At the very least a moratorium on new builds and additions should go into effect immediately.
Private insurers haven’t been willing to cover large parts of the south for decades. The NFIP was the backstop and already overstretched when Katrina hit New Orleans, which is when it first got bailed out. It’s been a downward spiral ever since.
I've no idea what the going rate for insurance is currently in New Orleans but it has to be crazy right?
Wouldn’t plan it but sounds like could’ve been a solid strategy assuming trust in timely condemnations (out of homeowner control, I think).
The rational part of the economy has less leverage when the irrational information market is so large and well funded.
The southern third of LA has ground composed of spongy organic material deposited by rivers since the last ice age as opposed to solid ground largely made up of silicates and minerals covering bedrock.
Relative sea level rise = actual sea level rise + land subsidence
Cities like New Orleans are suffering a double whammy: not only are they subsiding (sinking), but the sea levels are also rising and so between the two they're in grave trouble.
Land Sinking: + ~8.0 mm/yr
I wonder why CNN have decided to highlight oceans rising and not mention land sinking anywhere in the entire article? Is it possible they have an agenda?
In urban areas, there is no true solution for soil subsidence; it is not feasible to “reinflate” soils with water while urban life continues above.
It is beneficial, however, to restore a certain level of water content to the soil in the interest of slowing future sinkage. The key is to absorb or retain as much stormwater runoff as possible through porous surfaces, retention ponds, bioswales, rain gardens and widened and landscaped grade-level outfall canals.
https://openrivers.lib.umn.edu/article/new-orleans-was-once-...
This isn't a left/right thing either.
But on the other hand, the timing (having seen over the past week or so several articles about the most disastrous IPCC model now having become implausible) makes me wonder if some individual actors are thinking they need something to shore up their disaster prophesying.
Because water incursion is a much more difficult thing to deal with, in terms of infrastructure and prevention.
Also, let me know when the rest of coastal land has the same sinking as N.O.
Tl;dr they are screwed.
It doesn’t make sense if you think that water incursion has the same solution space as sinking land
It doesn’t make sense if you think New Orleans is the only city with this problem
So of course, it doesn’t make sense, if you’re unaligned from reality.
The Army Corps of Engineers has its prominent civil engineering role because early America did not have a lot of federal resources and was born from war. So when the Federal government decided it wanted to take on large scale civil engineering works, the only ready to go resource at hand were the military engineers. And then afterwards, it's pretty much been inertia.
The Army Corps of Engineers civil works division is basically almost completely staffed by civilians. So there's a convoluted top level organization, but on the ground, it's not like they have soldiers and military engineers building levees.
Congressional Research Service report: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48322
It includes a section about discussions on transferring civil works responsibility out of DoD.
But also if you do declare some sort of emergency that allows this, otherwise frustrating checks and committees can be bypassed. Probably not a bad thing.
Maybe they can get some investors to fund some big pumped hydro energy storage projects.
They probably should have mentioned it, yeah. But if you’re on a sinking ship in the ocean that does mean that the water level is rising relative to you and that is most of your problem.
And are we supposed to not be prepared and informed about the ocean rising at over 3mm per year? I wouldn’t exactly jump to being dismissive of sea level rise that is so dramatic. Every 10 years you’re gaining over an inch, every 100 you’re gaining about a foot. And then you’ve got the ice caps melting which is an impending climate disaster.
In reality, the right-wing criticism of the “mainstream media” has been a form of projection and justification for legitimizing its own propaganda network. Meanwhile, the right denies their own mainstream status: the “mainstream media lies” but the #1 cable news network is a right wing network, the Joe Rogan Experience is the #1 podcast that hosts political guests but isn’t part of the “lying press,” and this is all justification for the FCC to send threatening letters to terrestrial networks for their choice of jokes on late night talk shows or their daytime talk shows not being conservative enough.
CNN misses one detail in a highly scientific story and they get accused of having an agenda, Fox News trots out an employee in a mask pretending to be antifa and nobody bats an eye.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t scrutinize all media, but this particular dynamic is something that has been noticeable.
I guess they don’t want to talk about how black people didn’t even get protection against housing discrimination until the current president of the United States was already a teenager.
This is why the impact is “racialized:” because non-white races often live in less desirable geographic regions of metropolitan areas.
