[backstop]

Has USA lost drive to rebuild after tragedies ?

It appears to have lost the drive even to locate, count and bury the bodies with respect -

With around 1,300 bodies obtained from New Orleans, around 6,600 are still missing - of whom an unknown fraction are under the untouched ruins.


Revi - with regard to walling oneself into a fortress mentality there are at least two key problems -

First, every industrialized nation is dependent on massive imports from their orderly production in IIIW countries -
There is no solution in isolation.

Second, if we retreat to fortresses we not only withdraw from the moral high ground of open ended mutual aid,
we also carry with us that utterly callous lack of concern for others, which will prove viciously corrosive of cohesion within our fortresses -
Again, there is no solution in isolation.

regards,

Backstop

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', '
')With around 1,300 bodies obtained from New Orleans, around 6,600 are still missing - of whom an unknown fraction are under the untouched ruins.

[gnm]

Doly, I have a freind that just got back from doing volunteer cleanup work there. She said that areas of near total devastation (piles of rubble, houses half collapsed, no power or utilities etc) stretch for blocks in some quarters. From some of the pics I've seen it looks like we are talking about square miles of devastation still. And thats just in the city.

-G

[Leanan]

There is no solution in isolation...but there is also no solution without isolation.

In Collapse, Jared Diamond talks about something called "overcrowded lifeboat syndrome."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tarving people would have poured into Gardar [the largest farm], and the outnumbered chiefs and church officials could no longer prevent them from slaughtering the last cattle and sheep. Gardar's supplies, which might have sufficed to keep Gardar's own inhabitants alive if all their neighbors could have been kept out, would have been used up in the last winter when everyone tried to climb into the overcrowded lifeboat, eating the dogs and newborn lifestock and the cows' hoofs as they had at the end of the Western settlement.

[Revi]

The idea of lifeboating is an interesting one. What can we do if we get overwhelmed? There aren't enough resources in our own territory to support us in the style to which we have become accustomed. When supplies start to run low what are people going to do? We are going to need some kind of strong authority to maintain order. I envision some places going down into the kind of chaos that enveloped New Orleans. Other places will fare better. I hope the part of the country I'm in won't get too crazy. We'll see.

[hull3551]

Personally I am appalled that people here feel there is no need to assist in the rebuilding effort of NO because of its lack of economic benefit and contribution. This sets a horrible precedent in this country, especially as the federal government is broke due to military overstretch. And every indication lends to the belief that our government will be equally ineffective in the next disaster – whatever it may be. Just pray that it doesn’t happen to you, ‘cause chance are you’re on your own.

Not to digress, but isn’t this basically what people are up in arms about right now in Connecticut (ie, eminent domain)? So what is being said is that an infrastructure should not be rebuilt that does not offer economic benefit? It is indeed a sad day when our society relinquishes responsibility for its people because of cost benefit analyses, or "because they ae poor."

If this is indeed the case, then we probably will not bother to rebuild SF when the next big one hits. As was seen in the Manhattan Financial District, companies easily relocated to NJ or other less expensive places. This too will probably happen in SF due to the cost prohibitive nature of doing business in the Bay Area, especially as more jobs can be offshored.

For that matter then, why should we even rebuild sewers, water mains, electrical substations, etc. in areas that prove to offer no economic benefit? “They’re poor and they can go elsewhere.” Again, if this is the attitude the US society takes, then the US is screwed. Unfortunately, people are not going to see the light until it’s way too late, or until the next catastrophe directly impacts them, such as the next terrorist attack, or if the ocean levels begin to rise and you see widespread erosion and destruction of the highly populated coastlines.

This was an excellent statement:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('backstop', '
')…if we retreat to fortresses we not only withdraw from the moral high ground of open ended mutual aid, we also carry with us that utterly callous lack of concern for others, which will prove viciously corrosive of cohesion within our fortresses -

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hull3551', '
')For that matter then, why should we even rebuild sewers, water mains, electrical substations, etc. in areas that prove to offer no economic benefit? “They’re poor and they can go elsewhere.” Again, if this is the attitude the US society takes, then the US is screwed. Unfortunately, people are not going to see the light until it’s way too late, or until the next catastrophe directly impacts them, such as the next terrorist attack, or if the ocean levels begin to rise and you see widespread erosion and destruction of the highly populated coastlines.

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hull3551', '
')Again, the blatant apathy (or antipathy) of our fellow man or woman is truly scary.

[Leanan]

My reaction to NOLA is the same as my reaction to Outer Banks towns that were destroyed by Hurricane Fran, or the houses destroyed every few years by flooding in the Midwest, or those houses sliding into the sea in California. Of course we should help the victims, but we should not help them rebuild in the same spot. It's not a good use of taxpayers' money.

