6 ms·

You're being unrealistic about the reality of living in New Orleans and the level of capital investment in New Orleans vs Baton Rouge or other cities that aren'

by pfisch 5y ago

You're being unrealistic about the reality of living in New Orleans and the level of capital investment in New Orleans vs Baton Rouge or other cities that aren't under constant threat of destruction. People just aren't going to come in and build nice shopping centers in New Orleans. It isn't happening and hasn't happened. Why would it when they could build in another city where it won't get destroyed and it will be more profitable? It is extremely stressful every year watching hurricanes and wondering if your house is going to be destroyed. Then when your house is destroyed it is no fun at all to be involved in gutting it and rebuilding it. On top of that no one is making investments in the city so it hardly has any good jobs. It isn't alarmist to recognize what is already happening. The climate is creating more extreme weather events that are undermining New Orleans. It doesn't need to be some fake "The Day After Tomorrow" style disaster that people can easily recognize. It is an insidious, slow, hollowing out of the city. How many water boil warnings have their been since Katrina? How often has electricity been inconsistent in the city? I can tell you it happens a lot more now than it did before Katrina, and it is going to be even worse after Ida.

jsight 5y ago
How many homes were destroyed and will need to be rebuilt due to ida?
- beerandt 5y ago
  Probably high 5 figures to mid 6 figures, depending on what you count as rebuilding. Lots of houses with no roof, or with trees through them that could go either way re teardown or repair. I don't think anyone knows just yet. It took 4 days just to do the preliminary power outage assessment.
  - jsight 5y ago
    That seems hard to believe, tbh, but now I'm really bothered that I don't have any definitive source. But "high 5 figures" would be >50k. According to this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/05/hurricane-ida-louisiana-residents-without-power-families-homeless/5740682001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/05/hurric... they are looking at 22k power poles. Were homes twice as likely to be destroyed than power poles were to be damaged?
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Here's Entergy's visual: worse than the next 4 hurricanes on the list, combined, including Katrina. (This is part of what I meant when I said msm isn't covering it well up thread.) https://www.entergy.com/hurricaneida/damage/ https://www.entergy.com/hurricaneida/damage/ And Entergy only covers a portion of the area, but includes all of New Orleans and most of Baton Rouge. There are a lot more trees than power poles to fall. Lots of trees fell through houses, which allowed additional water and damage, and they won't know anything until insurance and possibly an engineer or contractor look at it. FEMA just started blue roof on Tuesday I think. But definitely over 50k damaged, if not destroyed. Just depends on where you draw the line.
selimthegrim 5y ago
People are perfectly happy to come and drop hundreds of millions on developing apartment complexes in the CBD for some reason, so why not shopping centers? The good jobs bit I agree with, I am about to leave Tulane with a PhD and barring some remote offers from Houston I can't find a means, motive or opportunity to stay here as much as I enjoy it.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Still gonna argue that's more politics than fear of flooding.
- pfisch 5y ago
  >People are perfectly happy to come and drop hundreds of millions on developing apartment complexes in the CBD for some reason The amount of real estate investment in New Orleans is incredibly low compared to other cities. They build more buildings in Atlanta in one year than they have in the last 30 years in New Orleans.
beerandt 5y ago
Climate isn't the problem with any of those issues, politics is. It's not fear of flooding that prevents anyone from investing in, eg New Orleans East. It's two decades of zero policing. And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a completely separate corporate entity in the city, and it's not because "used to be nopsi". The water guys can't even operate a billing system, let alone engineer the distribution network. They ran through probably a dozen companies post- Katrina just to do an assessment and map and maintenance plans, and they all quit for having to deal with the city. That's why they can't keep the water on. But an unnecessary new airport? They had no problem throwing a billion dollars at contractors for that. If people were afraid of sea level rising, they wouldn't just be moving into another swamp/marsh outside of city limits or across the lake. People don't want to live at sea level without a levee on the North Shore, they just don't want to live in New Orleans, despite the +20ft msl and up levees.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  >And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a completely separate corporate entity in the city, and it's not because "used to be nopsi". Because the City Council-as-regulator can be astroturfed and snowed easily by false promises about "black-start" capability for power plants and work on distribution systems?
  - beerandt 5y ago
    I don't think that's the counter point you think it is. The fact that Entergy has to do so much to convince the city to allow a power plant to be built, should be all the proof you need, as far as why no one wants to invest in the city. And that black start capability proved it's worth this week.
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      What kind of "islanded" black start is this where they have to hook up an external transmission line? That isn’t what they told city council. They could have had solar and batteries, even MISO knew this.

