There's a museum in New Orleans that has a Katrina display and it turns out that they did indeed call in Dutch experts to advise them. The Dutch gave them sensible ideas like building low elevation parks that could flood without issue and hold lots of water, instead of concrete spillways and drainage that just moves water fast until it fails catastrophically when inundated. Louisiana being Louisiana, it was all ignored.

The museum convinced me that New Orleans is doomed in so many ways. Everything from the Atchafalaya ORCS to the paving over of wetlands to build the city to the destruction of the Plaquemines marsh lands to the southeast of the city all seem to be maximally unhelpful for preventing storm damage.

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TitaRusell 2 days ago | parent [-]

The reality is that New Orleans is simply not important enough.

Even the biggest ultra conservative GOP voting redneck will have to admit that America can't survive without NYC which is why it will get it's seawall.

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snowpid 2 days ago | parent [-]

This is very fascinating from a cultural viewpoint. Some cities in Europe are important just for the history and not economy like Venice, or lesser extent Rome. When the Russian attack started, people moaned about the old buildings and the culture in Kyiv. (Ofcourse the attack itself was inmoral).

What I get is New Orleans has an unique culture and history. Most people in the US dont think it is worth to preserve?

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sjs382 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

When you look at who the rest of Louisiana voted for, they don't even want to preserve New Orleans. They're literally terrified of it and were elected on the promise to subjugate it.

What they really want to preserve is stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/live/mHljI5JbnTM?si=dReL9sZKiqtNlvpr...

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criddell 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Most people in the US think everybody should have access to basic healthcare but we haven't been able to make that happen.

Something like saving New Orleans probably doesn't stand a chance.

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snowpid 2 days ago | parent [-]

I mean this is a sign of the flawed political process. But even in a working democracy if people arent interested, politican mostly wont care. So Americans dont think New Orleans is worth to preserve?

	▲	criddell 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've been reading more about New Orleans situation this morning and my thinking is changing. It would be nice if we could preserve it, but I didn't really understand how bad the situation is. I don't think it's possible and spending should be focused on relocating people from the area. New Orleans is probably going to be a fairly small island 20 miles offshore that gets drowned by hurricanes every few years.