This post is based on solutions that appeared since the tsunami in Asia, and now again with Hurricane Katrina. Not all may be so practical, or directly available. I do not intend to put the blame on anyone for what happened, rather to try and look for ways to ameliorate the service and get things better done/organised next time. Your opinion and advice is most welcome.
We should not forget that many died in those two big events, and that some of those deaths could have been prevented, but also that training for such an event is very hard, you can hardly flood an entire city for a week to test things out. So the best we can do is learn from what happened and look for solutions. That is all you'll find here, possible solutions. While I won't point fingers, I may make remarks about what can be done better. Where I live, and the country north of us, The Netherlands, we can't do without levees. It is a necessity, as the flood of 1953 pointed out.
I City defence ideas
1. Levees
As elsewhere in the world, the wetlands of the river have been used for other things, and now they can't be used anymore to give the river a bit more space. There is no easy solution for that. The only way that I can think off would be to allow areas downstream and upstream to be flooded by the Mississippi, if needed be. The areas would be surrounded by levees themselves, so they don't flood the surrounding area.
Another potiental solution, but one the people won't like, is to take part of the lake, and build a second levee. Or to build the levee, rather then a straight line, in the same way, in part, as the walls of cities were in the Middle Ages up until Vaubans' time (in english). So rather than a straight line, it would be supplemented by bastions. These could have a space, which would be filled with water if they would break, but would not directly affect the levee behind it.
2. Barriers in the city.
Building levees in the city might be seen as useful, but is, in my opinion, only useful around important buildings. Hospitals and the like might be protected this way; then when the city gets flooded, they don't necessarily drown. If they were to be connected to an emergy energy-grid, they would be able to operate longer. More on this emergency energy-grid later. Another way would be to provide metal barriers near where the canal from the lake to the Mississippi lies. In cities in Europe, for example Antwerp, they are used, and closed whenever it's (super) high tide.
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Article comments
1 - Luc Rolland
This was one of the first killer hurricane to hit the shores of Norh America. The Yucatan was hit by a similar one afterwards partly destroying Cancun. There are even oil rigs that were heavily damaged being the cause for the important oil price increase.
As we continue to drive our gas guzlers, there will more on the way and the next ones might be even more powerful.
This means that we can try to build better safety nests, but we will not avoid the destruction and worst the death toll if we do not change civil security. The way to do it is to prepare better and faster evacuation schemes.
It is not sufficient to tell the people to leave since, in the USA, with insufficient social help, this leaves the poor in danger.
The Nouvelle-Orleans disaster shows that we leave the poor to die in front of danger. When will USA be able to take care of the poor ?
So, now, who is next ?
Every major US coastal city might be hit.
A couple of years ago, a very renowed sailing race between England and USA was diverted because of the growth of a major hurrican that almost spread from one continent to the next. If this one would have hit American shores, it would have reached Boston with waves being 20 story high (comprable to the ones in the Perfect Storm movie).
We then need to prepare ourselves to better evacuation programs done by civil security people being experts in their domain instead of badly converted militaries.