
|
| Also, if the Old River control system ever fails Morgan
| City will be the next New Orleans.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_River_Control_Structure
| justinator wrote:
| You're right! There's too much money invested - and to be
| made! People will just have to suffer. Let's keep our focus
| on what's important.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I think most people there would rather the rich chaos of
| New Orleans than the cultural blandness of the rest of the
| country.
|
| "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco,
| and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland" - Tennessee
| Williams
|
| Am currently evacuated from Ida, and drove all the way to
| Kentucky from Nola and from what I'm seeing so far, can
| confirm that quote is depressingly accurate.
|
| Why does the rest of the country look like one giant strip
| mall from coast to coast? What happened to America?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Am in DC, but I toast you with an imaginary glass of
| Early Times.
| justinator wrote:
| Yeah, that was sarcasm. Also eat orphans.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| In New Orleans they would throw anything in a frier.
|
| Have a fried Orphan and catfish basket.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Well going by Hurricane Ida, New Jersey will have to relocate
| themselves before New Orleans, but not before they build a
| seawall under the Verrazzano bridge. To describe the
| destruction of a city as "inevitable" is just admitting you
| don't want to spend the billions of dollars necessary to
| protect it.
| Exmoor wrote:
| Somewhat incredibly, Ida killed _far more_ people as a weakened
| tropical storm in the northeast after crossing the entire US than
| it did as a Cat4 /5 hurricane on the gulf coast.
|
| From Wikipedia:
|
| > As of September 4, a total of 70 deaths have been confirmed in
| relation to Ida: 27 in New Jersey, 18 in New York, 13 in
| Louisiana, 5 in Pennsylvania, 2 in Mississippi, 2 in Alabama, 1
| in Maryland, 1 in Virginia, and 1 in Connecticut.
| beerandt wrote:
| News coverage is really dropping the ball on this one. It might
| not have the optics of Katrina, but it was a far more powerful,
| even if smaller, storm.
|
| Eg: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and SE LA power outage maps
| [0][1][2]
|
| Based on the damage in south Louisiana, it's a miracle there
| weren't far far more deaths.
|
| The damage to Port Fourchon alone should be national news.
| Anywhere from 10~30% of the countries oil flows through there,
| depending on how you measured it. And it got a direct hit.
|
| The gas pipeline fiasco from a few months back? All the
| refineries feeding it were shut down for over a week. Wait till
| that lag period catches up.
|
| But for reasons that be, MSM decided this was a non-event until
| it got to NYC, and even then a relatively minor one. Hard to
| believe they're not downplaying this on purpose.
|
| [0]https://i.imgur.com/MT1z0n5.jpg
|
| [1]https://i.imgur.com/HpKJlS4.jpg
|
| [2]https://i.imgur.com/618PI36.jpg
| datameta wrote:
| I'm in NYC. Besides walking my dog briefly in the heavy rain
| twice I wasn't even aware of Ida until the clear morning after
| someone showed me flooded subway photos looking like from the
| end of MGS2. I'm not sure it was communicated properly save for
| the flash flooding broadcast that could have also come from
| just a lesser heavy thunderstorm.
| dylan604 wrote:
| From what I read, that was the very first time the NWS had
| every issued a Flash Flood warning for NYC. Seems like that
| might have earned it a little more attention.
|
| This reminds me of the people complaining about how
| destructive the floods in Houston were after Harvey.
| Nevermind that the forecasts for days leading up to it were
| 40" of rain. What part of 40" of rain sounds like no big
| deal?
| beerandt wrote:
| If you've never had to deal with it, you don't comprehend
| the danger.
|
| I know workers that moved to New Orleans after Katrina to
| do the actual post storm cleanup, first hand, and didn't
| evacuate for Ida, knowing it was a more powerful storm.
|
| Some of them had their entire roof(s) blown off and had
| 100' pine trees fall through their house while they were
| home, riding it out.
|
| Even seeing the post storm damage doesn't convey the actual
| danger _during_ these weather events.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"If you've never had to deal with it, you don't
| comprehend the danger."
|
| I don't believe you need to experience something first
| hand in order to comprehend the danger. I've never
| visited an active conflict zone but I fully comprehend
| the danger of traveling to one for a holiday. Conversely
| I have friends in New Orleans who didn't evacuate for
| Katrina who also didn't evacuate for Ida. They obviously
| comprehended the danger very well. There will always be
| people who are stubborn, careless or possibly just have a
| much higher risk profile regardless of their personal
| history.
|
| It's also odd to think that people wouldn't understand
| the danger of flash floods given that in the last 5 weeks
| alone we have seen the flash floods in Henan Province
| China as well as the flash flooding in Eastern Germany.
| These two flash flood events were major international
| news stories and you would be hard pressed to not have
| seen those images.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I've never visited an active conflict zone but I fully
| comprehend the danger of traveling to one for a holiday.
|
| Do you, really? Without even knowing which conflict zone,
| or doing any research? All areas of violence have had and
| will have a similar danger level?