Look at a lot of American cities and demographics of people that live near flood plains and other hazards like pollution and noise and you’ll often notice racial patterns. These are objectively real, not “racialized.”
The people who want us to stop talking about it like yourself, intentionally or not, want us all to bury our head in the sand and pretend like the discrimination has been resolved despite the fact that non-white races are still feeling these impacts.
If you’d like to expand your mind on a related subject, this is a great story:
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/02/983897990/how-jacob-louds-lan...
If it's as the earlier poster said that sinking is 8mm per year, versus 3.2mm and they point out the 3.2, don't you think this news organisation has missed the main detail?
Joe Rogan isn't "right," he openly supports recreational drug use, gay rights, women's right to abortion, universal healthcare, has endorsed Bernie Sanders and James Talarico, etc.
He's not a leftist, but that doesn't make him "right wing."
A single catastrophic event that causes a temporal rise of several meters can permanently alter the coastline and storms are worsening.
I mean hard to say. "Climate change" means that weather patterns will change on a location by location basis, it's not all for the "worse" (climate doesn't care one way or another about what humans in particular value), and so far the 2000s have had more storms hit Louisiana than the 2010s and the 2020s have been milder than the 2010s. It's entirely possible that climate change reduces the number of storms that hit new orleans
But so is lower Manhattan, Miami, 60% of the land in the Netherlands, almost all of Bangladesh, along with numerous other places.
Now 3m-7m is vastly higher than any current predictions, but hey lets scare monger about a single city!
From page 1 of the paper: "Coastal Louisiana has been referred to as 'canary in the coal mine' with respect to climate impacts. As highlighted in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the central US Gulf Coast is the single most exposed LECZ (low-elevation coastal zone) in the world in terms of projected relative sea-level (RSL) rise throughout this century."
> Notably it does not predict this
Again from page 1 of the paper: "The initial impetus consists of new evidence that RSL in this region is probably committed to 3-7m of future rise, with a shoreline bound to migrate as much as 100km inland. We argue that future RSL rise to this elevation – judging from field evidence rather than climate model output – is, in fact, a best-case scenario."
The 3-7m! Relocate now! stuff seems unfounded and irresponsible.
I'm not sure it was a sign to leave the place so much as the levees should have been raised about 2 ft higher to deal with the pretty predictable water levels.
This current thing is also kind of bizarre saing there'll be a sea level rise about 10x reality. Why can't people do maths and realistic estimates and planning? I assume it's some kind of politics that requires the untruths? I'm not American and don't really get the politics and why they can't do sensible calculation on flood defences like the Dutch say.
Using the Census ACS age brackets, about 20-ish% of louisiana's population is under 15, and another 20 is between 15 and 29. Everyone 30 and older adds up to the other 60.
So a hair over 60% are were at least 7.
But that's who lives there now not who lived there then. Between 2005 and 2006 the state population dropped by 6% and most of that displaced population never returned - people coming in from elsewhere weren't there for Katrina. So the fraction who were both living there AND old enough to remember it is considerably smaller than 60%.
So like I said, roughly half.
Like, there are entire journals and programs of study devoted to it. I’m not just guessing here.
According to this study, almost a third of displaced people returned to the same dwelling by some time in 2006. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4048822/
Today, numbers suggest that around 60%, almost two-thirds returned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_after_Hurricane_K...
And would this silt deposition actually occur at a rate that would fully counteract sea level rise, just as the huge rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age did not mean that the delta disappeared?
If so, the danger to New Orleans would be entirely avoidable by changes in local land use.
Perhaps the fundamental issue is that river deltas tend to be dynamic, with the watercourse continually changing, which isn't really compatible with a city in a fixed location. (Hence the damaging attempts at stopping this.)
On the other hand, the silt wasn't ever being deposited in large quantities in New Orleans itself, but more in other places. The delta is huge. New Orleans is famously below sea level and always has been. There's always been hurricanes. It's always been dangerous to live there and I'm not sure you can blame the dynamic nature of the river.
The river wandering is part of this. Since the silt can only be deposited where the water goes, for the delta to grow (or just maintain itself) the river has to go here and there all over it.
And yes, people die when this happens. But if you stop the river wandering, the silt isn't going to be deposited so as to maintain the delta.
