Is New Orleans safe?Byline: The Register-Guard A couple hundred thousand New Orleans New Orleans (ôr`lēənz –lənz, ôrlēnz`), city (2006 pop. 187,525), coextensive with Orleans parish, SE La., between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, 107 mi (172 km) by water from the river mouth; founded residents who fled the city to escape the fury of Hurricane Katrina  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. won't be coming back until
they get answers to three key questions.
No. 1 on every list: Is the city safe? They're not referring to crime, though that's a hot issue in a metropolitan area with a pre-Katrina per capita [Latin, By the heads or polls.] A term used in the Descent and Distribution of the estate of one who dies without a will. It means to share and share alike according to the number of individuals. murder rate 7.5 times the national average. Evacuees Resident or transient persons who have been ordered or authorized to move by competent authorities, and whose movement and accommodation are planned, organized and controlled by such authorities. want to know if the concrete and steel levees that ruptured last summer, wrecking their homes and killing more than 1,000 people, have been repaired. And not just repaired, but rebuilt to withstand another Katrina-class storm. No. 2: What about housing? Within that question there are dozens of others. Why is it taking so long to process permits for temporary trailers? What compensation is available for those whose homes were destroyed? Where will people be allowed to rebuild? Where will renters and residents of housing projects live? When will the city's flood-ravaged infrastructure - water, power, sewer, gas, telephone, traffic signals, signage - that's still out of service six months later be restored in residential areas? No. 3: What's being done to protect Louisiana's disappearing coastal wetlands that act as a buffer against hurricane winds and deadly storm surges? The state's precious coastal salt marshes are literally disappearing before people's eyes, washing away at the astonishing a·ston·ish tr.v. as·ton·ished, as·ton·ish·ing, as·ton·ish·es To fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. rate of an acre every 35 minutes. For every 2.7 linear miles of marshland lost, there is an additional foot of storm surge. Katrina proved - and Hurricane Rita Hurricane Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $11.3 billion in damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005. a month later emphatically confirmed - that neglecting this vital coastal buffer endangers the entire flood-control levee levee (lĕv`ē) [Fr.,=raised], embankment built along a river to prevent flooding by high water. Levees are the oldest and the most extensively used method of flood control. system. With the start of the 2006 hurricane season Hurricane season refers to a period in a year when hurricanes usually form. For more information see: Tropical cyclone#Times of formation. For a lists of past seasons, see:
Homeless New Orleanians feel betrayed by the Corps of Engineers, which built the levees that washed out. Katrina blew away the corps' credibility with many of the hurricane's victims. The catastrophic collapse of the city's protective levees is being called the greatest engineering failure in American history, measured by lives lost, people displaced and property destroyed. Even before floodwaters receded, a hurricane of blame gathered strength in the devastated dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. city and headed straight for corps headquarters. A number of investigations - including a criminal negligence The failure to use reasonable care to avoid consequences that threaten or harm the safety of the public and that are the foreseeable outcome of acting in a particular manner. probe by the Justice Department - are attempting to determine exactly what caused the levees to give way. Disputes have flared over levee design, soil analysis and the safety margin the corps used to engineer the levees. Louisiana's levee districts also have been the target of harsh criticism for lax maintenance and for failing to control growth of brush and large trees near the levees. Job 1 is to find and fix whatever caused the levees to collapse. People simply won't return unless they believe the levees are better than they were before Katrina. That's especially true of specialists such as health care professionals whose skills are highly portable and who have no incentive to reinvest in a risky locale. But unless Louisiana - with appropriate federal assistance - simultaneously addresses restoration of its wetlands, it's only a question of time before another hurricane causes the system to fail. Katrina and Rita converted a 118-mile-long stretch of coastal marsh into open water, moving the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east closer to New Orleans. Measured against the still-climbing, multi-billion-dollar price tag of Katrina and Rita, the estimated $14 billion it would cost over 25 years to restore Louisiana's wetlands is a bargain. Congress should consider it hurricane insurance with a bonus: In addition to buffering five crucial deep-water ports and the city of New Orleans, the money would prevent the irretrievable loss of one of the richest and most unique ecosystems in the nation, a place that provides a home to almost 100 endangered species endangered species, any plant or animal species whose ability to survive and reproduce has been jeopardized by human activities. In 1999 the U.S. government, in accordance with the U.S. and roosting for millions of migratory birds. Few taxpayer investments would offer a greater return. Associate Editor Jim Godbold recently returned from a National Conference of Editorial Writers fact-finding trip to Louisiana and Mississippi. |
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