today in class we were talking about how we might have better informed the people of new orleans before katrina, and i can't help but try and make a rebuttal that people all around the united states are already well informed. When i was in kindergarten i remember my teacher telling me how new orleans was below sea level , and the people there could not bury their dead, they had to bury them above ground somewhere. I can remember many times throughout my entire life how new orleans was vulnerable, and the levees weren't strong enough, they could only handle a category 3 hurricane. People want to blame the government for not being prepared or trying to hide potential disasters, when they are in the ocean, it just hasn't filled up yet.Anyway the civil engineers who mapped out the city must have taken this class, because to build a city under sea level you must be thinking ridiculously. That idea would sound ridiculous even today. Some might say it would be ridiculous to try to move a city, but it is more practical thinking then sitting in new orleans(the ocean floor), waiting for the water to come in. So if you think it's ridiculous, you move there make sure to bring a bucket, and a garden hose so you can siphon the water uphill.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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2 comments:
Shane,
You may well be right that being ill-informed was not the problem. Indeed, the title I gave Tuesday's class (screening "When the Levees Broke"), was "When good thinking isn't enough", referring to the fact that a disaster of Katrina's type was foreseen, and widely documented as an eventual inevitability for New Orleans to face.
So, it seems we can agree that *information* about risk isn't sufficient, as the evidence shows. The question then becomes, what would it take to make a difference to behaviour?
If your argument is that people should not be living on the site of New Orleans at all -- and that's certainly an argument you can make in this context -- how would you propose to convince current or prospective inhabitants of the city of your view?
Another way to put it: what experience could you (or someone) design for today, which might make them think twice about setting themselves up for another Katrina tomorrow? You could apply the same hypothetical design problem in relation to an audience of folks from the municipal, state, or federal governments, or agencies such as FEMA.
Part of our job as futurists is to be able to design, and implement, exactly that kind of intervention.
So, how about it?
i can see how people still live there though, because it has been around for so long, It gives people a creepy feeling if they had to leave and it just became an underwater city. Somewhat like Atlantis. And so even though katrina happend, people are still reluctant to move. Because and underwater city is what is in movies, not real life. Even though Katrina put it under water, it was not permant yet.
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