Maybe it's not a good location for permanent human settlement.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01820-z
It appears that if you go through the link in this Guardian article, you will get free access to the full paper:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/04/new-orleans-...
'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level
Edit: better video
I think the article didn’t talk enough about how Louisiana is far too poor to undertake a planned relocation without a vast amount of federal help.
Then, you’ve got the fact that Louisiana’s political leadership is some of the worst in the country. The article touched on it but arguably didn’t discuss it enough. These are not people who will do anything that benefits constituents. Arguably they aren’t even benefiting their donors by burying their head in the sand, although I imagine their donors have accepted that they’ll just leave New Orleans with their profits in hand when the time comes.
Louisiana isn’t poor by almost any objective measure. They’re in the bottom half of US states by GDP per capita (not in the bottom 10), but they’d be in the top 20 countries in the world by GDP per capita if they were a country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
They’re just behind Denmark by GDP per capita and ahead of Germany, Sweden, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the UK.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-local-tax-col...
Louisiana is 32nd for tax revue per capita.
Louisiana ranks 43rd in per capita personal income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_adjuste...
Please don’t post the same link & comment 5 times.
Income inequality isn’t the same thing as government resources available per person.
43rd in per capita personal income still puts in in the top 20 countries globally.
Correct. You clearly understand that your citing of averages papers over the poverty rate and conflates the gains of the rich with the plight of the poor.
Louisiana is literally ranked the #1 poorest state in the nation today counting the percent of people who don’t have enough to pay rent or eat properly.
“Government resources available per person” is cold comfort to the over one in four children in Louisiana who are living in poverty. How are those government resources actually being used, and if it ranks so well, why isn’t that reflected in LA’s health and education? “Government resources available per person” includes tax credits for oil and gas…
I’m arguing about available resources, not willingness to use them.
If you want to define poor purely by percentage of people who are living below the poverty line instead of median income, average income, gdp per capita or tax revenue, go ahead. But in the context of whether the government has the resources to do something, that’s not a good metric.
And beyond this scope if you look at average or median personal income, the average or median person in Louisiana is not poor, which is the metric I would use if I was going to call a group of people poor.
> if you look at average or median personal income, the average or median person in Louisiana is not poor
This is one to be more careful with. Neither the average nor the median inherently tell you anything about the state’s poverty rate, and having a poverty rate that’s the highest in the US and almost twice the national average absolutely supports the viewpoint that LA is relatively poor. When it comes to median household income specifically, the LA Budget Project says “These numbers obscure stark racial disparities” and points out that the median Black income is around half that of White non-Hispanic household income. (Page 9 - https://www.labudget.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/LBP-Cens...)
It might seem like the median $60k household income isn’t poor, but 50% of households are below “ALICE” levels and having to compromise on basic necessities. This doesn’t support your claim that the median resident of LA is not poor. https://www.unitedforalice.org/introducing-ALICE/louisiana
It highlights one problem with using percent of people below the federal poverty level as your metric. Median income doesn’t tell the whole story, but neither does percent below the poverty level. $33k goes a lot further in Louisiana than it does in New York.
https://www.unitedforalice.org/state-overview-mobile/new-yor...
You’re equivocating. Poverty rate is a much better metric for measuring poverty than median income is.
Louisiana has a higher poverty rate, and a higher child poverty rate, than New York State. New York’s ALICE level seems comparable because New York’s cost of living is so much higher, but it’s actually true that around half the people in New York (and Louisiana, and make other states) are struggling to afford all their basic necessities. Poverty rate isn’t ALICE, poverty rate is high probability of compromising on nutrition.
Come on, be honest, are you willing to live on $16k/year in Louisiana? (Or any state??) I wouldn’t want to, and I bet you don’t either. Are you really going to argue that’s not poor?
However if you have look at average incomes and state revenue which represents the resources available, which was the what I was responding to.
Whether they chose to use those resources is a different question.
Also even looking at something like average or median personal income, Louisiana ranks in or near the top 20 counties in the world.
What you’re seeing is that America has a terrible safety net so the floor is much lower than most of Europe.
And anyone that could get out they left a long time ago very happy my parents decided to leave that part of the world, the best thing that could’ve happened to the south is that everything from Virginia to South Carolina is gentrifying.
