That Sinking Feeling

New Orleans is subsiding at a faster rate than scientists first calculated. Not good. Especially since that affects the way the levees and flood protection is figured.

The research, being published Thursday in the journal Nature, is based on new satellite radar data for the three years before Katrina struck in 2005. The data show that some areas are sinking _ from overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts _ four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly.

"My concern is the very low-lying areas," said lead author Tim Dixon, a University of Miami geophysicist. "I think those areas are death traps. I don't think those areas should be rebuilt."

For years, scientists figured New Orleans on average was sinking about one-fifth of an inch a year based on 100 measurements of the region, Dixon said. The new data from 150,000 measurements taken from space finds that about 10 percent to 20 percent of the region had yearly subsidence in the inch-a-year range, he said.

As the grounds in those rapidly sinking areas shift downward, the protection from levees also falls, scientists and engineers said.

For example, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, built more than three decades ago, has sunk by more than 3 feet since its construction, Dixon said. That, he added, explained why water poured over the levee and part of it failed.

"The people in St. Bernard got wiped out because the levee was too low," said co-author Roy Dokka, director of the Louisiana Spatial Center at Louisiana State University. "It's as simple as that."

Meanwhile, health care in New Orleans isn't any better than some third world countries.

Nearly nine months after Katrina, it is as dangerous as ever to get ill or injured in New Orleans. In a city that once boasted the famed Charity Hospital, a mammoth trauma center that took care of the indigent and the ignored by the thousands, there are now only hastily thrown together emergency centers with limited beds and dangerously low staffing.

As I surveyed the hospital situation, I calculated that at noon on Tuesday, there were only eight hospital beds available in the entire metropolitan New Orleans area. One bad pile up on I-10 and New Orleans would in crisis mode again.

Charity is still standing, but it is empty and devoid of any life. And there are no plans to resuscitate it. When I asked one man sitting out in front of the hospital what he thought of the situation, he looked up and said, "A lot of people were born in Charity and a lot of people died there." So true, but now it is the hospital itself that has died. While there are plans to build a new Charity, a sort of Charity 2.0, it may take more than seven years for that to happen.

If there was one word to describe the hospital system in New Orleans today, it would have to be "waiting." If you are riding your bike and fall and break your collar bone, you will wait at least 12 hours. Step on a rusty nail in the morning and you shouldn't plan on seeing a doctor until the late evening. Swallow 100 Tylenols in an attempt to kill yourself and the doctors will act more quickly to save you, but then you will have to wait.

UPDATE:
The Army Corps of Engineers says that it is ready for the hurricane season that starts tomorrow. They've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on rebuilding and strengthening levees in and around the New Orleans region. That doesn't mean that the levees are capable of surviving a direct hit from a Cat 3 or better storm. In fact, one really has to wonder what level of protection the levees will be able to provide for the foreseeable future.