Hurricane Gustav heading for Louisiana

[ampersand]

The French Quarters was great. Get away from there, and it's not worth sticking around at all, either in the day or night.

The challenge is to make a locale as habitable as possible given all of the potential natural and man-made disasters that are possible. And at this point, New Orleans is failing very badly regardless of how much damage Gustav did. I would not be surprised if by the end, government, private sector, and other entities spend up towards a trillion dollars or more trying to fix the infrastructure problems that will be needed for New Orleans to withstand a serious hurricane threat: at least a Category 3 scale hurricane. In most cases, cities were founded long before the potential natural disaster problems were identified, or if they were, they were minimized by noting how rare they seem to happen. These days, we just know better.

[collegestudent22]

Yes I agree that at some point the government/taxes should not be used. If people choose to stay in a location that has proven time and again to be a hazard then it's on them to help themselves, but don't get on your high horse and declare they are idiots for wanting to live there life where they choose.

Ok..... that isn't what I was saying at all. I wasn't calling their choice of location stupid. I was calling the idea that the government should fix everything when time and time again this will happen. Moving the town inland would at least give them a reason to call on the government for help. This is the second hurricane to hit Louisiana in the last decade.

For a "collegestudent" you don't seem to be opening your mind or broadening your horizons.

I didn't realize college was supposed to be about being indoctrinated into the left. My bad.

Also, I am curious to how the fact that Gustav ripped through the coastal oil refineries/drilling sites without causing any oil to be lost or spilled will affect the offshore drilling debate....

[Martin Blank]

You're further to the right than Rush, cs22, and not nearly as intelligent about it.

Los Angeles sits on two faults, the Newport-Inglewood and Whittier, each capable of generating a magnitude 7.2 or greater earthquake. The Raymond/Santa Monica fault sits just to the north of Los Angeles, and is capable of about a magnitude 7.0 quake. There are also the Chatsworth, Santa Susana, Sierra Madre, San Gabriel, and Palos Verdes faults. This doesn't even touch on the San Andreas. What if one of these lets loose? Would you be in favor of abandoning Southern California, rebuilding it near Phoenix? The damage could be greater than that done by Katrina, and may be far more expensive to rebuild. We are, after all, a sprawling metroplex of more than ten million people, not a core city of half a million with perhaps another half- to one-million in surrounding suburbs and towns.

What about the New Madrid fault, located roughly at the border of Missouri and Tennessee? If that goes like it did before, you're going to feel it unless you're west of the Rockies. When it went in 1812, it rang churchbells in Boston. Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Cleveland, and others will all suffer damage. Would you prefer that they rebuild somewhere else?

Humans make it a habit to conquer nature. We don't always go about it in the best way, occasionally stripping bare the resources, something we can't do so often now if we want to always have those resources around. We stay in cities that are in danger because we are social creatures. We grow accustomed to our environs: the city, the shops, the weather, the jobs, the people, the neighbors. We may have little idea of who lives three doors down, but we generally band together in an emergency to brave against whatever is threatening us. You may choose to flee, and that's fine if it works for you. However, the community -- and by community I mean New Orleans, Louisiana, and the country as a whole -- were not inclined to let a fabled city be claimed by the sea so easily, and in a very stumbling, error-prone way, it was pulled to its feet. It's not yet completely steady, but it's in a far better shape than it was.

[collegestudent22]

Those events are less likely to occur, and in fact have not occurred with any regularity over the last two centuries.

When it went in 1812,...

1812? So almost 200 years ago. Every 200+ years or so is much more manageable than every 5-10 years. I am not saying that we should abandon New Orleans. I am saying that it is necessary to stop using taxpayer money to replace someone's house every decade, when it is easily preventable by living somewhere else. If you wish to live in one of the most dangerous (in terms of natural disaster frequency) places in the US, I should not have to support your livelihood.

[Springy]

From my understanding New Orleans isn't hit by a hurricane every 5-10 years.

Also, a lot of people who live there don't have enough money to move elsewhere. People don't choose always get to decide where they live. I thought the whole idea is that we're all supposed to be in this together. If I lived in the States I would be proud to know my taxes were going to help people rebuild their lives.

[Deacon]

From my understanding New Orleans isn't hit by a hurricane every 5-10 years.

Honestly, if it's not hit every single year, it's due to blind luck.

That said, I haven't heard CS22 calling for abandoning the state of Florida...

[collegestudent22]

From my understanding New Orleans isn't hit by a hurricane every 5-10 years.

Honestly, if it's not hit every single year, it's due to blind luck.

Most of those are not above Category 2, at least to the best of my knowledge.

That said, I haven't heard CS22 calling for abandoning the state of Florida...

Is Florida below sea level? No. That is the problem I have with the city of New Orleans planning. It is below sea level and getting further below sea level as time goes on due to subsidence. Florida is better off during the hurricanes for due to the fact that natural runoff of flood waters occurs. Pumps can and will fail, and then you have a city that is exactly like New Orleans after Katrina. (Sidenote: If the Army Corps of Engineers actually built the damn levees in the time frame they were supposed to, Katrina wouldn't have been AS damaging....)

[collegestudent22]

Is taxpayers money really used for rebuilding houses from affected people? Not only to rebuild infrastructure?

If the homeowner has no insurance against natural desasters, it´s his fault. Why should other people pay for his mistakes?

Flood insurance is through the Feds, due to the risk being so high that private companies will oftentimes refuse to insure against flood.