The sad part is that a large part of the population don’t realize that the conservative upper end of the population is selling out the conservative lower end.
Uh, by the objective measure of my own two eyes? You can trot out all the fancy numbers you want, I’m not blind. The resource extraction that goes on in Louisiana does not necessarily trickle down to its residents nor even stays in the state.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-local-tax-col...
Louisiana is 32nd for tax revue per capita.
Drive through LA and those places you mentioned and you'll see it.
Also, use PPP.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-local-tax-col...
Louisiana is 32nd for tax revue per capita.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-local-tax-col...
Louisiana is 32nd for tax revue per capita.
The money in Louisiana is primarily in refining oil pumped elsewhere. There are definitely externalities that big oil unloads on the people of Louisiana, but the refineries inject a lot of money into the community.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana
Subscores:
* Crime 50th * Economy 50th * Education 46th
and on and on. In fact, I can't find a single top line number when they AREN'T in the bottom 10.
There’s a difference between “there exists people there who are poor” and the state and local governments are poor.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-local-tax-col...
Louisiana is 32nd for tax revue per capita.
They're also, once again, dead last in economic oppurtunity.
Frankly, I call bullshit on your interpretation. Have you ever set foot in Louisiana? I've lived in the deep south my entire life.
The entire south, outside of a few cities is generally pretty poor, but Louisiana/Arkansas/Mississippi is just a different level. That's what happens when you elect a bunch of MAGA morons.
PS: The local governments are doing everything possible to NOT help their citizens.
Most of the rural south is indistinguishable from rural Pennsylvania or most other rural part of the US. The main difference in the Mississippi Delta region is that the population is mostly Black descendants of former slaves who are still suffering the after effects of slavery and subsequent generations of sharecropping.
But the state still has plenty of resources compared to just about anywhere else in the world.
>less than $1000
$1000 is 20% of the entire per capita amount. Louisiana is only $1000 behind Colorado and Rhode Island.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/me...
Or here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lowest-income_counties...
14 of the 20 poorest counties in the country are in Alabama, Louisiana, or Mississippi, and other than one in South Dakota, none of the 30 poorest are outside the South. Only 4 of the top 50 are from outside the South.
It really is a different level of poverty.
>Most of the rural south is indistinguishable from rural Pennsylvania or most other rural part of the US. The main difference in the Mississippi Delta region is that the population is mostly Black descendants of former slaves who are still suffering the after effects of slavery and subsequent generations of sharecropping.
Then you have me a bunch of example counties in that region as proof that I was wrong.
Which I assume means you either skipped over what I said or didn’t comprehend it.
That region has been impoverished since the Civil War, and even before.
Huh? Your link shows them between Chile and Portugal.
> The pump station complex, which is the largest of its type in the world, consists of 11 each 5,444 horsepower Caterpillar engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Intracoastal_Waterway_Wes...
To what I think is your larger point, that project is a small part of the efforts at water control around New Orleans. But, so far they have generally been viewed as beneficial and the various governmental entities keep paying for them -- why should we expect anything different in the future ? Roads get repaved all over the country, bridges rebuilt, and the levees rebuilt. There's always an "infrastructure crisis" of the decade, the chatter is how we as a society judge the expense and confirm it's necessary.
take some of that $1 BILLION PER DAY being used to bomb innocent kids and civilians in Iran, soon Cuba, and help innocent people in your own country relocate
if the current administration is in charge the week New Orleans is about to go undersea they will "solve the problem" by banning FEMA from doing anything or just defunding it to $1/day
I've no reason to doubt this is absolutely true.
that's not what they're gonna do though....
> The region has “crossed the point of no return,” the paper’s authors wrote, adding New Orleans “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century.”
sorry, Gulf of what ? /s
Likewise, the flood plains of Texas are cheap and nice to live in when there are no floods and when floods are imminent you have sufficient warning that you can evacuate and the federal government will compensate you. You can then go back and live there. This one is harder because it is unpleasant to move and you don’t receive the inflated price but it does incentivize some on the border.
Of course the fires in Malibu are a story of going too far in the wrong time. If they’d had a sympathetic administration in the federal government likely some kind of compensation scheme could have been worked out. So you have to work on the politics and the economics.