KING READY TO LAUNCH 700-YEAR WAR Will the new Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District be leading the battle to build a 60-mile-long “Ike Dike” to gate off Galveston Bay from hurricane storm surges? “I think there’s a growing consensus that something’s got to be done,†board member and former Kemah mayor Bill King tells Eric Berger: “Whatever gets done, says King . . . it’s important not to view it as a magic bullet. ‘I think it’s a big mistake to think about this issue as a single project,’ he said. ‘One thing I learned from the Dutch is that they’ve been doing this for 700 years. We’re starting a war, trying to hold back Galveston Bay from inundating the area, that’s never going to end.’†[Houston Chronicle]
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It’s staggering the lengths humans go to to conquer nature – or just put her off for a while. The Netherlands is still here! Because the dutch never, ever quit the constant, forward pressure against the inevitable.
Last week, reading of the efforts to rebuild the Bolivar had me feeling all rah-rah! and I wanted to get involved. And then Agatha slammed into central america.
Really, I don’t mean to be smug, up here at 150 feet above sea-level, but…
We resist nature on a human scale, but nature is relentless on a geologic scale. If those that want to live on the coast want to engage in that lopsided battle, they should do so – but don’t expect the rest of us to contribute.
It’s not just about protecting coastal residents. It’s about port infrastructure, refineries, hospitals, universities, cultural institutions, tourism & recreation, marine agriculture, and wildlife habitat.
Al, if you could name one geographic or climate zone where we aren’t in some way paying to resist nature then maybe we can all move there.
I have to wonder if The Netherlands would survive a Katrina.
New Orleans was easy to protect. I am not sure the Galveston Bay area will be. You have two channels plus an island plus a peninsula. Plus miles of open land on both ends that will still allow a large enough storm surge to still enter Galveston Bay.
The Ike Dike is going to have to be a very long one. And a very expensive one.
Jimbo, of couse we constantly fight nature to maintain our human environment.
However, there is a wide range of costs in this effort, and, some things need to be called Lost Causes – ie, too costly to persue.
Anyone remember Baytown’s Brownwood?
How about West Isle’s front row of homes taken down (now and again) when nature prevails?
Southeast Houston, too, is subsiding faster than anyone can engineer our floodwaters around it.
Anything we can imagine is possible, but it may not be at all do-able.