by pfisch 5y ago

jsight 5y ago

How many homes were destroyed and will need to be rebuilt due to ida?

beerandt 5y ago
Probably high 5 figures to mid 6 figures, depending on what you count as rebuilding. Lots of houses with no roof, or with trees through them that could go either way re teardown or repair. I don't think anyone knows just yet. It took 4 days just to do the preliminary power outage assessment.
- jsight 5y ago
  That seems hard to believe, tbh, but now I'm really bothered that I don't have any definitive source. But "high 5 figures" would be >50k. According to this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/05/hurricane-ida-louisiana-residents-without-power-families-homeless/5740682001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/05/hurric... they are looking at 22k power poles. Were homes twice as likely to be destroyed than power poles were to be damaged?
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Here's Entergy's visual: worse than the next 4 hurricanes on the list, combined, including Katrina. (This is part of what I meant when I said msm isn't covering it well up thread.) https://www.entergy.com/hurricaneida/damage/ https://www.entergy.com/hurricaneida/damage/ And Entergy only covers a portion of the area, but includes all of New Orleans and most of Baton Rouge. There are a lot more trees than power poles to fall. Lots of trees fell through houses, which allowed additional water and damage, and they won't know anything until insurance and possibly an engineer or contractor look at it. FEMA just started blue roof on Tuesday I think. But definitely over 50k damaged, if not destroyed. Just depends on where you draw the line.

selimthegrim 5y ago

People are perfectly happy to come and drop hundreds of millions on developing apartment complexes in the CBD for some reason, so why not shopping centers? The good jobs bit I agree with, I am about to leave Tulane with a PhD and barring some remote offers from Houston I can't find a means, motive or opportunity to stay here as much as I enjoy it.

beerandt 5y ago
Still gonna argue that's more politics than fear of flooding.
pfisch 5y ago
>People are perfectly happy to come and drop hundreds of millions on developing apartment complexes in the CBD for some reason The amount of real estate investment in New Orleans is incredibly low compared to other cities. They build more buildings in Atlanta in one year than they have in the last 30 years in New Orleans.

beerandt 5y ago

Climate isn't the problem with any of those issues, politics is. It's not fear of flooding that prevents anyone from investing in, eg New Orleans East. It's two decades of zero policing. And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a completely separate corporate entity in the city, and it's not because "used to be nopsi". The water guys can't even operate a billing system, let alone engineer the distribution network. They ran through probably a dozen companies post- Katrina just to do an assessment and map and maintenance plans, and they all quit for having to deal with the city. That's why they can't keep the water on. But an unnecessary new airport? They had no problem throwing a billion dollars at contractors for that. If people were afraid of sea level rising, they wouldn't just be moving into another swamp/marsh outside of city limits or across the lake. People don't want to live at sea level without a levee on the North Shore, they just don't want to live in New Orleans, despite the +20ft msl and up levees.

selimthegrim 5y ago
>And there's a reason Entergy continues to operate as a completely separate corporate entity in the city, and it's not because "used to be nopsi". Because the City Council-as-regulator can be astroturfed and snowed easily by false promises about "black-start" capability for power plants and work on distribution systems?
- beerandt 5y ago
  I don't think that's the counter point you think it is. The fact that Entergy has to do so much to convince the city to allow a power plant to be built, should be all the proof you need, as far as why no one wants to invest in the city. And that black start capability proved it's worth this week.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    What kind of "islanded" black start is this where they have to hook up an external transmission line? That isn’t what they told city council. They could have had solar and batteries, even MISO knew this.