New Orleans is about to be crushed by walls of water which will come flooding in thanks to their protective levees being destroyed by Hurricane Katina.
It comes to my attention that after Ivan last year, they were going to expand the levees to be able to withstand hurricanes-- but they didn't, because the process would have cost billions of dollars. Now, Katrina is coming, and New Orleans is likely to be destroyed, and more than just billions of dollars is going to be spent.
1) In all likelyness, human lives will be lost, the ultamite price of nature's wrath.
2) The entire physical city could be destroyed, causing trillions of dollars in property loss.
3) The oil refineries have been shut down and could be desteroyed, bringing the price of gas to soaring highs-- over $10 in some places.
4) Many companies are located out of New Orleans, such as Rio, the makes of small flash MP3 players. The loss of these smaller businesses will dramatically affect the stock market.
5) Millions of dollars in land will be lost, as without electricity, which will most likely be knocked out by Katrina, in those areas the pumps needed to pump the water out will not be able to operate.
6) The water that will probably enter the area where New Orleans is will have a strong erosive force when couple by the wind and could greatly change the landscape of the New Orleans area.
7) Government relief money will have to fuel the rescue efforts and the rebuilding, even while the government loses millions of dollars of tax income from the loss of the city's land and businesses.
Compared to all this loss, wouldn't strenghtening the levees have been a small cost?
