Thinking about Easy City 2: The Environment

[helgatwb]

All I can say about the environment around New Orleans, is that it won't be easy to fix, at least not now. If something were put into place to deal with the river a long time ago, so that people were used to it, it would make a lot of this easier.

One thing that needs to happen is the river needs to change its bed. Right now, it would be a logistical nightmare. The main problem, is, of course, the people. They don't want to deal with it. If the buildings had been built correctly, from the start, so that flooding wouldn't cause the property damage it causes now, it wouldn't be a problem.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> All I can say about the environment around New Orleans, is that it won't be easy to fix, at least not now. <<

That makes sense. However, I'm looking at Easy City as an establish metroplex in Terramagne as of "now." It's still growing, but there's enough of it hooked together to qualify as a metroplex. So, that had to start some time ago in order to reach the current stage.

>> If something were put into place to deal with the river a long time ago, so that people were used to it, it would make a lot of this easier. <<

How long ago, and what kind of differences?

The first really public superhero was Granny Whammy in the 1940s, but there were a few quiet soups before that. The numbers have risen considerably since then. In the 1950s people kind of tried to sweep it under the rug, but it all sloshed out in the 1960s.

>> One thing that needs to happen is the river needs to change its bed. Right now, it would be a logistical nightmare. <<

One possibility is the Atchafalaya route, which would dump America's main river transport into a completely undeveloped area. I can see why people would prefer to avoid that. Another is the Lake Ponchartrain route, which would be a substantial improvement with less (but not no) disruption.

Other ideas?

>> The main problem, is, of course, the people. They don't want to deal with it. <<

That's true. A consideration is that the river acts like a mad firehose periodically. Sooner or later it's going to go completely out of control and we'll be lucky to get it to stabilize anywhere. If that's bad enough, people would be grateful just to have it be a river again instead of a lake.

>> If the buildings had been built correctly, from the start, so that flooding wouldn't cause the property damage it causes now, it wouldn't be a problem. <<

Hmm. From what I've read, the historic buildings are actually among the safest. People built first on the high ground, because they lacked the technology to drain and settle the marshes. The earliest of those measures are only about a hundred years old. Most of the really stupid placements are more recent, dating from the latter half of the century. Floods in 1965 and 1995 alerted people to the problems in lower areas of the city. In the 1980s-90s they noticed the land area sinking; that's something superpowers as well as architecture could address.

Oh, and it would help to add the Easy City tag to your post.

Re: Thoughts

[helgatwb]

>> That makes sense. However, I'm looking at Easy City as an establish metroplex in Terramagne as of "now." It's still growing, but there's enough of it hooked together to qualify as a metroplex. So, that had to start some time ago in order to reach the current stage. <<

That actually settles a lot of my concerns about the metroplex, because things have only gotten so bad recently.

>> How long ago, and what kind of differences?

The first really public superhero was Granny Whammy in the 1940s, but there were a few quiet soups before that. The numbers have risen considerably since then. In the 1950s people kind of tried to sweep it under the rug, but it all sloshed out in the 1960s. <<

That is the time-line I was picturing, actually. If there were a quiet soup in just the right position, with just the right powers, with just the right amount of common sense, he could have influenced things in the right way, as far as city planning, and flood control.

The difference would be that people would be resigned to it, they would maybe understand that it has to happen, and it would just be one of those things that you have to endure to live where you want to live. Take people living in the Rigolets, all of the houses there are at least two stories off the ground, not an easy thing to deal with, but they do. It floods there, too, but they just live with it. Uhm, the Rigolets are a chain of islands across Lake Pontchartrain, it's considered a suburb of Slidell. It's pronounced 'ri-guh-lees'. So, if the river had to change its bed every so often, and flood, y'know, like rivers do, people living in the way would be prepared.

To illustrate the point of just how much we've messed up the topography down here, the Rigolets did not start out as islands, it was more dry places in the swamp. Now it's islands, because that part of the swamp that used to surround the lake is part of the lake. Ugh. There was an outlet to the Gulf, but yeah, mostly just swamp.

