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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (264808)	12/15/2005 9:07:56 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1578127

"Eventually it did pass its old peak but the city never became what it probably would have. " I was IBC(Islander by choice as opposed to BOI or Born on Island) for almost 20 years. I know it and its history pretty well. The peak had already passed by the time the hurricane hit. The city powers were happy with what they had, and were making plenty of money off of cotton. But cotton, and the textile industry itself was already starting to shift to other areas. The city was slow to upgrade and expand the port to handle other cargoes, not like the very fast growing port of Houston. Galveston would have been precisely where they are now if the Great Hurricane of 1900 never hit, albeit possibly lower and sans the Seawall... Galveston is vulnerable to a Cat 4 or 5. The damage wouldn't be nearly as severe to the city proper because the Seawall is designed to break the force of waves, as was seen in Carla. The water comes over the top as a sheet, not as waves. Which is bad enough, but that is simple flooding. The real damage comes from when the waves start taking buildings apart and then using those pieces to break up more in a chain reaction. That is what happened in Mississippi and to a lesser extent, Alabama. And because of the Grade Raising, the water runs off very quickly so you don't get the sit and soak. In addition, all of the older houses sit 3 to 6 feet above ground level. So even flood damage isn't that severe, no sitting and soaking. So it is an apples and oranges comparison. Raising NO wouldn't be that big of a deal. Like all embayments along the Gulf, Lake Pontchartrain is pretty shallow, 6 to 8 feet deep at the most. Just run some pipe out there and start pumping. Yes, there would be some environmental impact, but it is minimal. The most negative environmental impact is when you dump sediments into the bay. And it would have some positive benefits, there are some species that like it deeper than typical bays are. If nothing else, bringing the minimum to a little over mean high tide would make a huge difference.