New Orleans is sinking and the global ocean level is rising as a result of global warming, but both effects are much slower than your article would indicate.

The levees around the Mississippi keep the silt confined.  With flow concentrated in the channel instead of being allowed to expand into multiple channels,the silt stays suspended until it reaches the ocean, where waves keep it suspended until it falls off the continental shelf.  It doesn't get deposited to build marshland anymore.

If you cut a deep channel in the freshwater marsh, it allows salt water intrusion which kills the surrounding plants.  Without the plant roots there is greatly increased erosion which expands the channel.  Eventually, everything seaward of the channel dies.  And there have been many, many deep channels cut in the Louisiana swamps for navigation, pipelines and oil and gas drilling.

As if this weren't enough, the Mississippi is currently cutting a new channel down the Atchafalaya river, which in some future flood will cause failure of the control structures and will capture the flow of the Mississippi south of Red River Landing, cutting off the flow of silt completely.

If you were willing to spend the money, you could create an island called "Atlantis" in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and build a city there, and protect it from the ocean, but this doesn't mean it's cost-effective to do so.  If we're going to save New Orleans at a reasonable cost, we're going to have to totally change the way we manage the lower Mississippi, and it's very hard to see how we can do that and keep the navigation channel open.

I missed the debunking...got a link?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/09/01/photo_controversy/index.html

That link supports what I said...one picture shows a black couple was looting (the caption), and another picture shows a white couple foraging (the caption).  Where did I say anything about racism.  I'm talking about pictures...what are you talking about?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Where did I say anything about racism

I thought you conservatives had a sense of humor.  Jeez.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I'm not a conservative.

Borrowing from Steve Urkel's lexicon, are you an argumentalist?

Illegitimi non carborundum.

The term is "sophist."

So you admit you don't have a sense of humor then?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

That's right, Lou, I take everything seriously.

I can see that...please for you own sake, go see a comedy this weekend. ;-)

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I hope he doesn't rent a copy of "Sophist's Choice" starring Meryl Streep. That movie is a total downer.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Isn't that the one where she has to choose between Ad Hominem and False Dilemma?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

So why is there a national flood program to encourage people to continually put their lives on the line every year and then have the taxpayers (indirectly) pay for the reconstruction?

It's not quite that simple.  In order for a homeowner to even get flood insurance (regardless of cost), his community must have a flood abatement/zoning plan with the NFIP.  Is this plan assiduously followed?  I don't know...but it's like they always say...

Underwriters! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the rules of the National Flood Service, Dude, at least it's a plan.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Why can't the private insurance companies do a better job than the .gov? For example, my father in law was just notified that his vacation cabin will not have its insurance continued because of various reasons (all of them completely understandable) with the structure and its current state of repair. The insurance company sent an inspector the whole way out to a relatively rural area to do an exterior site check of his building and got a detailed report.

Wouldn't it be better for a private company to do this for flood risk? They could decide which structures are better prepare for a flood, etc much better than some random bureaucrats behind a desk in a far off city. There is greater accountability and better efficiency in the private sector than in government. Why not make use of it, and decouple predictable disasters from slamming the public treasury?

I guess what I am saying is I have more faith in Lou than I do in the government to accurately quantitate the risk and enumerate a fair premium.

Why can't the private insurance companies do a better job than the .gov?

I don't know that they can't...part of it may be that they don't want to.  Flood insurance is a risky business (npi).  Unlike with a fire where there are clear indications of damage, water damaged parts of the home can be a staging ground for all kinds of bad shit*.  So, not only do you have a difficult and expensive clean-up project...but say you own a flood damaged two family home...or you sell the flood damaged (but repaired) home...now your insurance company is open to liability claims if any of the mold remains and someone gets sick.  The companies I have worked with are hugely squeamish when it comes to water damage...even non-flood.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Yeah Stachybotrys is a bitch. It is becoming such a cottage industry --- I've seen home "test kits" for it in hardware shops for $10-20 where the cost of materials is probably just pennies of that. Yeah. If I was unscrupulous I'd think about going into business marketing some of that.

