IN THE wake of devastating Hurricane Katrina, a serious but short-lived discussion broke out concerning the fate of topographically challenged New Orleans, Louisiana. Should it be rebuilt given the natural threats it faces? Tyler Cowen tracks down a news report with details: Under the 100-year standard...experts say that every house being rebuilt in New Orleans has a 26 percent chance of being flooded again over a 30-year mortgage; and every child born in New Orleans would have nearly a 60 percent chance of seeing a major flood in his or her life... Given this threat, the decision to rebuild should have been accompanied by a go-for-broke effort to secure the city. Instead: At the same time, the corps has run into funding problems, lawsuits, a tangle of local interests and engineering difficulties -- all of which has led to delays in getting the promised work done. An initial September 2010 target to complete the $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work has slipped to mid-2011. Then last September, an Army audit found 84 percent of work behind schedule because of engineering complexities, environmental provisos and real estate transactions. The report added that costs would likely soar. A more recent analysis shows the start of 84 of 156 projects was delayed -- 15 of them by six months or more. Meanwhile, a critical analysis of what it would take to build even stronger protection -- 500-year-type levees -- was supposed to be done last Decembe ...
Anytime
