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True to my mother's predictions, the storm none of us were even talking about when it first entered the Gulf really did turn out to be the one that hit us hard. It seems like this storm really came out of nowhere, but it will be a while before any of us forget it now. Thanks to a last minute jut to the east, my house and really the rest of my
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The naturally grown levees stayed in tact.
It was the Levee Flood Walls (actual walls made out of nothing but concrete composite) that were put in place until such time as the Levee System could be finished that broke.
Those flood walls have always been the biggest concern.
So vertical growth was important because our Levee System as it is could not handle a thirty foot storm surge as it was predicted. In fact, in much of the state, the Levee System could only handle roughly 15 feet. St. Charles/Norco's levee system is only at about eight feet. So storm surge would've been a problem anyways (Nagin said it, National Weather Service said it, for e.g.) though of course the flooding would not have been so bad if the levee walls (once again, the walls, not the actual levee system itself) did not break.
The reason we believe the levee itself broke is because that's what they keep saying on the news...until they show you pictures and it's the wall which broke at weak points while the actual (at the risk of sounding repetitive) naturally grown levees did their job.
Of course there was always going to be leaking through the bottom of the levees (due to their composite base), that would have been predicted, but the water amount that would have come through would have been SUBSTANTIALLY less if those "flood walls" hadn't broken.
And as for the erosion of the wetlands.
No, the erosion problem can not be stopped. But if you were to look at the issue over the past twenty something years, you would see that various grant requests from the state of Louisiana have been turned down by the various government administrations even before the new War in Iraq became an issue. The money would obviously not have been to stop the coastal erosion process, but rather to help replenish it (much like the Christmas Tree Tying project and various other ones that we have locally are meant to try and do). The grants we have been turned down from have ranged from renewable per year and one timers. In fact, it's been such a big issue that national magazines like The Times and National Geographic as well as various Science Journals have reported on it, multiple times if I'm not misinformed.
And don't worry, United's got it in the bag.
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