[tnitnetny]

Flood insurance can only be bought through FEMA. You can not buy private flood policy. You can buy it through your normal insurance carrier, but it is actually through FEMA. Flood insurance is also very limited. It will only pay a maximum of $250,000 for a home and $100,000 for personal property.

FEMA also only pays out IF:
a) you and your neighbors' property is completely under water (not the house, just the property)
b) there is at least 2 acres of land completely under water that includes all of your property.

An example:
We had a flood here a few months ago and the house behind my office was halfway flooded. It is on a hill and only half of the property and home was covered by water. There was at least 2 acres of land flooded, but not his entire property, so a flood policy would not have paid in that instance.

A lot of people were angry at FEMA during Katrina because apparently their agents didn't explain this to them when they purchased the Flood policy.

So to answer your question Lucksi, even if they have a flood policy, it may or may not take care of them.

[ampersand]

Alright...according to the Unisys Weather webpage (lovely web site for past events), from 1997 - 2007, a total of 13 tropical depressions or hurricanes landed somewhere along the Louisiana shoreline. So, counting Gustav, that's 14 in a span of 11 years, or an average of 1.2727... a year. In other words, one or two hurricanes will form around the islands of Antigua and then move west and north in a cursive C pattern. Rarely will a hurricane track like Katrina where it hits Florida, meanders westward into the Gulf, stay there and strength and then arch back in a dogleg right pattern. Most storms that form basically east remain along the gulf coast, like Hanna is projecting now.

Now, something that lands in Louisiana that's is at least a Cat 3 storm or greater? It's probably a storm every eight to ten years. I believe in its lifetime New Orleans has had something like twenty storms hit it. But that is going back to the 1890's. That would involve diving deeper into the data (or to find some poor sod who already did and publish such a number) which I do not have time to do presently.

Also, keep in mind regardless of strength or size, the biggest danger to a hurricane along the coast isn't wind but water damage due to floods, storm surges and the like. Water that's left standing for even a week will do significant amounts of damage, as the people who had to deal with the Iowa river flooding in June can tell you.

[collegestudent22]

FEMA also only pays out IF:
a) you and your neighbors' property is completely under water (not the house, just the property)
b) there is at least 2 acres of land completely under water that includes all of your property.

If this is true, why do they run flood insurance ads in states like CO and WY...?

My insurance simply has this as water damage. Does not matter if it´s water damage from a storm or from a burst pipe. Damage height is limited to whatever the building is insured for. That can be considerably higher than 250k.

Sometimes when you get flood insurance, the private company will allow you to buy a minimal plan to cover burst pipes and such, so you can cover water damage that way, but it is typically very small. (at least my parent's have this, due to not needed flood insurance in CO)

[ampersand]

C22, it's called flash flooding. Hell, you can get it in Las Vegas, even if it only rains like two inches there. It just needs to rain more than the ground can absorb.

[collegestudent22]

C22, it's called flash flooding. Hell, you can get it in Las Vegas, even if it only rains like two inches there. It just needs to rain more than the ground can absorb.

That happens on mountains now? Shit, and here I thought that the crazy slopes of the ground would allow most of the water to run off, leaving none of these occurances:

FEMA also only pays out IF:
a) you and your neighbors' property is completely under water (not the house, just the property)
b) there is at least 2 acres of land completely under water that includes all of your property.

And thus, having only some water damage, which can easily be repaired under, I don't know, a water damage policy.

Two inches, eh? I would have figured a flood would have to at least come up over someone's doorstep to count....

[Martin Blank]

Is Florida below sea level? No.

Most of it is just above sea level. The water table only sits a couple of feet down in some places. The original FiOS installers had to deal with this on almost every installation. Storm surges routinely wipe out large sections of shoreline, road, and highway, sometimes bridges, and bring flooding inland. It doesn't stick around for weeks, but it does destroy property.

Look at the amount of money spent on Florida. Andrew struck in 1992, doing $26.5 billion in damages, the equivalent of $40.7 billion in 2008 dollars, most of that to Florida. Hurricane Wilma hit just about the same area in 2005, and totaled up another $29.1 billion, $20.6 billion of that in the US. That's $47.1 billion in damages to the southern tip of Florida from two storms 13 years apart, and doesn't count all the damage done by other storms, which have been very frequent in the last few years. In total, Florida -- especially the southern tip -- definitely has taken more damage than New Orleans.

That happens on mountains now? Shit, and here I thought that the crazy slopes of the ground would allow most of the water to run off

That's what flash flooding is: water moving downhill faster than it can be absorbed or channeled away.

Two inches, eh? I would have figured a flood would have to at least come up over someone's doorstep to count....

Two inches of rain is a lot in some places once it accumulates downhill. An inch of rain in a short period of time where I live will leave a number of streets under nearly a foot of water -- and some of them under several feet of water. It doesn't stack like snow.

[tnitnetny]

Sometimes when you get flood insurance, the private company will allow you to buy a minimal plan to cover burst pipes and such, so you can cover water damage that way, but it is typically very small. (at least my parent's have this, due to not needed flood insurance in CO)

Flood insurance only covers what I explained above. Broken pipes is not a flood. Broken pipes is exactly that and is covered through your normal homeowners policy. If water is inside your house and belongs there it is covered through a Homeowners policy. This has no bearing on if you have a flood policy or not.

Anyone can purchase a flood policy. You do not need to be in a flood plain. Fema is advertising in a lot of places to make the public aware that their homeowners policies do not cover in the event of flood.