Conditions in New Orleans are more post-apocalyptic than I had realized.
The Superdome, where upward of 25,000 people had sweltered in conditions described as unfit for animals, was mostly emptied, though 1,500 were still there late Friday. They had renamed the place, rife with overflowing toilets and reports of murder and rape, the Sewerdome....
An estimated 20,000 were said to be at the four-story convention center, which at some points apparently attracted as many refugees as the Superdome but was ignored much longer by rescue operations. Conditions there were even worse than at the Superdome, with armed thugs seizing control and, the authorities said, repulsing squads of police officers sent to retake it.
On Friday morning, people huddled in small groups inside the center or sat on orange folding chairs outside, a gruesome mockery of an actual convention. Amid overflowing toilets, an elderly women and a teenage boy were having seizures in the arms of relatives.
Evacuees said that seven dead bodies littered the third floor. They said a 14-year-old girl had been raped.
Yeesh. I guess this isn't one of those crises where people come together and get patriotic.
So what I want to know is...will there still be a New Orleans? Or is it just gone now? Hey, about 2/3s of our readers have PhDs in history, so tell me: when was the last time a city was destroyed and didn't come back?
Julia points out that Tulane's new temporary website, which includes an interesting blog-like list of messages from the school's president, indicates that there will be no Fall semester. We have at least one friend at Tulane, who of course can't be reached by Tulane's email system -- all of their on-campus servers must have been destroyed, hence the temporary website and their need to "obtain new contact information for each and every employee." It looks like Tulane's students will be transferred to other schools.
I read that Galveston, Tex. was wiped out by a hurricane in 1900.
But then again, no PhD here. I'll bet the jury's still out on some of those tsumami areas.
Lots of cities over the ages disappeared after calamities like Knossus, Atlantis, Troy, and Pompei, but in the modern era they get rebuilt, even those on fault lines and beaches because they're valuable where they are. As for Tulane students, even UNF will be taking in a handful for the semester and housing them in the dorms.
I did some drinking with said Tulane friend the other night. She seemed fine (if drunk) and has not decided what to do yet. Generally speaking, grad and professional school students are taking visiting status at other schools rather than taking the semester off.
There's a small town in Illinois - can't recall the name right now - that was wiped out in the 80s or 90s after a major natural disaster. (Again, can't recall details; I think it was a flood.)
Rather than rebuild it in the traditional sense, they moved the entire town a few miles to higher ground.
If the same were done to New Orleans (which is, at least theoretically, possible, if they're willing to abandon much of the historically significant places) and if it cost about the same per capita, it would be about $50 billion to move the entire city. Of course, that's on top of all the costs to rescue and resettle the residents, pump out the floodwaters, demolish whatever's left, etc.
Big Pinz,
Wasn't that little town in the Midwest wiped out by a fire rather than a flood?
There's also Atlanta...my favorite suburban hell!
KO, you so better not be thinking of Chicago.