John's Blog

How much should we rebuild in New Orleans?

I thought Tierney's column last week was rather interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03tierney.html

He pretty much argues that private fire insurance has caused people to make (for the most part), good choices with regard to fire safety, whereas government flood insurance has enabled people to make poor choices with regard to building in flood prone areas.

Having lived up in the Oakland Hills 10 years after the Oakland firestorm and having personnally experienced a small wild fire, people will rebuilt regardless if the location is desirable enough. That having been said, Oakland and Berkeley made serious changes in their building code and operational planning as a result. Only time will tell if it was enough.

Looks like the locals haven't forgotten... yet.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2004/02/25_nofire.shtml

Still Tierney may certainly have a point, especially if predictions of an increase in extreme violent weather on the coasts continues. If you choose to build a home on a sand bar or a flood plain, I'm not sure the government should bail you out when it gets washed away.

Finally, considering the nightmare the cleanup will be, maybe NO needs to think long and hard about what and where they rebuild.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102758.html

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