NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
August 31, 2005
New Orleans
The wave that hit Biloxi on Monday was not smaller than the one that hit Phuket, the day after last Christmas: some 25 feet. Moreover, it was accompanied by winds topping 140 knots. About thirty were killed when one ocean-side apartment building came down. Some dozens were killed in the area of Hurricane Katrina's initial landfall -- not the tens of thousands who perished in Asia -- and while the American toll may mount into hundreds, the Asian toll mounted into hundreds of thousands. That is the difference between "first" and "third" worlds.However, nature is an equal-opportunity wrecker, and it could have been much worse if, as predicted, New Orleans had been hit squarely, at "Category Five". As so often happens, the hurricane veered as it was coming into land, and the eye-wall passed the city to the east. Though inundated, apparently from the failure of a section of the levees, and overflow from backwashing canal waters, the city will certainly survive and rebuild, better than ever. The French Quarter, and other culturally significant neighbourhoods, can be repaired. Indeed, with modern building technology, there is no excuse for losing an historical building, for once adequate plans are filed, should the worst happen, we can always rebuild it from scratch, with structural improvements. Finding the money is the only real difficulty; but this should result, at worst, in delays. If I may be so insensitive as to continue looking on the bright side, the experience of Katrina was just what was needed, to reconsider the city's environmental defences. After the expenditure of a few more billion dollars (the kind of government spending in which I exult), it ought to be possible to make the whole levee and pumping system good to withstand Category Five. It is an engineering challenge, the sort of thing Americans love, and can afford. It could of course be argued that the site for the city was ill-chosen. The same could be said of Venice, Amsterdam, Calcutta, Bangkok, and a hundred other cities. It could be said that the World Trade Centre is not worth rebuilding, for a substantial new skyscraper will only provide a fresh target. But this is not how we do things on this planet. In the first place, the site of each city made sense to its founders, and from there on, it becomes almost a "life issue". The memory of the city, and the character it inspires, are more than the sum of its parts. It grows, and trades, and dominates its hinterland, as a man dominates a farm. From that mysterious and positive moment of conception, a great city is a living being, endowed with a soul. Material considerations must yield to the spiritual and moral ones, in keeping it alive. And the tells, or mounds, of the ancient cities in Mesopotamia and Syria show that their bodies do not "teleport". Like Damascus, the most ancient of cities, they remain fixed points of reference over many thousand years. New Orleans is unusual, for the ground beneath it seems to be subsiding; most cities rise and rise, adding layer to layer above their own rubble. But a challenge is a challenge, and New Orleans will yet rise. Graves in New Orleans are already placed above the ground, to stay above the water. If Abu Simbel could be moved above the waters of the Aswan Dam, then even Canal Street can be levitated -- set a prize for the engineer who figures out how this can be done. With the extraordinary quantity of mud that must be dredged to keep the Mississippi navigable, it might make some sense to adapt the Dutch "polder" system, to "pump the ground higher". Instead of excavating for their foundations, new buildings could be started at existing ground levels, and then filled around -- making the infrastructure that supports them cheaper to lay down. Indeed, one of the things that makes great disasters so exciting is the prospect of recovery -- of restoring what was best and building what is better. It is a moment in which the cost-benefit analysis swings out of view, and in which we confront the elements with what is elemental in ourselves. This is why, although I don't believe global warming will really happen, I almost hope it will come true. In the end, of course, we all die. And all our cities will disintegrate, and their ruins finally dissolve like sugar. As Prospero puts it in the Tempest, "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and leave ... not a rack behind." But that is to get ahead of the plot. It is for us to be creators not destroyers, and to build and rebuild against the impossibility that anything we touch can outlast time. And this is something that cannot be argued with: the immutable command of our Maker. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top