Louisiana, Sinking Fast, Prepares to Empty Out Its Coastal Plain
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
It naturally wanted to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin, instead all the silt and sand that would've gone into building the wetlands is being diverted and dumped directly into Gulf.
Look at a map sometime and you can clearly see it, the "toe" of Louisiana (south of New Orleans) is growing out into the gulf, this is the trillions of tons of silt and sand. Meanwhile the "heel" is shrinking, as the Gulf slowly erodes it.
Note: This is not an anti ACoE diatribe. Its just that anytime this story gets national coverage they fail to mention the cause, which is locally well known and well understood.
The real reason for the subsidence is that the sediment that makes up river deltas slowly compacts under its own weight, expelling pore water and becoming more dense. This is natural and unavoidable, although it might be marginally enhanced by oil and gas extraction (it is a bigger problem with groundwater withdrawal in other areas).
You are completely correct in that there are many different factors involved that are all causing problems; unfortunately they are all interrelated.
we'd still be evacuating, we would just be evacuating that area instead. This is a problem for EVERY port, and coastal area, that we built below sea level. As the sea level rises, a new reality takes shape. There's nothing particularly novel about Louisiana in this regard. In fact, that's the entire reason we hope to use the Louisiana experience as a blueprint for our plan of action in other areas.
I'm not actually advocating one way or the other. Its understandable why the ACoE did what they did. I'm simply saying this is the result of that decision.
Objections from the right can be answered with this:
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
Matthew 7:24-27
It also talks about oil and gas exploration as one of the reasons for coastal erosion. Lastly they'll force people and their properties out but still allow commercial development on the property(I guess more oily and gassy things?).
I am not sure what to make of it all but at least they're doing something about it.
This is actually an extremely sound policy Louisiana has put forth for handling a situation they have little control over. I’d expect it to become a model for other coastal states who will be facing similar issues as sea level rises (with exceptions for very wealthy communities, such as Miami Beach, where they can fund hundreds of millions of dollars in preventative measures for the moment).
Places like New Orleans, Norfolk, Portland, Houston, New York etc should probably take priority. Those are the places where if they disappeared tomorrow, people in other places in the US would definitely feel a pinch. Not just the US either... if some of those ports disappeared, it would directly affect the nutritional intake of children in other parts of the world.
I can only speak for my local area but New York City and New Jersey were not prepared at all. I was in a pretty good physical location when the storm hit, all things considered, but we were without power for 10 days. Luckily we had a gas station within walking distance and they gave priority to people who walked up with gas cans over cars in the mile long line idling around our neighborhood.
There were a bunch of news stories about people stealing generators. Necessities were sold out basically everywhere with little chance of restocking. Things got hairy, for sure.
The amount of people who scoffed at warnings were most likely the ones depending on a handy neighbor who was better prepared and better suited to calming down and making the best of the bad situation. I think it was a much needed, although terrible, wake up call for unprepared folks.
It was really nice to see so many people band together but the main takeaway I got from it was that I've never seen my area so close to complete breakdown and eventually mass chaos.
Why we aren't doing more to prevent that exact type of fallout from something we KNOW is coming? It feels like the definition of insanity to do otherwise. After witnessing it first hand and having no idea what it would be like to live in a hurricane or natural disaster-prone area, having to deal with it yearly, I NEVER want to deal with that again. Since I really have no say in what mother nature does, all I can do is say I NEVER want to be as unprepared for another disaster as I was before.
I also realize it's not so simple to pack your entire life up and move to a "more safe" location but there has to be some sort of graph where the cost of paying out insurance, cleaning up the mess, restoring supply chains, and all the other costs that come with a natural disaster equalizes with the cost of preparing as best as possible.
>the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria
That hits the nail on the head about what I was trying to say. Thank you for saying it much more succinctly!
New Jersey got hit in striations of severity so while 1/2 of the state was in maximum emergency mode the other 1/2 of the populous wasn't affected what so ever. They were awake Monday morning competing with all of the folks struggling to survive except they were on their normal routine of heading to work. They acted as if everyone else experiencing trouble were inconveniencing them, also. It was really shocking to see the cognitive dissonance of that group of people during Sandy.
That striation of severity was odd although not impossible to conceive. It caused a sort of suspicion that things really couldn't have been that bad for "neighbors" considering the unaffected people had no damage, no flooding, no power outages, and no felled trees in their yard or local roadways.
My area, on the other hand, was an utter disaster. I was living a bit away from my parents but my first thought after securing my home was to head to my parents house and ensure they were warm and taken care of. There are about 15 different routes I could have taken to get from my area to my parents area. Two were main roads and the other ~13 were back roads and other arteries that cut through the main routes I'd usually take. It took me 9 tries to find a route that wasn't completely blocked off by fallen trees. Once I finally did find a route to make it to my destination it was, of course, the steepest route. The entire roadway was covered in a thin layer of black ice and my poor front wheel drive Honda Civic was barely gripping that ice to get me to the top.
Of course it was my luck to get behind a big SUV. That SUV had no trouble climbing the hill but the real problem was that SUV's decision to brake -- for no reason at all -- before the top of the hill. The slow down in momentum for me killed my climb and I wound up having to pull off onto the shoulder. I slammed on my horn out of fury but I doubt the SUV driver realized what trouble they caused me. It took me 15 minutes of dropping my automatic car into "1st gear" and slamming the gas pedal until my hot tires melted some black ice which gained me the traction needed to gain my momentum back. I was all but 75 feet from the top of a .75 mile hill. It was really shitty, for lack of better words.
That scenario was playing out all over New Jersey since 1/2 of everybody was locked indoors and the other 1/2 was "free" to act normally. Quite an odd scenario. I hope I never have to live through another storm so wicked with a fallout so near Max Max-level, as you said.
Solution to being assumed a ddos attack agent
the dangling incentive will artificially sustain coastal developments
frankly if we are going to bail out home owners on coasts, why not home owners near fire risk areas?
Storm surge is like a slow tsunami, driven by weather instead of techtonics. And the Mississippi clears nearly the entire Midwest. Flooding anywhere along the tributaries ends up in Louisiana eventually.
That family is probably on the lower end of the buyout cost, but it puts the total cost of a buyout in the range of $1 billion or $10 billion.
So then the question is how much flood protection can be built for a similar cost.
I think there's also issues with flood controls for one area making flood control in other areas more difficult. So drawing a line can help with that.
Of course they are allowing commercial developments to continue, check this out:
Louisiana – Other Oil & Gas Infrastructure: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries...
Louisiana – pipelines and platforms: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries...
I had never heard of salt dome storage until reading this book. Scary stuff.
And as far as protecting land value, that shouldn't be funded at a national level (it could be somewhat subsidized by cheap loans or something), it should be funded by the owners of the land.
Articles should show the maps.
Polders and Dikes of The Netherlands for comparison: https://www.thoughtco.com/polders-and-dikes-of-the-netherlan...