Anywho, the point is the insurance cos wouldn't want to get involved. So the premiums would be prohibitively high. Just add "floods" to the HO-3 form (sorry if my insurance lingo is rusty, I haven't talked with my mom about that stuff in ages, and she tries not to have insurance flashbacks) and let the underwriters adjust things (they are the people who set the rates, right?).  The cost goes way up, and people don't live there anymore. It's win/win.

Hell, if the HO-3 already covers crap like Volcanic eruptions then they could cover flood damage, right? Just adjust the premiums accordingly.

and people don't live there anymore. It's win/win.

New York City, Long Island, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, St. Petersburg (my home town), New Orleans, Houston (too close to New Orleans), San Diego, Los Angeles,  every single town along potentially any river or creek.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

How many of them are build primarily below sea level in an area that gets actively attacked by major hurricanes on a regular basis? There is a difference between flood insurance in case the creek or lake spills into your garage and flood insurance covering an entire city needing to be rebuilt every 25 years. Unless I'm wrong, very few of the cities on the list require the walls and levees that N'awlins does.

Would a re-insurance company cover an insurance agency (I hope I am using the right terminology here, like I said, its been ages) that wrote a policy on every single structure in a New Orleans like city just as the Feds do?

There is a difference between flood insurance in case the creek or lake spills into your garage and flood insurance covering an entire city needing to be rebuilt every 25 years.

Overall, not really.  Floods is floods.  All that comes into play is the premium based on the type of flood zone.  9th Ward?  Get out a big check.  Turner Maine along the Androscoggin river (a very well controlled river)? Not so much. Towns along the Mississippi? Good luck. Issues concerning the insured aside, it really comes down to the flood zone.

When we take into account the lenders, it get a little more complex.  You could buy a home within a certain distance of the Andro and the bank probably won't care.  Buy a home just about anywhere in the Hamptons in New Hampshire and the bank will probably require a flood policy before they'll sign.

I can't really speak about the re-insurance aspect since it concerns cars more than property where I sell...and even then much of it happens behind the scenes.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I'm sure the riot and volcanic eruption clauses are allowed simply because they are viewed as being so unlikely as to be a chump's bet, and that they'll be removed permanently the first time we see them actually needed, as in for example after Ranier's next eruption.

Insurance companies with the exception of Lloyd's partners aren't gamblers.  They're not in the business  of making good gambling bets but of averaging risk.  No matter where you live, you stand a reasonably predictable chance of your home being damaged by fire or by wind or tornado, and this occurs in many separate events, which means that an insurance company can average their risk by selling policies nationwide.  If you insure people everywhere, you can set your rates reasonably close to your loss level and still not have a lot of risk.

Contrast this with the worst example, war.  There's a very small chance every year that half the US will be destroyed in a nuclear war.  In order to cover this risk, the insurance company needs capital equal to half the value of all the homes it insures.  The risk is too unpredictable, so they write it out of the policies.  Nobody wants to have to pay out the year a large fraction of southern California or San Francisco gets destroyed by an earthquake, so they write it out even though the chance each year is rather small.  And the same thing goes for the year Saint Louis or New Orleans gets destroyed by flood.

Of course insuring a FEW homes for flood is fine, because then your loss risk is still small.  But to have to insure all of them?  Plenty of insurance companies would rather go out of business.

I'm sure the riot and volcanic eruption clauses are allowed simply because they are viewed as being so unlikely as to be a chump's bet, and that they'll be removed permanently the first time we see them actually needed, as in for example after Ranier's next eruption.

Well, that, and when Yellowstone goes there won't be a line for the claims adjuster to get in. There probably won't be any claims adjusters left. Or anybody else.

Understatement of the geologic era from the USGS on what would happen if a supervolcano explosion happened at Yellowstone:

The surrounding states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming would be affected, as well as other places in the United States and the world.