>> One possibility is the Atchafalaya route, which would dump America's main river transport into a completely undeveloped area. I can see why people would prefer to avoid that. Another is the Lake Ponchartrain route, which would be a substantial improvement with less (but not no) disruption.

Other ideas? <<

I'm honestly thinking Lake Pontchartrain would be the best bet. The very best thing, would be if people had let it alone to do its thing, but that's not possible.

>> That's true. A consideration is that the river acts like a mad firehose periodically. Sooner or later it's going to go completely out of control and we'll be lucky to get it to stabilize anywhere. If that's bad enough, people would be grateful just to have it be a river again instead of a lake. <<

They've chained Old Man River, and he ain't happy.

I think the levees cause more problems than they fix, but there could be a way to make them work.

>> Hmm. From what I've read, the historic buildings are actually among the safest. People built first on the high ground, because they lacked the technology to drain and settle the marshes. The earliest of those measures are only about a hundred years old. Most of the really stupid placements are more recent, dating from the latter half of the century. Floods in 1965 and 1995 alerted people to the problems in lower areas of the city. In the 1980s-90s they noticed the land area sinking; that's something superpowers as well as architecture could address. <<

Yeah, it's pretty common knowledge around here that any houses more than 50-60 years old are much safer, and in a much better place. I liked your idea of having houses in low-lying areas be up in the air, mostly because of what I mentioned earlier, some of the neighborhoods in low-lying areas already do that. That's all I meant about doing it right from the beginning.

Let me sum up: instead of all the levees, and draining the swamps, and building houses flat on the ground where they shouldn't be, we let the river take a more natural course, flooding when necessary, and have houses and communities designed to withstand that sort of thing.

Something like that could have been put in place anywhere from about seventy years ago to thirty years ago, though 1965, 1995, or the 1980s seem to be the best bet, because that's when people started noticing a problem.

Alternately, what you've suggested about one or more soups with earth-moving powers altering the terrain sounds plausible. It sounds like it would work more with the environment, than fighting against it, the way we're doing now.

>> Oh, and it would help to add the Easy City tag to your post. <<

Done, and my apologies.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> That actually settles a lot of my concerns about the metroplex, because things have only gotten so bad recently. <<

Okay, great.

>> That is the time-line I was picturing, actually. <<

Yay!

>> If there were a quiet soup in just the right position, with just the right powers, with just the right amount of common sense, he could have influenced things in the right way, as far as city planning, and flood control. <<

The three primary players are Stormtreader, a woman in New Orleans; Mudslinger, a man in Slidell; and Lagniappe, a woman (probably, might be genderqueer) in between. In the 1960s, what has been mostly quiet punctuated by occasional celebrities is rapidly becoming less quiet. Stormtreader and Mudslinger each have a handful of other soups, and they've been trying to do stuff, but there's nobody to teach them how and the effective PR materials are decades away. So it's going to take a major disaster to make people wise up, and Lagniappe to serve as a conciliator.

Then they can use their powers not just to fix things directly, but to figure out how to fix them that will actually work. Stormtreader can, to some extent, feel how the air moves around buildings: what will rip loose easier or stay put better. Mudslinger can feel the earth, how it rises and falls, how buildings merge into it, how the river deposits silt. Lagniappe can feel people and probably uses psychology more than superpowers to influence people. They already have some neighborhood influence because they can accomplish some things individually, but they need the teamwork to fix something as big as lower Louisiana.

>> The difference would be that people would be resigned to it, they would maybe understand that it has to happen, and it would just be one of those things that you have to endure to live where you want to live. <<

That makes sense. You can be stubborn and stay put, which requires making accommodations; or you can move to where you can have more conveniences. The latter is what will entice people into the undeveloped uplands of New Orleans (I was surprised to see how much of that there was) and the middle ground between there and Slidell. Those who stay behind will be folks willing to do anything to keep their homes. Trying to force people to do anything is bad; it's better to make attractive places that will lure away the less attached.

