Louisiana's sinking coast
When the Army Corps of Engineers started systematically leveeing the river in the 19th century, it cut off the region's main source of silt, the raw material of delta-building. The weight of large buildings and infrastructure and the leaching of water, oil and gas from beneath the surface across the region have also contributed to the problem. Following the great floods of 1927, the Mississippi River was surrounded by a series of levees meant to protect the city from such floods. In 1965, New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Betsy. This storm caused tremendous amount of flooding in the New Orleans area. The federal government began a levee-building program to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane (which was the same strength as Betsy.) These series of levees were only completed recently.
However, an unintended consequence of the levees was that natural silt deposits from the Mississippi River were unable to replenish the delta, causing the costal wetlands of Louisiana to wash away and the city of New Orleans to sink even deeper. The Mississippi River delta is subsiding faster than any other place in the nation. And while the land is sinking, sea level has been rising. In the past 100 years, land subsidence and sea-level rise have added several feet to all storm surges. That extra height puts affected areas under deeper water; it also means flooding from weaker storms and from the outer edges of powerful storms spreads over wider areas. The marshes that ring New Orleans have sunk the quickest.
The problem with the wetlands was further worsened by salt water intrusion caused by the canals dug by the oil companies and private individuals in this marshland. This erosion of the wetlands not only caused Louisiana to lose 24 square miles per year of land annually and 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s, but it also destroyed Louisiana’s first line of defense against hurricanes.
Hurricanes draw their strength from the sea, so they quickly weaken and begin to dissipate when they make landfall. Hurricanes moving over fragmenting marshes toward the New Orleans area can retain more strength, and their winds and large waves pack more speed and destructive power. Scientists working for the state Department of Natural Resources measured some of these effects during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Andrew's surge height dropped from 9.3 feet at Cocodrie to 3.3 feet at the Houma Navigation Canal 23 miles to the north. For every mile of the marsh-and-water landscape it traversed, it lost 3.1 inches of height, sparing some homes farther north from more flooding. Currently Louisiana has 30% of the total coastal marsh and accounts for 90% of the coastal marsh loss in the lower 48 states. The engineering of the river has basically brought the Gulf of Mexico right to the doorstep of New Orleans, making it more vulnerable to hurricanes.
The combination of sinking land and rising seas has put the Mississippi River delta as much as 3 feet lower relative to sea level than it was a century ago, and the process continues. That means hurricane floods driven inland from the Gulf have risen by corresponding amounts. Storms that once would not have had much impact can now be devastating events, and flooding penetrates to places where it rarely occurred before. The problem also is slowly eroding levee protection, cutting off evacuation routes sooner and putting dozens of communities and valuable infrastructure at risk of being wiped off the map.
to my knowledge.. they were not approved by the house and the presidents during those respective times sent troops in as a "Military Action" or something like that and not as an "official war" but if you think those weren't wars :roll:
he's fun to argue with. Oh well.. his political views and mine just are different. I think one thing a lot of people will agree with is that we should prolly stop focusing on the rest of the world's problems and focus on our own a bit more. I know that I think that way.. I like helping other people and all but our own country could use some serious attention. Prices inflating way too high (damn gas -_-) with wages remaining roughly the same. Our import is greater then our export causing more debt. Sick, homeless, jobless people. Too many criminal acts... Things need some serious attention here.
. Media is having a field day trying to point fingers and stir up garbage to improve their poor ratings lately. It's a disaster yes, but the media is amplifying it way beyond the real scope.
