I Know What It Means…
Posted by: Alan in Book Reviews, Books, Katrina, New Orleans, Non-Fiction
…to Miss New Orleans. And after reading City Adrift, I fear that the day is coming that New Orleans exists only as a memory, not just for me but for everyone. Released by Louisiana State University Press and the Center For Public Integrity, City Adrift is a very carefully reasoned and balanced review of eight serious aspects of the problems facing New Orleans before and after Katrina.
A team of investigative journalists and fellows of the Center For Public Integrity address The Storm, The Environment, The Levees, Emergency Preparedness, Social Services, Health Care, Politics, and Housing and Insurance. Each of these areas is treated to a concise and well reasoned analysis. Even having previously read a number of books about Katrina and its aftermath in the city, I found this volume highly informative and very effective at cutting through all the BS that gets thrown around.
The picture painted is generally bleak and it is unclear to what extent New Orleans will ever recover and it is still possible that Congress or the state’s oil revenues may fund the 14 billion dollar price tag to restore the Mississippi River Delta. But the epilogue reaches a sobering conclusion— even if ways are found to build effective levees and other flood control systems AND the delta is restored, Southern Louisiana will remain increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes and flooding due to subsidence and global warming, two forces of nature quite beyond the government’s control. A geologist is quoted as giving 100–150 years at the very most before the location is no longer viable for a city of any sort whatsoever.
I kind of wonder if this is how it feels to be from Atlantis.
City Adrift Highly Recommended
Entries (RSS)
March 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I don’t think New Orleans will disappear. It will probably remake itself as a smaller city. Don’t give up hope.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Given the time, New Orleans will rebuild its lost glory.
April 12th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Every time a tourist drinks a “Hurricane” cocktail at Pat O’Brien’s they drink to something in the New Orleans spirit that says to party while you can cuz it may all get blown away tomorrow. Only we thought tomorrow would never come. And it is worth mentioning that New Orleans declined a great deal in the 80’s and 90’s when the oil boom went bust and the major oil companies all closed down their New Orleans offices and operations. (That’s when I left in search of greener pastures.) I agree with Book Calendar that it will for now remake itself as a smaller city. And my point is that this new city will not be the city I grew up in
As for the lost glory, ya never know…