Moonbear said:
There's a difference between knowing the levees could breach if there was a Cat 5 hurricane, and thinking such a storm would actually hit. Everyone has always known N.O. was built in a bowl prone to flooding and the levees protected it, somewhat, from that. And when the levees were built, they knew what they had designed them to do.
That NO would be hit by Cat 4 or 5 hurricane is/was inevitable, and perhpas many are guilty of hoping the inevitable would never happen. The levees and drainage should have been done differently along time ago, but Federal and State governments seldom work well in tandem - although certainly programs like TVA seem to work. The design of levees and canals were inadequate for the predictable surges. On the other hand, it is only in the last 10 or so years that the models have become sufficiently sophisticated to elucidate the potential problems.
Beyond the levees were the pump stations, which were knowingly inadequate.
Likely NO will get another Cat 4/5 and then another, perhaps at least one every 10 years or so. Let's what happens this year if Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf temperatures become similarly warm.
Moonbear said:
Rebuilding levees is not something done overnight either, so even if in 2001, someone knew there was a potential problem, that there was a trend for storms getting more intense and likely exceeding the tolerance limits of the existing leveees, it still takes time to plan to reinforce them and actually do the construction. And, what happens in the section under construction when a hurricane hits?
True, but potential problems were known many years before that. Certainly knowing that the levees might fail, the various governments should have had a sound evacuation plan. Even the National Guard got caught off-guard and was flooded out. If anyone should have been prepared, the National Guard should have been - that's there function!
Moonbear said:
Hurricanes are natural, and sometimes humans lose the battle against nature. That there was a chance the city could be destroyed by a very powerful hurricane is hardly the issue. What the issue really was is how it was handled in terms of the people living there when it became known that such a hurricane really was on the way. Planning ahead for evacuations is something that was within the control of those in charge, the hurricane itself was not.
We can anticipate conditions of storms and earthquakes. My company specializes in predictive analysis and our models can should when and where any structure is deficient. Others can do the same.
Buildings and many key structures in California are built to certain seismic standards. The most powerful earthquakes would likely cause failure, but the probability might be very low that such an earthquake would occur, or at least ground accelerations at the particular building site might be limited.
Buildings can be built to withstand high winds. When I was an iron worker, I worked on a Federal project at an oil refinery in which we constructed a building to withstand > 150 mph winds! Nearby houses were not, and they would have been demolished in such a storm, but our building would still be standing. The Federal government spared no expense on that project.
As for the Federal government not have the money, it seems that they can find money for S&L bailout, Strategic defense initiative, various corporate subsidies, various highway projects, the war in Iraq at ~$100 billion/yr.
