"It's a soup bowl and it's not safe," said Beverly Cigler, a public policy professor at Penn State University, referring to the city's cup-shaped geography.
But what if Gustav had been stronger, a category 4 instead of a 2, and hit the city directly instead of 70 miles to the west? Even Gustav's glancing blow put the city at brink of inundation, waves splashing over the tops of its levees. Would it be worth the cost to rebuild New Orleans again if the storm were worse?
"That's a question that was there before and after (Hurricane) Katrina, and I think is going to come to the forefront again," said Don Powell, who oversaw the Bush administration's effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast in 2005.
"My own personal opinion is that you shouldn't rebuild in areas unless you can make them safe," she said. "And nobody's had the willingness to confront these kinds of issues."
Yet abandoning New Orleans hardly seems an option either.
|
clipped from news.yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment