What a waste. Spend your $10 billion now or your $200 billion later. We can’t tell you how much later, maybe next week, maybe next year, maybe next decade, but it will be spent, in your lifetime.

I think they ought fill in the below sea-level part of the city with the rubble of the world trade center and any other rubbish that can be gathered and bring the entire city up to sea level, at least. Then cover the rubble with a layer of good silt and, voila, instant city. I don’t know how long you have to wait for everything to settle to provide a stable foundation. I think a decade or two should suffice. Basically, if you owned the land at the bottom of the rubble, you would own what is directly above it.

I heard someone suggest that the New New Orleans should build houses on stilts, like the beach front houses. Then you don’t have to fill anything in. Of course, the house would be a bit more expensive.

I would also suggest that every house be built with a trap door in the roof to provide easy egress from the attic.

I imagine that if all the houses were built on stilts, that the builders wouldn’t make sure the stilts were properly anchored and that all the houses would fall down after the ground got soaked by a heavy rain. I wonder if that counts as flood damage?

I also heard that some states are planning to go to court against the insurance companies, saying that the companies need to pay for damaged houses even if the damage was all flood and the homeowners didn’t have flood insurance. What a crock. If you want ensure that all your citizens have flood insurance then mandate it. Make it part of the property tax.

Don’t go crying that you didn’t think you needed flood insurance but now your house is gone and you want another one, but you aren’t willing to put up any money to buy the insurance. That’s what insurance is all about, everyone pays to cover against the possibility that a natural disaster will happen to some of them. It’s like a collective helping individual members. It’s socialism.

Personally, I wouldn’t let people build within a 100 year flood plain without their paying a hefty amount of insurance, annually. But it is up to them. IF they build, or buy, where history says floods will come, and they don’t want to contribute to a disaster contingency fund, then they can live with the results.

I remember when we bought a place in Texas, our lot had a creek at one end and the part of the property bordering the creek was in the 100-year flood plain, (it’s marked on the plat). Our mortgage company wanted us to get flood insurance before they would give us the mortgage. We were able to convince them that the actual structure, (house), was 100 yards from the flood plain marking and on a slight rise so we were 2-3 feet higher. (Plano Texas is very, very flat) We looked over the situation and decided not to go for the insurance. We took a chance. I don’t think that house will be flooded until the 1,000 year flood comes along, and that will wipe out most of Dallas-Fort Worth and our house would be the least of our worries.

I also don’t think anyone should be allowed to build within a mile of sea level. (Horizontally, on the map, not vertically. It would get too crowded in Colorado.) Although I realize that that isn’t too realistic. Fisherman, and others who live off the sea, will want to be nearby. But that’s it. No ocean-front beach houses for people working inland. No sea-breeze tourist traps. Let them walk a mile to the beach.