Crying Wolf

Not exactly breaking news, but this 2001 article from the Scientific American is scary accurate about what would happen if a strong hurricane hit New Orleans directly:

If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. "As the water recedes," says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, "we expect to find a lot of dead bodies."

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms.

As the Obama administration determines the kinds of public works projects it will fund as part of the next stimulus package, it would be wise to consider projects that might prevent tragedies like Katrina. If the government had heeded warnings about the New Orleans levee system, the apocalyptic scenario outlined in the SA article might not have come true.

Side note: The Cornell library system is in the process of unveiling a new website. The Passkey feature looks to be the most useful.