>> Take people living in the Rigolets, all of the houses there are at least two stories off the ground, not an easy thing to deal with, but they do. It floods there, too, but they just live with it. <<

That sounds like what I had in mind, yes.

>> Uhm, the Rigolets are a chain of islands across Lake Pontchartrain, it's considered a suburb of Slidell. It's pronounced 'ri-guh-lees'. So, if the river had to change its bed every so often, and flood, y'know, like rivers do, people living in the way would be prepared. <<

If people would just not crowd it so much, that would help tremendously. When you build right down to the waterline everywhere, then the least little twitch and sigh will cause big problems. If you hang back, the river has wiggle room.

>> To illustrate the point of just how much we've messed up the topography down here, the Rigolets did not start out as islands, it was more dry places in the swamp. Now it's islands, because that part of the swamp that used to surround the lake is part of the lake. Ugh. There was an outlet to the Gulf, but yeah, mostly just swamp. <<

In Easy City, the marsh may come back.

>> I'm honestly thinking Lake Pontchartrain would be the best bet. The very best thing, would be if people had let it alone to do its thing, but that's not possible. <<

Noted and logged.

>> They've chained Old Man River, and he ain't happy. <<

That river never did like two-legs to begin with. People were warned not to crowd in too close, but they didn't listen, and then they whine when they get wet.

>> I think the levees cause more problems than they fix, but there could be a way to make them work. <<

Water seeks the lowest level. You can't push on a river. In order to make levees work, you have to keep the riverbed low, give the water somewhere else to go, and just use the levees to keep minor rises from making a frequent nuisance of floods. Earthmoving is great for putting the silt where it will do some good instead of filling up the channels, for making and maintaining levees, and for raising ground to build on. You need to be careful not to pile too much weight on soft ground or it will sink. The river needs its floodplains and marshes; you can't just stop up the water, it has to go somewhere. So there would be areas to keep dry, and others allowed to flood. Low-lying areas should have things people can enjoy when dry, that won't be hurt by floods.

>> Yeah, it's pretty common knowledge around here that any houses more than 50-60 years old are much safer, and in a much better place. I liked your idea of having houses in low-lying areas be up in the air, mostly because of what I mentioned earlier, some of the neighborhoods in low-lying areas already do that. That's all I meant about doing it right from the beginning. <<

Okay, great. We're on the same page with that.

>> Let me sum up: instead of all the levees, and draining the swamps, and building houses flat on the ground where they shouldn't be, we let the river take a more natural course, flooding when necessary, and have houses and communities designed to withstand that sort of thing. <<

Exactly.

>> Something like that could have been put in place anywhere from about seventy years ago to thirty years ago, though 1965, 1995, or the 1980s seem to be the best bet, because that's when people started noticing a problem. <<

I'm guessing that the massive flooding of 1965 was the trigger event which made Stormtreader and Mudslinger potentially willing to cooperate, and Lagniappe aware that somebody needed to organize things better. They were young and idealistic and passionate. It probably took a few years to learn how to work together, gain support, and expand from the initial neighborhood projects to things that spanned different communities. By 1975 they probably had some of the dots connected and good forward momentum. So when the problems in the mid-1980s hit, people would have learned to trust them and that cooperation pays off. The chain of hurricanes causing floods would encourage further improvements to civil engineering; the oil crash would make people more interested in alternative energy sources. (Terramagne is way more interested in science.) That could be what spurs people to design the mid-range mass transit that creates the beltways defining the core of Easy City. It would still have room to grow over time.

>> Alternately, what you've suggested about one or more soups with earth-moving powers altering the terrain sounds plausible. It sounds like it would work more with the environment, than fighting against it, the way we're doing now. <<

If you work against the environment, superpowers aren't all that much better than bulldozers. Remember, it's not just raw power that makes a difference, but extra senses. When you can feel the lay of the land, it's much easier to understand how to change things for the better. You can sense where the floods will be worst, where you can raise land and keep it stable, etc. So levees and channels and ridges that Mudslinger shores up will stay put much better than changes made by ordinary means. The hard part is convincing people to go along with that: which is Lagniappe's job. Once they see that it works, they'll be more amenable.

