New Orleans 8' under sea level Rebuilding????

[Dargo]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Got pictures?! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[mwechtal]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Junk,
Adding to your list of mother nature beating up on the Northeast:

In '72 hurricane Agnes put a world of hurt on NY, PA, and I think parts of VA. She sat just off the coast at levels just around the minimum for hurricane force winds and rained on us. It rained for about 40 days and 40 nights. I bet some of you didn't think that could really happen! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif The Chemung and Susquehanna rivers and lots of smaller rivers flooded. Luckily, it weakened and moved offshore and the waters drained a few days after the levees (called dikes around here) failed. There was essentially no wind damage here, just a nice steady rain. There weren't a lot of houses totally lost, but I do have pictures somewhere of houses floating down the Chemung. Corning and Elmira were probably the most affected in NY, and I hear that Wilkes-Barre PA was worse.

Just another thing that can happen in the Northeast. If I remember right, only about 200 people died, and it cost $3 billion to clean up the mess. Of course, this is pocket change compared to the mess in NO.

Mike

 

[timb]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Agnes did a lot in PA - put downtown Pittsburgh under several feet of water, closed down the town for many days. At the peak of the storm the area rivers were dumping something like 35 times the normal flow downstream. And eastern PA got it worse than we did. A lot of things went away in PA after Agnes. Whole roads, railroad lines, factories, I think even some small towns - just weren't considered worth 'rebuilding' and were abandoned. They were already econmically marginal at that point and Agnes was the last straw.

Hurricane Ivans record rainfall last year on top of saturated ground from storms a week earlier flooded out many areas and damaged tens of thousands of homes and thousands of (mostly small) businesses. Many have rebuilt but there are still a lot that have not reopened and may never come back.

For sure there's no place that's completely safe from big storms like these.

I work at the headquarters of a national company and we're still missing 7 or 8 employees from the Katrina storm zone, but that number's down from several dozen a few days ago as folks are finally able to make contact.

 

[BB_TX]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Does it make sense to rebuild it? Depends on who you ask I guess. Some buildings in New Orleans have been standing over 100 yrs. San Francisco and Anchorage rebuilt on the same site after devastating earthquakes and never looked back. Florida and other SE Atlantic and gulf coast towns and cities destroyed by hurricanes and rebuilt would never think about moving even though that threat continues to exist. Dallas, Wichita Falls, Waco, Amarillo have suffered major tornado damage, but they rebuilt on the same spot. Building codes in all these areas have been improved, but the locations are still the same. If you had lived your entire life there and never had that kind of damage, would you rebuild there? Even though you knew it could happen again? Probably. I live in the southern end of tornado alley. If one came along and destroyed my house, I would rebuild here even though it could happen again. Deep roots are hard to pull up.

 

[Amontilado]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Mike,

Did you ever see the book/magzine that was put out after Agnes? I grew up in eastern Centre County and Agnes was the only storm I ever saw that water ever came close to coming in my parents basement. Their house is about 15' higher and 125yds away from the creek that passes by. The house was built over 200yrs ago, when they had common sense to build away from the streams/rivers.

I still remember the picture of an Amish buggy sitting in axle deep water next to a power company truck in what is called the Milheim Narrows by the locals (me included). When Ivan passed here on the Gulf coast, called the p's to say everythnig was ok and Ivan had flooded the creek to Agnes proportions. I guess that's why I got into the weather thing.

Steve

 

[mwechtal]

Re: New Orleans 8\' under sea level Rebuilding????

Steve,
No, I didn't see that book. I'm sure I'd have bought it if the price was anywhere near reasonable. I'll have to look around for one.

I lived in Horseheads at the time, which is just north of Elmira and a little higher. So we weren't flooded, but we had relatives that were. You get pretty tired of shoveling flood mud pretty fast.

I hadn't met my wife yet, but my in-laws in Corning had water nearly to the 2nd floor, and my FIL went back for one more armload and ended up stuck in the house for a couple of days with the dog and cat.

My wife and I live on top of a hill outside Corning. We didn't even LOOK at houses in the valley. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Mike