The Infeasibility of Rebuilding New Orleans

The Mississippi doesn't want to pass by New Orleans any more. It wants to move west, toward Texas. We can only keep it flowing uphill for so long. New Orleans is doomed. Even if we rebuild it, it's doomed.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', ' ')I agree, economics has something to do with the ineffectualism regarding NOLA, but natural obstacles present much more of a reason for the inaction in rebuilding that city.

[Leanan]

Well said, smallpoxgirl. That is pretty much how I see it.

[Primate]

New Orleans will not be rebuilt to its former self and only half the original population will probably return. There are many good ideas about how the city might reinvent itself, but it's unclear that with all the competing interest groups whether some of the best plans will be realized. Of the many things that tick people off here is that Katrina should not have inflicted the damage that it did. Most people here understand that rebuilding levees for Cat 5 protection is unrealistic (Still, some will ask). However, providing the levee protection and floodwall system that the US Army Corps of Engineers was supposed to have built in the first place--to the original specifications--is something different. A breech in one of those floodwalls, the 17th Street canal floodwall, inundated a large sector of the city with a significant white population--mostly middle class but also some very wealthy households. Media attention has however focused almost exclusively on the poor, black neighborhoods.

Many of these and other areas of town should not be rebuilt, and probably won't be rebuilt--despite all the uproar--based on elevation or level of protection. The city today looks more like it's original historic footprint. How long will geology spare even those portions of town? That is quite unclear. On the other hand, how many other areas of the country will face their own limits and in what time frame? Most people on this board may give less time to suburbia than to the higher ground in New Orleans. In the meantime, come on down, take the disaster tour, enjoy the cuisine, and have a drink.

[Novus]

I think it is foolish to consider rebuilding New Orleans given the massive upheaval climate change is going to bring. In 50 years New Orleans might be Open Sea. In the near term more likely than not is that NO will also be hit by another Cat 5 hurricane in the next 10 years.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f the many things that tick people off here is that Katrina should not have inflicted the damage that it did.

[Primate]

Well, Leanan, don't take it personally. I'm not indicting all engineers, the the profession, or human nature, just the good folks from the US Army Corps and their quality control infrastructure. The New Orleans Levee board also bears responsibility. Their idea of a levee inspection is a lunch break (truly, documented). Katrina was not unexpected, more powerful, or in some other way unanticipated. Indeed, it was probably weaker than advertised. It's effects were totally predictable, well-known, and computer-simulated many times over. What was needed in a floodwall was also well-known and documented. They just weren't built according to those specifications. The Vicksburg Regional District knew this and failed to act. Not that bad things don't happen or that New Orleans wasn't terribly vulnerable. Incidentally, this is also the best judgement of independent investigators, including engineers and geologists from the University of California-Berkeley and Louisiana State University.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')I have heard the same about Detroit, that many part of it don't exist any more.

[backstop]

Has USA lost drive to rebuild after tragedies?

Novus -

I would agree with you, but I would like to go further.

What we face is as always a matter of Circumstances and Inclinations - and it is the latter that is pivotal as to what we make of the hand past history has dealt us.

What I see in America is a sclerosis between the ears - (and as a Brit I can say we saw it here the UK first --- )

The shift I see is cultural - not even the young people are crying out for change the way a previous generation did -
while the elderly are building some trash delusion about "the greatest generation"
(the one that left Britain to face Nazism alone and did nothing until Pearl Harbour, meaning that we lost 100,000 to the blitz . . . .).

In that and many other factors (such as the lobby to preserve NO), America seems increasingly backward looking, trying to hold on to what it thought it had.

By contrast, had Katrina hit in Kennedy's day, not only would the rescue have been pretty competent, but attitudes to the aftermath would have been very different.

I could well imagine, given today's data on implacably rising threats of hurricane, of sea level rise, of land sinkage, of loss of seaward islands' shelter, etc,
the option of rebuilding the city elswhere on safe ground would have been seen as a great national project,
by which the Kennedy team could demonstrate to the world America's outstanding ability to innovate.

Now, it is hard to find even a mention of that eminently sensible option, and the bodies are quietly rotting down in the ruins.

So just when, if at all, will America wake up ?

regards,

Backstop

[Leanan]

The difference is the 1960s were before the U.S. peak. We were flush with wealth and resources.

That changed in the '70s. Some blame Vietnam, or Watergate, or Japanese competition. I blame Hubbert's peak.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')It's effects were totally predictable, well-known, and computer-simulated many times over.

[MicroHydro]

Of note, despite some heroic rear guard actions, NASA has been undergoing catabolic collapse since 1972. Even Skylab 1973-1974 and Apollo-Soyuz 1975 were done with scavenged leftover assets.

On the other hand, the US does show a lot of growth in prisons and detention camps.