A newspaper account I read, indicated that within a year or two of the
first settlement, a hurrican came that essentially destroyed the first
settlement. It was immediately rebuilt.
(I haven't checked the accuracy of the reporting)
________________________
Joel Rauber
Department of Physics - SDSU
Joel.Rauber@sdstate.edu
605-688-4293
| -----Original Message-----
| From: Forum for Physics Educators
| [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On Behalf Of John Denker
| Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 10:30 PM
| To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
| Subject: Re: New Orleans
|
| Anthony Lapinski wrote:
| > Do any of you know about how this place was settled?
| > Specifically, when the city was founded, was it a "swampy"
| area? What
| > made people settle there?
|
| Yes, the general _area_ has always been swampy.
|
| But people settled there for just the opposite reason: the
| site of New Orleans is the highest point for miles around.
|
| It was the ideal site for a port; all sites farther
| downriver were too swampy, and sites slightly farther upriver
| were no better, and therefore the site closest to the mouth
| was the winner. In the days before railroads and highways,
| water transportation was predominant, and New Orleans was the
| gateway to most of an entire continent.
|
| It was only in the early 20th century that below-sea-level
| areas were diked and then pumped dry, more than doubling the
| habitable area of the city. This made sense at the time,
| because the city had a thriving economy, and real estate
| there was quite valuable.
|
| Since then, some of the below-sea-level areas have become
| more so, due to subsidence.
|
| The lower areas have always been less desirable, with the
| result that rich people tend to live on high ground, while
| poor people tend to live on the low-lying ground. When a
| storm threatens, this is a double-or-nothing proposition,
| because the people who most need to evacuate have the least
| means to do so.
|
| =========
|
| It is worthwhile reading accounts of the
| non-hurricane-related flood of 1927 and its aftermath. See
| if you can find any parallels with recent events.
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927
|
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