6 ms·

Louisiana, Sinking Fast, Prepares to Empty Out Its Coastal Plain

82 points by pulisse 9y ago

blinkingled 9y ago
The article says federal government is funding ($40M so far) the program that in part educates people on climate change and rising waters and people are appreciating the honesty. It also talks about oil and gas exploration as one of the reasons for coastal erosion. Lastly they'll force people and their properties out but still allow commercial development on the property(I guess more oily and gassy things?). I am not sure what to make of it all but at least they're doing something about it.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  “Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings’ eventual demolition.” This is actually an extremely sound policy Louisiana has put forth for handling a situation they have little control over. I’d expect it to become a model for other coastal states who will be facing similar issues as sea level rises (with exceptions for very wealthy communities, such as Miami Beach, where they can fund hundreds of millions of dollars in preventative measures for the moment).
  - bilbo0s 9y ago
    "...preventative measures for the moment..." doesn't sound particularly reassuring when making long term real estate investment decisions. But I suppose people who buy property in Miami Beach don't really care about losing the 10 million they put into that condo or whatever. That's probably a rounding error for those people. And I'm pretty sure there is no critical infrastructure in Miami, so it wouldn't matter to the rest of us anyway. Places like New Orleans, Norfolk, Portland, Houston, New York etc should probably take priority. Those are the places where if they disappeared tomorrow, people in other places in the US would definitely feel a pinch. Not just the US either... if some of those ports disappeared, it would directly affect the nutritional intake of children in other parts of the world.
    - scoggs 9y ago
      After what has happened in recent years with Katrina (even if it's a 100 year storm in an area that gets them yearly), Houston (more familiar with hurricanes but not as clueless as New Jersey) and Sandy (hitting a totally unprepared area in the worst way we've had in my lifetime) I'm surprised there isn't so much more emphasis on prep for future natural disasters. I, obviously, worry that climate change denial and other science denial is preventing the masses from believing that these types of storms won't become more frequent or scarily the norm. I say that it can't hurt to better prepare if not over prepare and I scratch my head wondering why it barely seems like steps are being taken to do so. I can only speak for my local area but New York City and New Jersey were not prepared at all. I was in a pretty good physical location when the storm hit, all things considered, but we were without power for 10 days. Luckily we had a gas station within walking distance and they gave priority to people who walked up with gas cans over cars in the mile long line idling around our neighborhood. There were a bunch of news stories about people stealing generators. Necessities were sold out basically everywhere with little chance of restocking. Things got hairy, for sure. The amount of people who scoffed at warnings were most likely the ones depending on a handy neighbor who was better prepared and better suited to calming down and making the best of the bad situation. I think it was a much needed, although terrible, wake up call for unprepared folks. It was really nice to see so many people band together but the main takeaway I got from it was that I've never seen my area so close to complete breakdown and eventually mass chaos. Why we aren't doing more to prevent that exact type of fallout from something we KNOW is coming? It feels like the definition of insanity to do otherwise. After witnessing it first hand and having no idea what it would be like to live in a hurricane or natural disaster-prone area, having to deal with it yearly, I NEVER want to deal with that again. Since I really have no say in what mother nature does, all I can do is say I NEVER want to be as unprepared for another disaster as I was before. I also realize it's not so simple to pack your entire life up and move to a "more safe" location but there has to be some sort of graph where the cost of paying out insurance, cleaning up the mess, restoring supply chains, and all the other costs that come with a natural disaster equalizes with the cost of preparing as best as possible.
      - clebio 9y ago
        Thank you. Living in a successful metro area as I do, I'm fairly sure that the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria. It doesn't take much (a few days without potable water or gasoline, say). And yet, we're balls-to-the-wall consumer capitalism all the way, baby. A bit of planning would make months of difference.
igravious 9y ago
Probably a very dumb question but here goes … why do the people have to move, can dykes/floodbanks/levees not be built?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The buyout for one family in the article is about $25,000 per person and the article talks about ~60,000 people. That family is probably on the lower end of the buyout cost, but it puts the total cost of a buyout in the range of $1 billion or $10 billion. So then the question is how much flood protection can be built for a similar cost. I think there's also issues with flood controls for one area making flood control in other areas more difficult. So drawing a line can help with that.
  - brohoolio 9y ago
    I looked at the maps of a couple of the towns mentioned. These are not easy places to protect. Articles should show the maps.
    - igravious 9y ago
      Absolutely agree; pointless in writing an article about coastal erosion and not providing a map. Polders and Dikes of The Netherlands for comparison: https://www.thoughtco.com/polders-and-dikes-of-the-netherlands-1435535 https://www.thoughtco.com/polders-and-dikes-of-the-netherlan...
  - igravious 9y ago
    But isn't the land valuable (or potentially valuable) and won't its loss be irrecoverable? Of course they are allowing commercial developments to continue, check this out: Louisiana – Other Oil & Gas Infrastructure: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries/LA_Other_Facilities_rev031808.jpg http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries... Louisiana – pipelines and platforms: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries/LA_pipelines_2008.jpg http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries...
_red 9y ago
No mention of the cause: Diverting the Mississippi River. In the 20's / 30's The Army Core of Engineers built a series of levees to redirect the Mississippi to flow east of its natural course. Before then, the river would seasonally shift back and forth (think of the end of a garden house spraying left and right). It naturally wanted to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin, instead all the silt and sand that would've gone into building the wetlands is being diverted and dumped directly into Gulf. Look at a map sometime and you can clearly see it, the "toe" of Louisiana (south of New Orleans) is growing out into the gulf, this is the trillions of tons of silt and sand. Meanwhile the "heel" is shrinking, as the Gulf slowly erodes it. Note: This is not an anti ACoE diatribe. Its just that anytime this story gets national coverage they fail to mention the cause, which is locally well known and well understood.
- clebio 9y ago
  John McPhee wrote about this. Not everyone forgets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature
  - theoh 9y ago
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  The issue is that, even under your ideal scenario, where the Mississippi flows into the Atchafalaya Basin... we'd still be evacuating, we would just be evacuating that area instead. This is a problem for EVERY port, and coastal area, that we built below sea level. As the sea level rises, a new reality takes shape. There's nothing particularly novel about Louisiana in this regard. In fact, that's the entire reason we hope to use the Louisiana experience as a blueprint for our plan of action in other areas.
  - _red 9y ago
    >ideal scenario I'm not actually advocating one way or the other. Its understandable why the ACoE did what they did. I'm simply saying this is the result of that decision.
MechEStudent 9y ago
Says "terms of service violation", no article. Is there a second source?
- DocFeind 9y ago
  same happened to me
inthewoods 9y ago
Waiting for this to hit other costal areas. Can’t imagine how much it would cost to empty out Cape Cod if required
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  one thing is for sure, no one is going to relocate at a loss if they can wait a year and then pass the bill to the government the dangling incentive will artificially sustain coastal developments frankly if we are going to bail out home owners on coasts, why not home owners near fire risk areas?
  - hinkley 9y ago
    We send people to risk their lives to save homes in fire risk areas. That’s already a pretty profound bailout on the part of the government and her citizens.
DocFeind 9y ago
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aJZ9UlL1pvIJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-22/louisiana-sinking-fast-prepares-to-empty-out-its-coastal-plain+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aJZ9Ul... Solution to being assumed a ddos attack agent
Animats 9y ago
This is a classic river delta problem. Look at the Nile delta. Just can't build long-term on low ground. Objections from the right can be answered with this: Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. Matthew 7:24-27

