cyrnel

That entire region was built up by sediment deposits from the Mississippi river. The deposits and the dry land they provide isn't old, geologically, and settles naturally, irrespective of ocean level.

Much of NO was built on what was a swamp area, below sea level. It's worse now. When weather first flooded the natural levees during the first French rule, the people built them higher, and the cycle repeated. Much later part of the improvement meant controlling the river flow which removed the source of new deposits. Without new deposits the entire coastal region is slowly going under.

I expect knee-jerk levee funding but nothing's going to happen quickly. IIRC, the existing upgrades (long underfunded) weren't slated for completion until 2015.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195