New Orleans...

Wow.

New Orleans is doomed.

Looking at some pictures on the internet today of the damage around New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf coast... Man, it's very bad. No wonder everyone kept calling to make sure we were alright. It's really unfortunate for everyone down there that lost people and posessions. Hopefully, people will learn from this, and evacuate when they're told to. Hopefully, New Orleans will be abandoned and the river will be allowed to run its course. I know New Orleans is a hugely important city (5th largest port in the world) and historical, but the place is doomed. Subsidence of the delta is going to continue and get worse. As with all things geologic, it's only a matter of time before the whole place is inundated. If the Mississippi river hadn't been engineered and leveed for so long, it would have switched it's main channel to the Atchafalaya to the west. But, that would have been bad for New Orleans. Well, look at it now. It'd probably be cheaper to rebuild the whole place somewhere else. Nature will win in the end, and it looks like she just had a major victory. I can't imagine parts of the city being under 20 feet of water. That's just ridiculous. Regardless of the history and prosperity of the city, it's time to give up on it... There wouldn't have been this catastrophic flooding in the first place if the city wasn't built on the FLOOD plains of the Mississippi. Levees won't protect it forever. Anyway, it's tragic what happened, but I sincerely hope the people will build elsewhere next time, though I know that's not going to happen. Instead, they'll spend billions building and beefing up the levees, probably build some storm sea walls like in Texas, then get destroyed in the next 50 years by another hurricane or flood... Sigh.