82 points by pulisse 9y ago

The article says federal government is funding ($40M so far) the program that in part educates people on climate change and rising waters and people are appreciating the honesty. It also talks about oil and gas exploration as one of the reasons for coastal erosion. Lastly they'll force people and their properties out but still allow commercial development on the property(I guess more oily and gassy things?). I am not sure what to make of it all but at least they're doing something about it.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
“Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings’ eventual demolition.” This is actually an extremely sound policy Louisiana has put forth for handling a situation they have little control over. I’d expect it to become a model for other coastal states who will be facing similar issues as sea level rises (with exceptions for very wealthy communities, such as Miami Beach, where they can fund hundreds of millions of dollars in preventative measures for the moment).
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  "...preventative measures for the moment..." doesn't sound particularly reassuring when making long term real estate investment decisions. But I suppose people who buy property in Miami Beach don't really care about losing the 10 million they put into that condo or whatever. That's probably a rounding error for those people. And I'm pretty sure there is no critical infrastructure in Miami, so it wouldn't matter to the rest of us anyway. Places like New Orleans, Norfolk, Portland, Houston, New York etc should probably take priority. Those are the places where if they disappeared tomorrow, people in other places in the US would definitely feel a pinch. Not just the US either... if some of those ports disappeared, it would directly affect the nutritional intake of children in other parts of the world.
  - scoggs 9y ago
    After what has happened in recent years with Katrina (even if it's a 100 year storm in an area that gets them yearly), Houston (more familiar with hurricanes but not as clueless as New Jersey) and Sandy (hitting a totally unprepared area in the worst way we've had in my lifetime) I'm surprised there isn't so much more emphasis on prep for future natural disasters. I, obviously, worry that climate change denial and other science denial is preventing the masses from believing that these types of storms won't become more frequent or scarily the norm. I say that it can't hurt to better prepare if not over prepare and I scratch my head wondering why it barely seems like steps are being taken to do so. I can only speak for my local area but New York City and New Jersey were not prepared at all. I was in a pretty good physical location when the storm hit, all things considered, but we were without power for 10 days. Luckily we had a gas station within walking distance and they gave priority to people who walked up with gas cans over cars in the mile long line idling around our neighborhood. There were a bunch of news stories about people stealing generators. Necessities were sold out basically everywhere with little chance of restocking. Things got hairy, for sure. The amount of people who scoffed at warnings were most likely the ones depending on a handy neighbor who was better prepared and better suited to calming down and making the best of the bad situation. I think it was a much needed, although terrible, wake up call for unprepared folks. It was really nice to see so many people band together but the main takeaway I got from it was that I've never seen my area so close to complete breakdown and eventually mass chaos. Why we aren't doing more to prevent that exact type of fallout from something we KNOW is coming? It feels like the definition of insanity to do otherwise. After witnessing it first hand and having no idea what it would be like to live in a hurricane or natural disaster-prone area, having to deal with it yearly, I NEVER want to deal with that again. Since I really have no say in what mother nature does, all I can do is say I NEVER want to be as unprepared for another disaster as I was before. I also realize it's not so simple to pack your entire life up and move to a "more safe" location but there has to be some sort of graph where the cost of paying out insurance, cleaning up the mess, restoring supply chains, and all the other costs that come with a natural disaster equalizes with the cost of preparing as best as possible.
    - clebio 9y ago
      Thank you. Living in a successful metro area as I do, I'm fairly sure that the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria. It doesn't take much (a few days without potable water or gasoline, say). And yet, we're balls-to-the-wall consumer capitalism all the way, baby. A bit of planning would make months of difference.

