Comments on: New Orleans: Dead and Gone? http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/ Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:23:24 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: b.rox » Blog Archive » Dead and Gone? http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11920 b.rox » Blog Archive » Dead and Gone? Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:35:33 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11920 [...] one? Check out this rather grim installment of PRI’s Open Source Radio, “New Orleans: Dead and Gone?” They called me and talked to me and almost us [...] [...] one? Check out this rather grim installment of PRI’s Open Source Radio, “New Orleans: Dead and Gone?” They called me and talked to me and almost us [...]

]]> By: Eracism » Open Thread http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11902 Eracism » Open Thread Fri, 09 Jun 2006 05:09:59 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11902 [...] open thread where we can post links and other information. I’ll start by noting that Marion LeGard is considered a blogger by Radio Open Source because of her postings here [...] [...] open thread where we can post links and other information. I’ll start by noting that Marion LeGard is considered a blogger by Radio Open Source because of her postings here [...]

]]> By: mcasemo http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11860 mcasemo Thu, 08 Jun 2006 03:12:30 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11860 New Orleans is not like Galveston. Galveston was devastated by a hurricane, New Orleans was flooded by flawed levees. Galveston is on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans is not. Houston is just as vulnerable as N.O. to a Hurricane. Go to Baton Rouge, then New Orleans. You will want to stay in New Orleans, even now. New Orleans is not like Galveston. Galveston was devastated by a hurricane, New Orleans was flooded by flawed levees. Galveston is on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans is not. Houston is just as vulnerable as N.O. to a Hurricane. Go to Baton Rouge, then New Orleans. You will want to stay in New Orleans, even now.

]]> By: tbrucia http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11854 tbrucia Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:24:10 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11854 New Orleans little 'sister city' is Galveston, Texas, devastated back in 1900 by a hurricane... Massive reconstruction recreated the city, but Galveston never came back as the city it once was (even with legalized gambling for quite some time). The port of Houston, Texas took over. Bit by bit, Galveston's few remaining industries left. The port became moribund -- even more so after Todd Shipyards closed in the aftermath of the oil busts of the 1980s. And now -- after spending $27 million dollars to evacuate last year, one of the only remaining large employers, the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is in serious financial trouble. What's left? Spring break on a few remaining beaches, a few cruise lines using it as a loading/unloading dock, and neighborhoods ridden with gangs and crime. Those who want to see the future of New Orleans need look no further than 370 miles west. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned, but I think the primary lesson from Texas's history is that Baton Rouge has a great opportunity to dominate southern Louisiana, displacing its older sister... New Orleans little ’sister city’ is Galveston, Texas, devastated back in 1900 by a hurricane… Massive reconstruction recreated the city, but Galveston never came back as the city it once was (even with legalized gambling for quite some time). The port of Houston, Texas took over. Bit by bit, Galveston’s few remaining industries left. The port became moribund — even more so after Todd Shipyards closed in the aftermath of the oil busts of the 1980s. And now — after spending $27 million dollars to evacuate last year, one of the only remaining large employers, the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is in serious financial trouble. What’s left? Spring break on a few remaining beaches, a few cruise lines using it as a loading/unloading dock, and neighborhoods ridden with gangs and crime. Those who want to see the future of New Orleans need look no further than 370 miles west. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned, but I think the primary lesson from Texas’s history is that Baton Rouge has a great opportunity to dominate southern Louisiana, displacing its older sister…

]]> By: Chanutin http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11852 Chanutin Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:48:41 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11852 New Orleans has a problem to the north as well as the south. What nobody is discussing in all this debate is the Atchafalaya River, which comes within a few miles of the Mississippi about 300 miles north of N.O. The Miss has changed paths many times since the last ice age. Silt builds up, raising the elevation of the lower end of the river till it finds a steeper and faster route to the Gulf. Back in the 1930's it started to flow down the Atchafalaya. When 30% of the flow was going down the Atch, the Army Corps built the Old River Project to stop it. Everyone in the Corps admits that it is just a holding action. Nature always wins. Someday within the next few decades N.O. will have a silted up mud flat instead of the Mississippi. No port, no barge traffic, no riverside industry. Just a little tourist section. New Orleans has a problem to the north as well as the south. What nobody is discussing in all this debate is the Atchafalaya River, which comes within a few miles of the Mississippi about 300 miles north of N.O. The Miss has changed paths many times since the last ice age. Silt builds up, raising the elevation of the lower end of the river till it finds a steeper and faster route to the Gulf. Back in the 1930’s it started to flow down the Atchafalaya. When 30% of the flow was going down the Atch, the Army Corps built the Old River Project to stop it. Everyone in the Corps admits that it is just a holding action. Nature always wins. Someday within the next few decades N.O. will have a silted up mud flat instead of the Mississippi. No port, no barge traffic, no riverside industry. Just a little tourist section.

