Rebuilding | Green Energy News

September 4, 2005 – Vol.10 No.24

REBUILDING.

In an AP-Ipsos poll, 54 percent of Americans thought that much of New Orleans shouldn’t be rebuilt. Whole portions of the city should be relocated to higher ground, they say.

They’d probably think differently if was THEIR community that was deemed uninhabitable.

Nonetheless New Orleans will be rebuilt.

But how it will be rebuilt is the question. It would be irresponsible to do any rebuilding unless the worse case scenario is considered - another even stronger hurricane hits the city. The city, as well as other areas hit by Katrina - Gulf Port, Biloxi, etc - need to rebuilt with the belief that the worst can happen.

And, too, it would be irresponsible to rebuild without allowing the protective natural hurricane buffer - the Mississippi River Delta Basin - to rebuild both naturally and with the help of man.

It seems likely that whole neighborhoods - thousands of homes and businesses - will have to leveled. Will they be replaced with parkland or will massive amounts of fill be brought in to raise the areas above sea level? Or will levees be rebuilt higher and stronger? Or will homes be built on stilts the way they are in other flood zones?

We’ll see.

It should be up to the citizens and local governments to decide how the city is rebuilt. But, even though federal moneys will be used, they can’t follow the Bush Administrations stand that virtually ignores global warming. The warm waters that fueled Katrina along with more frequent and powerful hurricanes might be products of global warming, or not. We don’t know. The devastated area needs to take precautions just in case. Global warming has to be considered in the effort to rebuild.

The people of the U.S. have rallied to help the victims of Katrina, now they need to rally to help make sure the city and all the areas affected are rebuilt thoughtfully with the hazards of the future in mind.

For a bone-chilling premonition of Katrina and the plight of the Louisiana bayou read this story published a year ago in National Geographic.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/