DIYbanter - View Single Post - (OT) About New Orleans being built below sea level

taxed and spent

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 09:10:33 -0400, wrote:

I was just watching a program on tv about New Orleans, which showed a
lot about the buildings, culture, and other stuff. They briefly showed
how it's built below sea level (which I knew), but I was never there and
did not know how much was built there and how some of those buildings
are very historic and intricate, such as the cathedral. This left me
with one big question.

How did they ever begin to build this city when it was under water? And
WHY would anyone even consider doing such a thing? I can only presume
that it began when (due to some dry spell), the water level was lower
than usual. (just a guess). It dont make much sense to build levees with
the intention to build a city.

Maybe someone on here lives there or knows more about it.

The oldest parts of the city were not below sea level when it was
built and it sunk. The whole city is built on peat and it is
subsiding. Once they built the levees and drained the other parts they
built them up. Those were the ones that were under 6-8 feet of water
after Katrina.

The question we should be asking as tax payers is WHY FEMA waived the
rules we have to live under in the rest of the country and allowed
them to build back after Katrina below sea level. If my house required
50% worth of work for ANYTHING (flood fire tornado or just want to
add an addition) I would need to be 14' ASL before I could even get a
permit.

They should have put all of those out of work people up in coal
country to work loading barges, fill that bowl up well above sea level
and build the place back on high ground. I understand it still might
subside in another couple hundred years but we would save enough in
flood claims by then to make that a very sound idea.,

Makes sense, but you surely would be called a racist for making such sense.

**** on NOLA. I will never spend a dime there. Well, willingly.