]]> By: VolcanoDan http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11851 VolcanoDan Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:30:55 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11851 New Orleans is DOOMED! DOOMED! It sits on the detritus eroded from the mid-continent from the Appalachians to the Rockys and carried to the sea by the great rivers. This load is causing the crust to sink. That's the way the world works. N.O. is on an elevator going DOWN. It cannot be stopped. As this is happening, the sea is rising in accordance with Al Gore. The water is going UP, the land is going DOWN. There isn't enough money to save New Orleans in the entire universe. Everything else is wishful thinking. New Orleans is DOOMED! DOOMED!

It sits on the detritus eroded from the mid-continent from the Appalachians to the Rockys and carried to the sea by the great rivers. This load is causing the crust to sink. That’s the way the world works. N.O. is on an elevator going DOWN. It cannot be stopped.

As this is happening, the sea is rising in accordance with Al Gore. The water is going UP, the land is going DOWN. There isn’t enough money to save New Orleans in the entire universe.

Everything else is wishful thinking.

]]> By: mirella http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11850 mirella Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:54:08 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11850 I find it quite extraordinary that we consider the future of New Orleans while we've not yet investigated or buried the crimes that brought it to its current ambivalent status. What's happening now repeats the history of building levees on unstable ground, and of not repairing them despite thirty years of warning from Louisiana representatives, environmentalists, and journalists, who warned just a few years before the hurricane that a disaster would cover the city with a toxic soup and strand/kill the 100,000 who couldn't get out. And now we learn that the water breached through the levees, that it didn't top them, and that by the time the hurricane reached the city it was a category 1. And what about the tax dollars flowing into the coffers of the same old same old contractors, who begin to be omnipresent at global disasters, Mssrs. Halliburton, Kellogg, brown, & root and their subcontractors. A couple of weeks after the hurricane, the former head of Fema, (I recall that he was an immunologist, forgot his name) from 1987 to sometime in the nineties was interviewed for an hour on NPR, and said this (I paraphrase, but correctly): the government won't tell the the truth to the people going back to build the city-- that no one should ever go back again to live in New Orleans. He said that the chemical combinations with new bacteria and viruses growing in the muck would produce particulates that people would be breathing, and that in a decade, if not less, we'd see newdiseases in the city that no one could diagnose because no one will know what new viruses and chemicals were created that they were breathing. ( He pointed out that there's no reportage on the people who, told it was safe, went back to their neighborhoods and apartments after 9/11,who are now sick and dying.) I'd like to hear a well researched hour on the health hazards in New Orleans that no one's talking about. I'd like to hear another hour on the abdication by the media of their responsibility to protect the public by reporting what they know, let alone what they seem unwilling to investigate. New Orleans: A city that was regarded as one of the jewels in the crown of planetary cities, ignored for five days, while it sank in a soup from hell, by the president and the agencies set up to deal with disasters. Even Lewis Carroll and George Orwell combined wouldn't have risked their reputations writing, as fiction, such a story. I find it quite extraordinary that we consider the future of New Orleans while we’ve not yet investigated or buried the crimes that brought it to its current ambivalent status.
What’s happening now repeats the history of building levees on unstable ground, and of not repairing them despite thirty years of warning from Louisiana representatives, environmentalists, and journalists, who warned just a few years before the hurricane that a disaster would cover the city with a toxic soup and strand/kill the 100,000 who couldn’t get out.

And now we learn that the water breached through the levees, that it didn’t top them, and that by the time the hurricane reached the city it was a category 1.

And what about the tax dollars flowing into the coffers of the same old same old contractors, who begin to be omnipresent at global disasters, Mssrs. Halliburton, Kellogg, brown, & root and their subcontractors.

A couple of weeks after the hurricane, the former head of Fema, (I recall that he was an immunologist, forgot his name) from 1987 to sometime in the nineties was interviewed for an hour on NPR, and said this (I paraphrase, but correctly): the government won’t tell the the truth to the people going back to build the city– that no one should ever go back again to live in New Orleans.

He said that the chemical combinations with new bacteria and viruses growing in the muck would produce particulates that people would be breathing, and that in a decade, if not less, we’d see newdiseases in the city that no one could diagnose because no one will know what new viruses and chemicals were created that they were breathing. ( He pointed out that there’s no reportage on the people who, told it was safe, went back to their neighborhoods and apartments after 9/11,who are now sick and dying.)

I’d like to hear a well researched hour on the health hazards in New Orleans that no one’s talking about.

I’d like to hear another hour on the abdication by the media of their responsibility to protect the public by reporting what they know, let alone what they seem unwilling to investigate.

New Orleans: A city that was regarded as one of the jewels in the crown of planetary cities, ignored for five days, while it sank in a soup from hell, by the president and the agencies set up to deal with disasters. Even Lewis Carroll and George Orwell combined wouldn’t have risked their reputations writing, as fiction, such a story.

