New Orlean’s damage from Hurricane Katrina may lead to the forced destruction of at least 25 percent of the homes in New Orleans. This is much better than the initial reports of the destroying the whole city, but these numbers sure are sobering when looked at from outside.
The Houston Chronicle reports:
Really, the whole scope of this thing is hard to get your mind around,” said Allen Morse, who will be in charge of the demolition effort for the Army Corps of Engineers. “It’s going to be a huge task”
Already the dreaded bright-red-orange stickers blaring “unsafe” have begun to proliferate on houses, signaling what is becoming a passionate debate over the extent of the demolition.
Of the city’s 180,000 houses, 110,000 were flooded, city officials say, and half of those sat for days or weeks in more than 6 feet of water. If as many as 50,000 homes are beyond salvaging, many of the others could be saved with expensive repair jobs, but large numbers of homeowners may not have the resources to rebuild. As a result, the number of demolitions could soar beyond 50,000.
The return of New Orleans will be a long and painful process, but it looks like the love of the city will have it continue and be one of the premier cities in the United States from a historical perspective.
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