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"Do you, really? Without even knowing which conflict
| zone, or doing any research?"
|
| Where did that even come from? I neither stated or even
| implied any of that. I haven't visited an active conflict
| zone precisely because I did research. It's somewhat
| bizarre you would make those assumptions when you know
| nothing about me.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"I'm not sure it was communicated properly save for the
| flash flooding broadcast that could have also come from just
| a lesser heavy thunderstorm."
|
| The National Weather Service Service issued it's first ever
| "flash flood emergency" for NYC on Wednesday.[1] It's not
| like these are common for the region.
|
| Alerts went out to cell phones in NJ and NY at 8:41PM EDT
| with 3 more alerts following. Why would it matter whether a
| flash flood emergency accompanies a heavy thunderstorm vs
| tropical storm? It's still the same potentially life-
| threatening and catastrophic event.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/NWSNewYorkNY/status/14332773220486635
| 54/...
| ijidak wrote:
| It's never clear to me what to do with a flash flood
| warning.
|
| Do I stay indoors? Do I move to higher ground?
|
| It can be a little vague as far as what should I do given
| my exact location.
|
| I guess it's up to each individual to research those things
| beforehand...
| bogomipz wrote:
| I believe the warning alerts advise not to travel unless
| fleeing flooding and the flash flood emergency alerts
| specifically state "move immediately to higher ground"
| and "don't walk or drive through flood areas."
|
| One criticism I've read a few times in the past week has
| been suggesting that people may have had alert fatigue.
| While it is true that things like the Weather Channel
| have contributed a lot of noise(naming winter storms for
| instance.) Additionally there were 4 separate alerts that
| went out the night of the flooding. And of course things
| like Amber alerts and similar seem to be commonplace now
| so there may be some truth to that. The irony however is
| that as a society we seem increasingly more fixated on
| our screens and don't mind the endless text messages and
| social media and app notifications yet somehow
| potentially life-saving alerts would be the source of
| fatigue.
| dnautics wrote:
| People forget that "superstorm sandy" wasn't even a hurricane,
| iirc it was a "tropical depression" by the time it got to nyc
| beerandt wrote:
| If you don't go through it, it must not be that bad.
|
| If you do go through it, it was worse than the category/
| windspeed/ storm surge numbers convey.
|
| "You just had to be there! It was way worse than just a
| tropical depression!"
|
| It was the media experiencing this phenomenon that gave birth
| to the hyperbolic term "Superstorm Sandy".
|
| Anyone who's actually been through a hurricane saw through it
| right away.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| In other interviews the engineers claim the levees were built to
| a 200-year level, and that a 100-year level would not have been
| sufficient for Ida.
| Filligree wrote:
| If we get 100-year storms every five years, then is that really
| the correct description?
| throwawaysea wrote:
| From the USGS page on 100 year floods
| (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-
| school/scie...):
|
| > The term "100-year flood" is used in an attempt to simplify
| the definition of a flood that statistically has a 1-percent
| chance of occurring in any given year. Likewise, the term
| "100-year storm" is used to define a rainfall event that
| statistically has this same 1-percent chance of occurring. In
| other words, over the course of 1 million years, these events
| would be expected to occur 10,000 times. But, just because it
| rained 10 inches in one day last year doesn't mean it can't
| rain 10 inches in one day again this year.
|
| And it looks like these terms are based on past data not
| future projections:
|
| > Since the 100-year flood level is statistically computed
| using past, existing data, as more data comes in, the level
| of the 100-year flood will change (especially if a huge flood
| hits in the current year). As more data are collected, or
| when a river basin is altered in a way that affects the flow
| of water in the river, scientists re-evaluate the frequency
| of flooding.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The entire rest of the west bank parishes is still protected by
| the "old" definition of a 100 year storm, and they had multiple
| breeches this year.
| ErikAugust wrote:
| http://trimread.org/articles/1154
| yread wrote:
| > Army Corps of Engineers, which rebuilt the system
|
| It's funny they don't mention the companies like Arcadis that
| actually designed the barrier, because they have the know-how
| from managing the Dutch flood barriers
|
| https://www.h2owaternetwerk.nl/h2o-actueel/beschermingssyste...
| xxpor wrote:
| Wow, someone in a US government (at any level) actually
| consulted a foreign expert for something? And a non-Anglo
| country at that?
|
| Can whoever was responsible please take over transit funding at
| DOT? We need so much more of this.
| koheripbal wrote:
| US gov't contracts frequently go to non-US companies - and
| non-US gov'ts contract US companies all the time.
|
| The global economy is, wait for it, global.
| beerandt wrote:
| With the political nature and extreme size of the project,
| there weren't many engineering companies with a presence in SE
| LA that didn't get a sizable contract out of it.
| sixothree wrote:
| There is plenty of good news from Louisiana. But mostly because
| of the levees holding, the loss of life was low.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-05 23:01 UTC)