
How Humans Sank New Orleans - dmckeon
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/how-humans-sank-new-orleans/552323/?single_page=true
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dmckeon
The unintended consequences of what seemed, at many times in the last 300
years, to be completely reasonable city planning and engineering decisions -
to literally "drain the swamp" and pump out groundwater - that led to soil
compaction as layers of peat and other organic material became dry, and thus
able to decay and compress, leaving land that once was above sea level to now
be below it - even without the effects of climate change and hurricanes.

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wahern
Great user comments:

    
    
      Covfefe_Jesus • 8 hours ago
      If it wasn't for the "Old River Control Structure,"
      upstream, the Mississippi would have found a new path to the
      sea and New Orleans would be history right now.
    
        Aedes • 4 hours ago
        If it wasn't for Captain Shreve removing the Great Raft, a
        log jam that blocked the Red River/Atchafalaya confluence,
        the Mississippi would still be flowing through New Orleans
        without the Old River Control Structure.
    
          SpartanWarrior • 2 hours ago
          If it wasn’t for the Reelfoot Rift, a failed
          longitudinal tectonic border that bisects the North
          American continent, the Mississippi would be flowing
          through Chicago into the Great Lakes regardless of the
          Old River Control Structure or Captain Shreve.

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dmckeon
Clearly, people have been reading
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Control_of_Nature)
which also covers the causes of the recent debris flows near Montecito,
California.

