The City of New Orleans

Three years ago I was pitching a book about how to save New Orleans.  Naturally, no publisher was interested.  So, if anyone in New Orleans is interested, here is the same advice for free.

Jack the whole city up, house  by house, building by building, block by block.  When Chicago was a young city, it was sinking into mud also.  So the town fathers decided to jack the whole city up and back in a time before the engineering technology we have today.

Some homeowners in the Lower Ninth Ward might use stilts and some might jack their houses up and put taller foundations underneath them.  On  empty lots, tons of rock and dirt might be dumped to raise the level of the lot.  But whatever the method (there is a fourth and fifth way), the goal is to raise the level of the city as many feet above sea level as it is now below sea level.

It won't happen in one day, one week , one month, one year, or even in one decade.  But the point is to start with just one lot in the Lower Ninth and then another and then another until the fundamental problem of New Orleans is solved: the city sits in a bowl below sea level.  This plan will remake Big Easy into a city that can survive the rising sea level and future hurricanes.

If this plan is not adopted, then each time there is an evacuation, a few more people will decide not to return.  A few more and a few more and eventually New Orleans will be a ghost town and an historic landmark will be lost to both Orleanians and tourists.

All that is necessary to save New Orleans is for one person reading this article to buy a lot in the Lower Ninth and follow the advice contained herein.  Endure the pessimism of others and the obstacles thrown up by parish and city bureaucrats until your neighbors and the flood insurance companies understand what you are doing.  Then they will imitate you and a good idea may take root and be  replicated across the flood prone areas.

Don't hold your breath that the US Army Corps of Engineers will rebuild the levees and canals to withstand the storm surge after a sustained Category Five.  Right now they are built to a Category Three standard.