The purpose of flood plains is to flood. New Orleans is exhibit A of that immutable rule of nature, and no amount of resources poured into rebuilding the city as it was will change that.I'm not going to make a value judgment on the notion of whether or not to rebuild New Orleans. And I'm not going to go full on into even looking at both sides, because I think I may write my column about this on Monday, and I want to make sure I get it absolutely right in my brain before I start typing (contrast entries must be published by Sept. 30). But here's my initial, cursory, scratching the surface take on the whole thing:
I live on the banks of the Mississippi River (literally about a 30 minute walk). Typical spring flooding would not harm my home. And when the town flooded (most notably in 1965), I'm pretty sure my little lot on Melrose Court stayed in decent shape (since none of our 70-year-old woodwork seems to be rotted out). But after we built the levee, we taunted the river.
People forget that when the levee breaks (no song reference intended), the result won't just be a flood like our grandfathers remember from the 30s. The result will be devastating because of how different the river is from what it actually is supposed to be.
If I don't stop now, I'll write for hours, and I'm supposed to be doing laundry and washing bottles. But let's leave it at this: While I'm not walking around in a daze like I did for a week after Sept. 11, 2001, I do much more connected to the issue than I did the terrorist attacks. When I lived in Independence, I had no worries that a plane would crash into our tallest (four-story) building. But now, I do very much realize that a disaster like this could easily affect me in the exact same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment