WTF ... The police chief is it for NO said that ...
I have news for ya ... You're standing alive only cos Mother nature decided to let you live, Mother Nature ISN'T A TERRORIST. Mother nature isn't out to get you and your way of life ... whole lot of other ... You cannot get even with her, you cannot negotiate wiht her, you do not have the power to tame her. She has no personal agenda against anyone, and honestly doesn't even know you exist. Your own safety is statistically enhanced by staying away from her oft traversed routes and hope that she doesn't change her mind.
I understand the allure and charm of NO for someone who's never been there but - The whole Idea of rebuilding at that same location is stupid - the allure and the charm were in no small part due to the people that created and nurtured it.
But hey what do I know.
Cool.
Srinath.

You tame mother nature every day.  Every time the wind blows against a skyscraper or every time you drive across a dam.  Every time you stand in out of the rain, you've tamed mother nature.

As the police chief for New Orleans, he may have a bit of perspective on the subject, having lived in a city that was built below sea level.  

Beats me.  Poor, poor people.

You're not doing anythign to Mother nature by building a sky scraper, OK fine you're for that present time holding her at bay. What happens when you have a gale force wind suck the windows out the building like happened in Japan once. Point is ... you can only statistically play the odds. It makes no sense to build a 100 year flood resistant house in the middle of the Sahara ... Its all a statistic. The Cat 4 hurricane return period for NO was like 5-6 years. Cat 5's are ~35 years if I remember. So anything you build needs to be Cat 4 ready and needs to be maintained at that state else it will disappear in about 5-6 years. Its all a statistic. Cat 4 return period for Charlotte was I believe 60 years. Cat 3 was 15 years, (I dont remember exactly been couple years since I checked these for Charlotte). Its all a matter of playing the odds. Your window pane analogy only holds if you are talking about that 1 point in time. 2 weeks later a higher wind will lift the pane and you along with it off into oblivion. Now if you're going to be holding a windo pane, statistically you'd be more likely to survive if there is statistically less likely hood of that wind showing up. Poor people yes, but the instant somehting like this happens and everyone knew it was just a matter of time, somehow the whole country needs to pay then 50 - 100 billion. Like we dont have needs anywhere else. Now they want to rebuild it, so in 10 years another cat 4 will yank the damn thing out of the ground and fling it across the state like a match stick ... The eco system was tampered with, and the effects were exacerbated. Its time to take the hint and not fight mother nature. She's not a terrorist, and she really doesn't even know you exist. Time to take the hint. I'd agree that it might make a great tourist spot. Rebuild the historic areas and maybe the french quarter and just leave it as a tourist spot. but time to leave the wetlands and the swamps be. They are there for a reason. They have been there for 1000's of years and that is the best way to avoid this. bail them out this 1 time and just warn them of the future and leave them to make their choice.
Cool.
Srinath.

What about the dam analogy smarty pants?  Can I have a 3000 word diatribe on the Hoover Dam?  And by your logic, maybe it is a good idea to build a flood proof house in the Sahara.

Actually, I'm just messing with you man.  My point about skyscrapers was that they are engineered to sway, sway, sway with the wind, otherwise they'd fall.  

There was always this feeling, whenever I was in New Orleans, that any city below sea level is operating on borrowed time.   Just such a shame.  I hope I get a chance to visit there again when this all gets sorted out.

Quote from: seshadri_srinathbail them out this 1 time and just warn them of the future and leave them to make their choice.

So we only choose places to live that are safe? Ok..let's figure out where is the safest place to live, and let's all move there!  

Ok....what locations are without hurricanes and earthquakes? Which places don't freeze over (besides h3ll  :lol: ) or get too hot to stand? Which places can we be assured will have no natural disasters? Wait...we need to think about terrorists, too, so we'd better not live by big cities, airports, shopping malls (this one hurts   ), or near any ports.

So...what's left?  

Quote from: Jake DThere was always this feeling, whenever I was in New Orleans, that any city below sea level is operating on borrowed time.   Just such a shame.  I hope I get a chance to visit there again when this all gets sorted out.

Perhaps they can turn it into another Venice.

Seattle?  Portland?  
Atlanta?  Memphis?