]]> By: mcasemo http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11848 mcasemo Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:07:43 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11848 The most important thing for people outside of N.O. to understand is the reason why N.O. flooded. Federally funded, designed, and constructed levees failed under conditions that they were designed for (Katrina was a weak Cat 3 or 2 in N.O.). Everyone would have been able to walk up to their houses and resume their lives if the levees performed as advertised. The Army Corp has admitted responsibility to the largest disaster in America. This is how N.O. Flooded http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf Competent levees are not a something that is in the realm of science fiction. Wetland restoration is something that is achievable. Infrastructure designed to protect a huge national asset should be a priority. Harry Shearer said “A broken New Orleans is better than most other cities intact.� He is right. Come see if you don’t believe it. This is why people will return. But N.O. can be fixed a whole lot quicker if America realized that rebuilding New Orleans would be Justice, not charity. The most important thing for people outside of N.O. to understand is the reason why N.O. flooded. Federally funded, designed, and constructed levees failed under conditions that they were designed for (Katrina was a weak Cat 3 or 2 in N.O.). Everyone would have been able to walk up to their houses and resume their lives if the levees performed as advertised. The Army Corp has admitted responsibility to the largest disaster in America.

This is how N.O. Flooded
http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf

Competent levees are not a something that is in the realm of science fiction. Wetland restoration is something that is achievable. Infrastructure designed to protect a huge national asset should be a priority.

Harry Shearer said “A broken New Orleans is better than most other cities intact.� He is right. Come see if you don’t believe it. This is why people will return. But N.O. can be fixed a whole lot quicker if America realized that rebuilding New Orleans would be Justice, not charity.

]]> By: avecfrites http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11842 avecfrites Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:53:55 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11842 If Al Gore is correct, than in a few years losing one city per year will be seen as the good old days. I suspect that we've reached a point where, combining cultural indifference to others, budget difficulties, and worsening climate, the only cities rebuilt from now on will be those populated by white people in electoral battleground states. Are we ready for waves of modern day "Okies" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie)fleeing their homes in search of work and life in other parts of the country? If Al Gore is correct, than in a few years losing one city per year will be seen as the good old days.

I suspect that we’ve reached a point where, combining cultural indifference to others, budget difficulties, and worsening climate, the only cities rebuilt from now on will be those populated by white people in electoral battleground states. Are we ready for waves of modern day “Okies” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie)fleeing their homes in search of work and life in other parts of the country?

]]> By: jarch http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11837 jarch Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:09:11 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11837 *I hope you will talk about how the people who want to be there can't get mortages to rebuild because they can't get insurance, and the insurance companies won't insure without guaranteed levees - thus Army Corp of Engineers, FEMA, and general US gov. non-action. It doesn't seem to matter what indiividuals or communities might want. *also I hope you will cover the mental health of the people struggling to remain and remake lives - I found such depression and anger, despair - quiet , but pervasive. *and friends have mentioned blue tarps in Ft. Lauderdale - hurricane damage from 2 years ago still not repaired . Have we given up on more than New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi? *I hope you will talk about how the people who want to be there can’t get mortages to rebuild because they can’t get insurance, and the insurance companies won’t insure without guaranteed levees – thus Army Corp of Engineers, FEMA, and general US gov. non-action. It doesn’t seem to matter what indiividuals or communities might want.
*also I hope you will cover the mental health of the people struggling to remain and remake lives – I found such depression and anger, despair – quiet , but pervasive.
*and friends have mentioned blue tarps in Ft. Lauderdale – hurricane damage from 2 years ago still not repaired . Have we given up on more than New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi?

]]> By: hurley http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11834 hurley Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:31:47 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11834 Harry Schearer, who lives part of the year in new Orleans, has been doing some excellent commentary on the situation there on his radio show, Le Show (archives available online). He's smart, funny, impassioned, and would likely make an excellent guest. Harry Schearer, who lives part of the year in new Orleans, has been doing some excellent commentary on the situation there on his radio show, Le Show (archives available online). He’s smart, funny, impassioned, and would likely make an excellent guest.

]]> By: Scarequotes http://www.radioopensource.org/new-orleans-dead-and-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-11829 Scarequotes Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:34:12 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=551#comment-11829 Simon Winchester had some <a href="http://www.studio360.org/show111205.html" rel="nofollow">excellent insights</a> about New Orleans and what conditions are necessary for a city to recover from disaster on <i>Studio 360</i>. I think he'd be an excellent person to talk to -- he also mentions how cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix are at risk for similar catastrophes for different reasons (loss of electricity, in their cases). Simon Winchester had some excellent insights about New Orleans and what conditions are necessary for a city to recover from disaster on Studio 360. I think he’d be an excellent person to talk to — he also mentions how cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix are at risk for similar catastrophes for different reasons (loss of electricity, in their cases).

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