Re: Thoughts

[helgatwb]

This is seriously all making sense, now. I can see this happening, and, frankly, I would like to live in Easy City.

>> If you work against the environment, superpowers aren't all that much better than bulldozers. Remember, it's not just raw power that makes a difference, but extra senses. When you can feel the lay of the land, it's much easier to understand how to change things for the better. You can sense where the floods will be worst, where you can raise land and keep it stable, etc. <<

I was thinking that a responsible person with earth powers would be more inclined to work with the environment, rather than against it, but maybe that's just me.

One thing, though. The ground around here is extremely soft. It's like gelatin. The Mississippi River is a fault line, and Louisiana gets an average of three Richter Scale level one earthquakes every year. It's just that the ground is so soft, the vibrations disperse before they get to the surface, so nothing comes of it; we certainly don't feel it. But seismic equipment buried in the ground records it. The water table is extremely high, you don't have to dig very far at all before your hole starts filling with water. We don't have the sink-hole problems Florida has, but all of the surface roads are full of potholes, because there's no support, the ground is almost fully saturated. That's why the cemeteries in New Orleans have above-ground crypts. Otherwise, when floods came, the caskets would be unburied. There are lots of places where the cemeteries don't have crypts, and it's usually okay, but they do flood from time to time, and caskets can end up in weird places. Mudslinger would definitely have to keep that in mind. If he's a native, he'll know this, already.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> This is seriously all making sense, now. I can see this happening, and, frankly, I would like to live in Easy City. <<

Yay! *happydance* Then I'm doing it right. Thanks everso for your help.

>> I was thinking that a responsible person with earth powers would be more inclined to work with the environment, rather than against it, but maybe that's just me. <<

That tends to be true. It's a valid trend, although not an absolute. It also helps if someone has the enhanced perceptions, which often but not always come with superpowers like this. Mudslinger does.

>> One thing, though. The ground around here is extremely soft. It's like gelatin. <<

I would've said like a sponge. It's different in different places -- some sand, some clay, some silt, and the marsh or once-marsh can have a bog-mix with much higher plant content -- based on what the river has laid down. All of which behave a little differently if you press on them or shake them, and have different characteristics when wet or dry.

A key distinction between superpowers and construction equipment is that Earth Powers can lay down groundwork that is almost identical to natural groundwork. It's not just a ridge of topsoil dumped and sort of tamped in place. It's a handmade riverbank with the same pattern of interwoven grains and gravel, which will hold place much better. You also have the option of putting sand and gravel in your drainways, using water-resistant clay as cores for channel guides, and other fancy stuff. You could use stone, but in this locale it would just sink, and bringing up that much from bedrock would be a bad idea -- too much alteration messes with an environment.

Another crucial factor is plant cover. WTF you do not sow lawn grass on levees and greenbanks. You need native marsh or dune grasses, or local broadleaves, with massive root systems. Very little will wash away if it's nailed down by a billion live fibers. Likewise rain gardens capture and filter water. So there's another slow-growing process: teaching people to appreciate and use native plants, not imported crap.

>> Otherwise, when floods came, the caskets would be unburied. There are lots of places where the cemeteries don't have crypts, and it's usually okay, but they do flood from time to time, and caskets can end up in weird places. <<

Yyyyyyeah, that was a huge problem after Hurricane Katrina. Lots of dead people got shook up and made trouble that was a pain in the ass to settle down again. I had people asking me clear up here if I had ideas for fixing it. The local folks who knew how were, of course, mostly in shelters and some scattered across the country. I expect the damage would've been less in Easy City with its better development.

>> Mudslinger would definitely have to keep that in mind. If he's a native, he'll know this, already. <<

Native born and bred. So are Stormtreader and Lagniappe.