Based upon your list, Pandy, Kansas City is very dangerous.

We have intense heat, flooding, extreme cold, snow, and the threat of earthquake (re: New Madrid fault line, which last time caused the Mississippi to run backwards and rang the Liberty Bell in Phili).  

But I feel pretty safe here because I have learned to tame mother nature.

Quote from: pandy

Quote from: seshadri_srinathbail them out this 1 time and just warn them of the future and leave them to make their choice.

So we only choose places to live that are safe? Ok..let's figure out where is the safest place to live, and let's all move there!  

Ok....what locations are without hurricanes and earthquakes? Which places don't freeze over (besides h3ll  :lol: ) or get too hot to stand? Which places can we be assured will have no natural disasters? Wait...we need to think about terrorists, too, so we'd better not live by big cities, airports, shopping malls (this one hurts   ), or near any ports.

So...what's left?  

Oy ... its just a question of statistically probable. Yea you are freaking insane for living on active quake zones. However you're very resistant to being hit by Cat 5 hurricane    ... Yea I knew Californians love the argument that everyplace is unsafe. OK close your eyes and imagine - all insurance companies decide to not write Home policies in CA anymore. You still want to live there ... Its all a matter of probability. Its why you wear a helmet and your proctective gear. There are plenty of statistically less risky places than both CA and NO. And some of these places dont actually really have snow. Heck AZ and NM as well as UT etc. Now OK dont run to the side of a cliff in Colorado and complain when the thing slides down. No reason to all run there and live there ... just when its done and gone, dont repeat the same dumbass mistake. Or fine do so and the Federal govt wont pay up the next time this happens. Below sea level = borroed time, and they knew it and that was what added an edge to life there. The bars and social spots will simply be flying when hurricanes are comming, they know they might die and they wanna take it to the very edge and look at that danger and get off on it, the possibility that they might die just makes the high even better. Now you do that, and when you almost die or someone right next to you dies, you run and ask big brother for help and a hand out. WTF is that.
Cool.
Srinath.

Hoover Dam tames mother nature.

Say it: (your turn).

Its all a matter of odds ... it does tame that river, what if that river floods, OK fine its got a design capacity and overage built in. What if that is exceeded. OK it may be statistically unlikely, and we may have found the perfect spot for building a damn, and may have found the perfect river to do so, but you still have a return period and a statistical possibility. Now from one level to the next, the return periods increase exponentially. Like Cat 3 for the NO delta is 3 a year, Cat 4 is once in 5-6 years, cat 5 is 35 years. So statistically you have odds vastly against the possibility of that Hoover dam get overwhelmed by flooding. You want to build everyhting for Cat 5 in NO, OK then theoretically a cat 6 should blow them away. I believe that would be a 150 year event (again just a hypothesis) so build it for cat 5 and live there and complain when a Cat 6 in 2150 blows it into Michigan ... Just dont tell nature she didn't want ya ... In reality a Cat 5 in CA is also a statistical possibility. Once in 150 years maybe. Its all a matter of odds. Charlotte also has a possibility of cat 5 as well as a 7.5+ earth quake. Just that the numbers dictate that its not economical to build it for that. A cat 3 is what we need to consider, cos ~ 15 years is a window we do want to think about.
Cool.
Srinath.

While we do our best to tame mother nature to completely do it would be impossible, she will have her way.  We can make mother nature a little more happy by treating her better ie pollution and such and maybe she would be more understanding.  Move to Indiana nothing happens here, trust me, nothing.

Try and fit your melon around this little nugget:

Every day that you wake up, there is a 1 in 20,000 chance an Earth ending meteor will slam into the planet.

I know.  I just blew your mind.  But that is an actual statistic.  I saw it on either the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, or National Geographic Channel last week.

ajgs500 - Correct. The mother nature having her way is exactly what is measured by the return periods and probability studies as well as environmental impact studies etc. Its still very inaccurate, and still in serious flux cos we are constantly warming up the atmosphere and altering our world in ways that were never forseen. but atleast the effect of global warming ... we may not have the polar flip ...
Jake D - Yea 1 in 20,000 is very very miniscule odds, its considered a statistical impossibility. Heck 1 in 500 is considered impossible. Now here is the other question. If a meteor is bound for earth that had the size and composition to end life on earth as we know it do you know when we'd see it. It will be a naked eye object years before it will make impact. You will have to device a way to stop it then like Bruce Willis did. But you'd get plenty of time. Might not help, but you'd know we're screwed ...
Cool.
Srinath.

