Keys Corner

There has been quite a lot of discussion on the web as to whether New Orleans should be rebuilt. However, the Spiegel has published an article which raises some points I haven’t seen mentioned yet in the English speaking blogsphere. (Rather poor Google translation here.) The article quotes a technical expert in Germany, Michael Gronau, of the Technischen Hilfswerk in Kiel, and Heike Boehmer from the Institut für Bauforschung (Institute of Building Research) in Hannover. The Technisches Hilfswerk is the organisation which gets called in when there are major disasters in Germany, or anywhere else in the world where German technical help is required.

It sounds like there may be little choice, if it does take the often quoted 4 weeks to pump the water out after the dykes have been resealed:

• wooden buildings which have been soaked for days or weeks in ambient temperatures of around 30°c will probably be irretrievably damaged. The wood will take up moisture and rot
• standing water will undermine the foundations of more solidly built structures, rendering them unstable
• any buildings which contain organic insulation will provide an ideal breeding ground for all sorts of fungus and insects in the hot damp conditions before the buildings are dried out
• and thinking about drying out, a newly constructed building takes about 3 years to dry out naturally. Using heaters, a 100 sq m (approx. 1000 sq ft) apartment or house needs about 6 weeks to be dried out, but given the number of buildings affected in New Orleans, it is unlikely that there will enough power or equipment to dry out all the thousands of buildings in a reasonable space of time

On top of those points, New Orleans has been been sinking at the rate of nearly 1 m (3 ft) per 100 years, while the sea level has simultaneously been rising, making the long term prospects for a rebuilt city even worse.