Since many of the news outlets have been referencing this anniversary this week, its been on my mind. I had gotten around to putting my thoughts on (virtual) paper today and got around to looking back to what I had wrote on MTR at that time (after looking around for 20 minutes on google groups as how to find those posts).
What caught me off guard was how negative ALL of us were concerning the likelyhood of New Orleans surviving back then. All of us (on MTR) had written New Orleans off. Compared to the media coverage in the months since that have focused on the will of the citizens of New Orleans to persevere and reclaim their city. Doesn't mean it's been perfect (far from it), and it doesn't mean the fight should in (again, far from it).
But it does show that surviving is the strongest will in any of us.
I never thought New Orleans was finished-mainly because the tourist centers that are so important to the city's economy were largely untouched. That's not to say that there hasn't been a lot of problems and still will be(there were a lot of problems before Katrina too), but a major city like that doesn't just go away.
Regardless of what happened, it's almost inevitable there would be some human presence in that area because of geography. (Mississippi River meets Gulf of Mexico)
Now, has anyone seen any reliable reports on post-Katrina population versus pre-Katrina population? If not, I guess the 2010 census will be out soon.
As with many large cities, New Orleans has been declining since the 1960 census, when a peak of 628,000 was reached. It hit 485,000 in 2000 and was 337,000 in 2008.
^^^
Thanks. Given the fact it's been declining anyway, I guess there's no way to be sure how much of the decline was caused by Katrina.
Only what the Census was putting out as estimates for the couple years after the storm. For example, at one point, Pearl River County (Picayune, MS) was the "fastest growing" county in the country....we'd absorbed *A LOT* of folks from St. Bernard Parish and the destroyed parts of Hancock County.
From what a friend of mine who works for the Census Bureau has told me, don't count on seeing anything from the 2010 census until at least March...
The 2010 census will (hopefully) end the running debate as to which city is larger, Baton Rouge v. New Orleans since Katrina, as well.
Baton Rouge leaders, almost since the moment the post-katrina evacuation of NOLA was completed, have claimed that census population estimates were lowballing BR and EBR parish.
The problem with New Orleans, though, is the disappearing wetlands. I've read reports that Louisiana loses the equivalent of one football field about every half-hour. That's about fifty acres a day. The wetlands act as a buffer, if you will, against high surf. Kinda like barrier islands do in protecting the mainland from even higher surf. Here's a link to an article (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/new-orleans-wetlands-disappearing.php) that explains why.
Knowing what I know about New Orleans, I wondered if it was worth saving because. That's a real tragedy if it couldn't because it's a wonderful city to visit. Unless something is done to save the wetlands, then there's no saving New Orleans.