igravious 9y ago

Probably a very dumb question but here goes … why do the people have to move, can dykes/floodbanks/levees not be built?

maxerickson 9y ago
The buyout for one family in the article is about $25,000 per person and the article talks about ~60,000 people. That family is probably on the lower end of the buyout cost, but it puts the total cost of a buyout in the range of $1 billion or $10 billion. So then the question is how much flood protection can be built for a similar cost. I think there's also issues with flood controls for one area making flood control in other areas more difficult. So drawing a line can help with that.
- brohoolio 9y ago
  I looked at the maps of a couple of the towns mentioned. These are not easy places to protect. Articles should show the maps.
  - igravious 9y ago
    Absolutely agree; pointless in writing an article about coastal erosion and not providing a map. Polders and Dikes of The Netherlands for comparison: https://www.thoughtco.com/polders-and-dikes-of-the-netherlands-1435535 https://www.thoughtco.com/polders-and-dikes-of-the-netherlan...
- igravious 9y ago
  But isn't the land valuable (or potentially valuable) and won't its loss be irrecoverable? Of course they are allowing commercial developments to continue, check this out: Louisiana – Other Oil & Gas Infrastructure: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries/LA_Other_Facilities_rev031808.jpg http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries... Louisiana – pipelines and platforms: http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries/LA_pipelines_2008.jpg http://www.dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/images/oilgas/refineries...

_red 9y ago

No mention of the cause: Diverting the Mississippi River. In the 20's / 30's The Army Core of Engineers built a series of levees to redirect the Mississippi to flow east of its natural course. Before then, the river would seasonally shift back and forth (think of the end of a garden house spraying left and right). It naturally wanted to flow into the Atchafalaya Basin, instead all the silt and sand that would've gone into building the wetlands is being diverted and dumped directly into Gulf. Look at a map sometime and you can clearly see it, the "toe" of Louisiana (south of New Orleans) is growing out into the gulf, this is the trillions of tons of silt and sand. Meanwhile the "heel" is shrinking, as the Gulf slowly erodes it. Note: This is not an anti ACoE diatribe. Its just that anytime this story gets national coverage they fail to mention the cause, which is locally well known and well understood.

clebio 9y ago
John McPhee wrote about this. Not everyone forgets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature
- theoh 9y ago
  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya
bilbo0s 9y ago
The issue is that, even under your ideal scenario, where the Mississippi flows into the Atchafalaya Basin... we'd still be evacuating, we would just be evacuating that area instead. This is a problem for EVERY port, and coastal area, that we built below sea level. As the sea level rises, a new reality takes shape. There's nothing particularly novel about Louisiana in this regard. In fact, that's the entire reason we hope to use the Louisiana experience as a blueprint for our plan of action in other areas.
- _red 9y ago
  >ideal scenario I'm not actually advocating one way or the other. Its understandable why the ACoE did what they did. I'm simply saying this is the result of that decision.

MechEStudent 9y ago

Says "terms of service violation", no article. Is there a second source?

DocFeind 9y ago
same happened to me

inthewoods 9y ago

Waiting for this to hit other costal areas. Can’t imagine how much it would cost to empty out Cape Cod if required

junkscience2017 9y ago
one thing is for sure, no one is going to relocate at a loss if they can wait a year and then pass the bill to the government the dangling incentive will artificially sustain coastal developments frankly if we are going to bail out home owners on coasts, why not home owners near fire risk areas?
- hinkley 9y ago
  We send people to risk their lives to save homes in fire risk areas. That’s already a pretty profound bailout on the part of the government and her citizens.

DocFeind 9y ago

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aJZ9UlL1pvIJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-22/louisiana-sinking-fast-prepares-to-empty-out-its-coastal-plain+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aJZ9Ul... Solution to being assumed a ddos attack agent

Animats 9y ago

This is a classic river delta problem. Look at the Nile delta. Just can't build long-term on low ground. Objections from the right can be answered with this: Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. Matthew 7:24-27