It is around 200 miles from Lake Charles to New Orleans; less than 150 miles from there to Houston.. Katrina, which reached a peak of 175 mph winds, hit there with winds in the 120 to 140 mph range.. Thankfully, Laura didn’t produce the anticipated 20 plus foot storm surge when it hit almost exactly 15 years after Katrina with 150 mph winds, but had it hit New Orleans at that strength in the conditions that Katrina hit, no amount of levee strengthening could protect New Orleans from the same or worse horror as in 2005.
As it is, the 14 year and 14 billion dollar levee strengthening in New Orleans is sinking, along with the city itself, and, as sea levels rise it is forecast that the epic project to protect New Orleans will no longer be effective by 2023 or so.. Together with the failed attempt to protect Venice, it seems that we may want to rethink our long term approach to the problem.
In any case, the warming that we are causing is not going to be mitigated by the pandemic to the degree that New Orleans – and Houston for that matter – won’t have Harveys and Katrinas in the future.. it is only a matter of time.
Massive engineering projects costing tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars are most likely going to fail in similar ways to the New Orleans and Venice projects.. and for the foreseeable future we’re unlikely to be able to finance them in any case.
It is around 200 miles from Lake Charles to New Orleans; less than 150 miles from there to Houston.. Katrina, which reached a peak of 175 mph winds, hit there with winds in the 120 to 140 mph range.. Thankfully, Laura didn’t produce the anticipated 20 plus foot storm surge when it hit almost exactly 15 years after Katrina with 150 mph winds, but had it hit New Orleans at that strength in the conditions that Katrina hit, no amount of levee strengthening could protect New Orleans from the same or worse horror as in 2005.
As it is, the 14 year and 14 billion dollar levee strengthening in New Orleans is sinking, along with the city itself, and, as sea levels rise it is forecast that the epic project to protect New Orleans will no longer be effective by 2023 or so.. Together with the failed attempt to protect Venice, it seems that we may want to rethink our long term approach to the problem.
In any case, the warming that we are causing is not going to be mitigated by the pandemic to the degree that New Orleans – and Houston for that matter – won’t have Harveys and Katrinas in the future.. it is only a matter of time.
Massive engineering projects costing tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars are most likely going to fail in similar ways to the New Orleans and Venice projects.. and for the foreseeable future we’re unlikely to be able to finance them in any case.
(continues)