The latest forecast by coastal experts gives us about 10 years to restore the territory that has been lost south of New Orleans. If we fail to do that, those communities will have to be written off in a couple of decades.
If, say, Cuba or Venezuela had seized 24 square miles of American territory, the call to arms would have been immediate and decisive. But because coastal erosion is an enemy neither foreign nor domestic, we seem willing to surrender to it. We’ve retreated behind the excuse that New Orleans can’t be saved. We’ve abandoned our can-do pride. In the Netherlands, the Dutch have managed to craft a flood-control system that protects the huge percentage of that nation’s land that lies below sea level. These days Americans lack the money, the ingenuity, the patriotism, the humanity of the Dutch.
Unmasking Our Pain in New Orleans, Lolis Eric Elie