Quote from: ajgs500While we do our best to tame mother nature to completely do it would be impossible, she will have her way.

Yep.  And when we build dams, she has her way.  We turn the normal course of a river, and it has severe consequences for soil erosion, taking away species that we find out 100 years later we really should have kept, drying out some areas that bite us in the butt one way and swamping areas that bite us in the butt another way...
And in a million years, nature won't know that dam ever existed.  The planet will still be going when we've killed ourselves off.

Saying a dam tames nature is like one of those one-shot worker bees stinging an elephant and saying, in its death throes, "I showed him!!"

Quote from: Jake DSeattle?  Portland?  
Atlanta?  Memphis?

None of those places are safe either...

Seattle - Earthquakes, flooding, snow/ice, crazy-ass wind storms
Portland - Earthquakes, tsunamis, Oregonians
Atlanta - Hurricanes, flooding, Georgians
Memphis - Tornados?  :dunno: , Elvis impersonators

It's all about calculated risk.  There's no Earthquake season...  You can't guarantee that at least one quake is going to tear up a trailer park every year.

If you live in flood plains, you should expect floods...  

If you live in a stilt-house hanging off the side of a dirt cliff, you should expect to find your house at the bottom of the cliff after heavy rain...

If you live in "Tornado Alley," you should expect tornados...

If you live in LA, you should expect your side mirror to be knocked off at least once a year...

If you want to be "safe" you'll just have to kill yourself...  Nowhere is safe.

Quote from: Roadstergal

Quote from: ajgs500

Saying a dam tames nature is like one of those one-shot worker bees stinging an elephant and saying, in its death throes, "I showed him!!"

Really?  I think it is like saying, "Hey river!  You're my Buddha Loves You! Help me make electricity!"

quote:
Seattle - Earthquakes, flooding, snow/ice, crazy-ass wind storms
Portland - Earthquakes, tsunamis, Oregonians
Atlanta - Hurricanes, flooding, Georgians
Memphis - Tornados?  , Elvis impersonators
end quote:
seattle- left lane drivers, people that call you a day late.
portland- burned out hippies that drive 45 in a 65 zone.
alanta- idiots doing 90 in a 65 zone, olympic bombing.
memphis- untill you get west of the mississippi you in a hurricane zone, and it's just like arkansaw only they have a great blues scene and your more likely to get shanked when walking from the bar.

on my list of places to live is Chyenne, Moab, then Denver, then Santa Fe.

RVertigo - Yes There is no place that is safe, You're just statistically less likely to be found at the bottom of a ravine if you lived 800 miles from the nearest ravine and in a desert.
Jake D - The river will be your Buddha Loves You and make you electricity just fine till one day in a tiny rippling earthquake the huge ass glacier that feeds that river breaks off and runs down stream as a block of Ice the size of Lower Manhattan and it will wash your electricity making gizmo clear into the gulf of Mexico. Also making electricty with water that runs in a river is what I call working with nature, not against nature. Putting up Levees and setting up pumps to keep out the ocean in a Category 5 hurricane is IMHO trying to fix a bridge with duct tape before an earth quake.
Cool.
Srinath.

The safest place in the US is the mountian areas of north GA, barring a few tornados in the low lying areas.  Its why the Appalachian mountians look like they do, erosion and time.

But I don't even understand the idea of not building back the city of NO.  We don't throw in the towel because of one horrendous storm! Those levies were built to resist level three storms, and they held as long as they could against cat 5 surge. So we'll build them to resist cat 5. We'll put in better pumps. We'll impose better emergency planning. And Nola will go on as a TREASURE to the country.

We are Americans. We fight for our own, even when the odds are against us. New Orleans is not a lost cause. NEW ORLEANS WILL PREVAIL, AND THE WHOLE COUNTRY SHOULD BE AT THEIR BACKS!

we were till they started shooting at the helos.