Yesterday, I commented on the question of whether or not New Orleans should be rebuilt. Today’s Washington Post has this article about what rebuilding will mean. It is, in a word, staggering.
First they have to pump the flooded city dry, and that will take a minimum of 30 days. Then they will have to flush the drinking water system, making sure they don’t recycle the contaminants. Figure another month for that.
The electricians will have to watch out for snakes in the water, wild animals and feral dogs. It will be a good idea to wear hip boots and take care of cuts and scrapes before the toxic slush turns them into festering sores. The power grid might be up in a few weeks, but many months will elapse before everybody’s lights come back on.
By that time, a lot of people won’t care because they will have taken the insurance money and moved away — forever. Home rebuilding, as opposed to repairs, won’t start for a year and will last for years after that.
(…..)
Officials in Baton Rouge, La., yesterday painted a bleak picture of New Orleans’ immediate future. Its 485,000 inhabitants are refugees or soon-to-be refugees — ordered out of town because the town is unlivable.
Electric power is gone. Drinking water is gone. Sewage service is gone. Roads are destroyed. Tens of thousands of homes are buried in contaminated floodwaters. The dead — still uncounted — float in drowned neighborhoods or lie pinned beneath debris.
Refugees. Refugees in the United States of America. I never thought I’d see that in my life time.
