Designing for the 10,000-year storm

After "the disaster" of 1953, the Netherlands devised a system of dams, sea walls and sluices designed to protect the nation from flood conditions that happen only once every 10,000 years (New Orleans was protected against hurricanes that occur every 50 years). The Maeslantbarrier or storm surge barrier (Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat photo above), writes Simon Rozendaal in today's WSJ, "consists of two hollow doors -- as long as the Eiffel Tower in Paris is tall, and four times as heavy -- which are lying in docks on the banks of the Nieuwe Waterweg. In the event of extreme bad weather the docks are filled with water, and the gates float and are turned into the Nieuwe Waterweg, where they seal off the river. In that way this barrier protects the city of Rotterdam and its surroundings, where about the same number of people live as did in greater New Orleans."  Click here for an animation and here for maps, drawings, diagrams and text describing the economics, ecology and engineering of the Delta plan.

"This complex system of dams and barriers -- called the Delta plan -- is a technological achievement comparable maybe in its complexity and ambition to the American Apollo project that put a man on the moon," writes Simon Rozendaal in the WSJ re the Netherlands' answer to "the disaster," a perfect storm combining northwesterly winds and spring tides that produced "a flood of biblical proportions" in the southwestern part of the mostly below-sea-level nation in 1953. The idea was to radically reduce the length of the coastline while substantially reinforcing its shores:

The Dutch levee system collapsed in 500 places. There was nowhere to hide. More than 1,800 people drowned, together with tens of thousands of cattle and other animals. Some 4,000 houses were destroyed, and 40,000 severely damaged. About 100,000 people had to evacuate out of a population of around 12 million.

The Dutch reaction was: Never Again. The government decided to give the southwestern and most vulnerable part of the country the best possible protection. Eleven massive dams, sea walls and sluices were created in waters that sometimes look more like a sea than a river.

"The hydraulic wall built in the vast Oosterschelde is 5.6 miles long and rests on 65 concrete pillars about 43 yards tall. Its sluice-gate doors are usually open to protect the special habitat (partly seawater, partly freshwater) behind it, and are only closed when floods are imminent," notes Rozendaal. (Oosterschelde National Park photo)

"It would cost an estimated $100 million to rebuild the Superdome," a FOX News reporter is saying. Hmmm. That might make a nice down payment on a feasibility study along the lines of the Dutch Delta plan:

The total cost of the Delta plan, which began in 1953 and was only completed a couple of years ago, amounted to $5 billion.

But, of course, we must rebuild the Superdome, or else Mother Nature will have won. How 'bout designating a percentage of whatever the domesters invest in the new sports arena toward the Mississippi's own Delta plan? Sorta along the lines of New York City's 1% for art in publicly funded buildings? After the recent unpleasantness at the Superdome, it would appear to be in the rebuilders' interest to invest in the long-range health of the delta and the security of its shores.

Speaking of the long-range health of the receding delta, though, does the Army Corps of  Engineers' Mississippi River and Tributaries Project -- whose alleged funding cuts by the Administration are a weapon of choice of late amongst Bush bashers like Sidney Blumenthal and the editors of the New Orleans Times-Picayune -- really do anything more than put off the inevitable? A quick reading at the Corps's website suggests not. The Project includes levees, floodways, channel improvement and stabilization, and tributary basin improvements. No mention of what to do about the cascading retreat of the delta, the ultimate result of centuries of human interventions to stem the tide, whose unintended consequence has been the loss of nature's first land defense against the wrath of her own relentless wind and tide.

Comments

[goomp]

Does the soft feelgood generation have the "Moxie" (now there is a phrase that meant something to our "greatest generation") to face up to the real world? Do they even know that it exists? Bashing Bush will only lead to extinction at the hands of the Islamicist realists.

[Howard Larson]

New Orleans simply can't be rebuilt on the present site. At least not with Federal (i.e., taxpayer) money. But, here is something that might work.

Dynamite all the buildings in the basin. Then, build a rail line out to the mountains where humongous amounts of rock can be quarried. Carry it to New Orleans by the train load and fill in the basin until it is at least 50 feet above sea level. Then re-build.

Thank you. Thank you. Applause not neccessary.

[Zendo Deb]

The Dutch don't have to deal with Cat 5 hurricanes. (Or cat 4 or cat 3) They have severe storms, but not on that scale.

I think we should rebuild New Orleans 30 miles inland - above sea level.