NOLA gets grant to study possible teardown of I-10 over Claiborne

[civilengineeringnerd]

The only thing I want to throw in this thread is the weird idea that public transit needs to "make money".

The ugly viaduct through the city doesn't "make money" and probably costs the same, if not more, than any public transit replacement would.. but the highway through the city center also decreases the quality of life of the communities it runs through, and cuts neighborhoods in half with a loud redundant eyesore. City centers should be for people, not cars.

ridership should be part of the justification process, because in cities like NYC, and chicago, the justification for their transit systems was already there but due to many factors, like lack of keeping the fare rates up, among others, you have problems with keeping up with the maintence for the rail transit in those cities. that maintence is only gonna get higher and higher the longer its put off, but city officials and the state governments are reluctant to do anything for those cities' public transit, especially the rail transit.
updating and upgrading the lines themselves costs a lot of money, and replacing rail tunnels/bridges costs loads more.
city centers are a outdated practice IMHO because for whatever reason city planners think that everyone will commute to the city centers and downtowns for jobs and such, which is no longer the case and hasn't been for 150 years, but because they can't keep the past in the past, and allow mixed use zoning everywhere, not just for whenever they want a damn transit line to be built, they have the traffic gridlock, the downtown gridlock, and all of that, and they promote development in the downtown instead of literally everywhere, its a weird problem.
many cities and towns have that problem where they think a downtown should be there, when in reality theres jobs everywhere in a given area, shops and residential too, and theres no "city center", "central business district" or "downtown" anymore when most jobs are gonna be outside of the downtown.
its a dumb relic of the 19th and 20th century that just refuses to die in city planning.

[civilengineeringnerd]

Seismologists have no idea when the next "big one" level earthquake will hit the L.A. or Bay Area regions. The same goes for Mount Rainier and when it eventually blows its stack, possibly sending a boiling lahar rocketing into the Seattle-Tacoma metro. Those are sudden events that could happen next week or next century.

The situation in New Orleans and the rest of the delta country in Louisiana is a slowly worsening crisis, not a sharp single event like an earthquake. The deterioration process will continue without dramatic intervention. Mother Nature will steadily force more and more businesses and residents in the threatened areas to GTFO.

so is everyone here forgetting or doesn't know about the new madrid fault zone, which btw, i do live within 200 miles of?
that thing erupts and you'd have major economic damage in at least 4 states, if not more. from Kentucky and Missouri to Arkansas and Mississippi, maybe even as far north as Illinois and Iowa and as far south as Louisiana and the NOLA area. the mississippi river is also included and the fault zone also runs underneath the mississippi for a bit. it would be far worse than whatever economic damage a major hurricane bigger and stronger than katrina would ever do to NOLA and baton rouge or whatever "the big one" would do to california. the new madrid major series of earthquakes between 1811-1812, did a lot of damage to the area, and some earthquakes went as far as boston mass!
if anyone wants to do a proper comparison between a earthquake and a hurricane, better start with the new madrid. i honestly don't know why anyone automatically goes to the california "big one" that will only seriously affect one state, when new madrid literally has the capability to affect multiple states, and dozens of metro areas and if it goes off further south, near memphis tn, you better hurry to high ground in NOLA because those leeves are most likely not earthquake proof one bit, and you might as well be kissing NOLA goodbye.

[Bobby5280]

so is everyone here forgetting or doesn't know about the new madrid fault zone, which btw, i do live within 200 miles of?

One potential natural disaster threat does not cancel out others. The US has a multitude of possible threats, all of which can inflict countless billions of worth of property damage and kill many thousands of people. The New Madrid fault zone is a very serious threat. The Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Northwest coast has been overdue for a severe (9.0+) earthquake; that would unleash a devastating tsunami along with the violent 3 minute+ temblor. That subduction zone is different from the more well known San Andreas fault. No one knows if/when Mount Rainer will blow its stack. If the super volcano under Yellowstone National Park ever blows up it could potentially kill millions of people and plunge the world into a "nuclear winter" type climate for many years.

Those are naturally occurring events. Big things we can't control or predict; all we can do is prepare in whatever way is practical and/or possible.

The situation in New Orleans (sinking land, ocean water eating the coast line) is a man-made disaster. It is a slow-rolling problem very few people want to make any attempt to solve. People want to keep the status quo in place and not make any changes. So, eventually, the city of New Orleans will sink enough that it gets flooded permanently. The occasional hurricane strike will speed up the process from time to time.

[US 89]

Those are naturally occurring events. Big things we can't control or predict; all we can do is prepare in whatever way is practical and/or possible.

And sometimes even those are barely planned for. The Wasatch Fault in Utah is overdue for a 7.0+ earthquake, which would be devastating for the Salt Lake City metro. Unlike with California, that threat wasn't really known until the past few decades, and still isn't as well studied or understood, so a lot of infrastructure isn't seismically sound. You don't want to know how many unreinforced masonry buildings are in that valley.

With New Orleans, the flooding and sinking threat is well known and well understood.

[Rothman]

Retrofitting the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake for seismic events is part of the massive ongoing renovation project, despite some legends about the old foundation's inverted arches and whatnot already providing such to an extent.

[Bobby5280]

It looks like the biggest immediate threat to Salt Lake City is the very real possibility of the Great Salt Lake drying up and turning into a source of toxic dust clouds laced with arsenic, antimony, heavy metals, etc. A bunch of this stuff is covered up with a hard crust of earth in already dried areas of the lake. But as the wind erodes that crust a lot of the really nasty toxins will get exposed and swept into the air.

With New Orleans, the flooding and sinking threat is well known and well understood.

It is true the reasons why New Orleans is slowly sinking are well known. The same goes for the eroding coastline. Yet the problem is being largely ignored.

The situation is kind of similar to the shit-show going on out West with all the states fighting over Colorado River water. IMHO, lawmakers in California are being ignorant dicks with how they're approaching the situation -basically expecting AZ, NV, UT, CO and NM to make all the sacrifices. And that's all while CA has other sources of water besides the Colorado River. It could be entertaining on a macabre level seeing what happens if Lake Mead and Lake Powell drop to dead pool levels. California lawmakers keep whipping out some piece of paper written in the 1800's as a trump card, but how much is that going to be worth if the damned river runs dry?