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Gulf Coast Barrier (Ike Dike)


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More good news. :)

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It is called the Long-Term Recovery Plan. The plan is the culmination of six months of work by more than 300 people. It has no less than 42 different projects encompassing every aspect of Galveston life.

Without question, one of the most important aspects of the plan is housing. Leaders say without a place to live, people will not come back to the area.

It's going to be high-raised," said Thelma Ivory.

A vacant lot is all that is left of Ivory's home. On Galveston Island, over 75% of homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Ivory is fortunate to be able to return and rebuild. Her new home will be raised 11 feet off the ground.

"This is my home. This is where I was born. Galveston is my home. It's important for me to be here," said Ivory.

The housing future of Galveston is considered a major component of the Long-Term Recovery Plan. The plan is made up of 42 project proposals that include a disaster mitigation plan, economic development, housing, education, and health.

"This is the same role that we played in 1900. To have so many citizens, 300 of them, working for four or five months now, coming forward with a plan. Everybody doesn't agree with everybody, but it is a road map to the future," said Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas.

So much of Galveston's recovery rides on housing recovery. Prior to Ike, many neighborhoods were already experiencing a decline in population. The storm only made it worse.

The housing plan calls for, among other things, the creation of a master plan for each neighborhood to retain historic character while elevating homes in low-lying areas, and to help prevent future mass destruction.

"They already have their own character, their own extended families whether they are actual families or friends. We need to look at each neighborhood because not one size fits all," said Chula Ross Sanchez of the Housing Committee.

As for the project itself, it is only considered a proposal. It was accepted by city council and they will be looking at it for the future rebuilding of Galveston.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=...&id=6755237

Some of the projects include, extending the Seawall, a Seawall for Bolivar Pennisula and gambling. The Galveston city council will go into more detail on April 17th.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The Galveston City Council concluded their review of the 42-project Long-Term Recovery Plan presented by the Galveston Community Recovery Committee on April 23.

At their next regular meeting, Thursday, May 14th, the City Council will select a workshop date to further discuss, analyze, and evaluate Galveston

Edited by UpuPUp!
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I have some proposals for Galveston and Bolivar post Ike:

Everything West of the Seawall is taken by eminent domain to create a State Park.

Everything between the North Jetty and High Island is taken for a State Park

Tilman Fertitta is prohibited from doing any development whatsoever. He is free to demolish, though, as long as it's the new stuff.

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This would be an Army Corp job? New Orleans is still waiting to have all their levees and floodwalls repaired and restored to the levels they were pre-Katrina. They're barely even getting upgrades. Changing building codes, and/or stopping unwise development and further erosion on Galveston is doable now, and doesn't require the Feds.

Edited by crunchtastic
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This would be an Army Corp job? New Orleans is still waiting to have all their levees and floodwalls repaired and restored to the levels they were pre-Katrina. They're barely even getting upgrades. Changing building codes, and/or stopping unwise development and further erosion on Galveston is doable now, and doesn't require the Feds.

Unfortunately, updated building codes won't solve the problems faced by structures that already exist. And if the cost of an "Ike Dike" is only $2 bil., then this is a no-brainer project. Think about it. In addition to preventing infrastructure damage:

* Lower windstorm, flood insurance, and business interruption policy premiums

* Prevents having hundreds of thousands of people in the Galveston Bay area from having their lives turned upside down

* Ability to reduce building code requirements related to storm surges

* Reduced construction costs associated with defeating storm surges

* Eliminates evacuation as a justification for new freeways

* Increases demand by consumers and firms for coastal properties

* Increases the tax base of protected coastal areas throughout the Galveston Bay area

* Makes Galveston Bay the only true safe harbor on the Gulf Coast for commercial shipping/warehousing/refining/cruises

* Makes Galveston Bay the only true safe harbor on the Gulf Coast for recreational boating

* Protects environmental assets including marshes and marine agriculture

* Reduces debris sent to landfills

* Reduces demands upon the Federal government by special interests to provide inordinately high outlays to preserve industries that aren't worth a tenth of what they're asking for.

* Reduces demands upon the Federal government by special populations that think themselves entitled to assistance because they chose to live in a dangerous place

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Unfortunately, updated building codes won't solve the problems faced by structures that already exist. And if the cost of an "Ike Dike" is only $2 bil., then this is a no-brainer project. Think about it. In addition to preventing infrastructure damage:

* Lower windstorm, flood insurance, and business interruption policy premiums

* Prevents having hundreds of thousands of people in the Galveston Bay area from having their lives turned upside down

* Ability to reduce building code requirements related to storm surges

* Reduced construction costs associated with defeating storm surges

* Eliminates evacuation as a justification for new freeways

* Increases demand by consumers and firms for coastal properties

* Increases the tax base of protected coastal areas throughout the Galveston Bay area

* Makes Galveston Bay the only true safe harbor on the Gulf Coast for commercial shipping/warehousing/refining/cruises

* Makes Galveston Bay the only true safe harbor on the Gulf Coast for recreational boating

* Protects environmental assets including marshes and marine agriculture

* Reduces debris sent to landfills

* Reduces demands upon the Federal government by special interests to provide inordinately high outlays to preserve industries that aren't worth a tenth of what they're asking for.

* Reduces demands upon the Federal government by special populations that think themselves entitled to assistance because they chose to live in a dangerous place

Niche, that's quite the imagination!

Since when does a giant dike stop the wind? Flood insurance premiums are based on flood maps, which are changed only after years of compiled data. And last time I checked, State Farm doesn't give a discount for living near civil flood projects. If that were the case then many Houston area residents would see their premiums go down with each new drainage project.

I wasn't aware you cared about the people of Galveston County having their lives turned upside down. That's sweet, but why should taxpayers have to bankroll the security of someone who chooses to build a house on wooden stilts in the surf?

What is the current cost of 'defeating storm surges'? The seawall was built and paid for long ago.

Lowering building code standards in a coastal area is a great idea, provided the wind doesn't ever blow.

Galveston Bay already is a safe harbor for commerical shipping and recreational boating. Just don't do it in the middle of a hurricane. I will admit that the port closing after the hurricane is a consequence that should be mitigated. But there are too many assumptions about both the cost and efficacy of the dike to make that determination, currently.

Marine agriculture and marshes, etc. would be further destroyed by the surge in dredging and building, if a dike were to be built on the promise of consequence-free coastal development.

Increased construction debris and plain ole' human garbage will fill more landfill space, perpetually, as a consequence of increased development and population growth than would the occasional storm surge.

I left a few off, but you get the idea. OTOH, if Tillman and George Mitchell's people want to team up and build the dike themselves, I say go for it!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's possible I misread you. Were being sarcastic all along???

Edited by crunchtastic
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Niche, that's quite the imagination!

Since when does a giant dike stop the wind? Flood insurance premiums are based on flood maps, which are changed only after years of compiled data. And last time I checked, State Farm doesn't give a discount for living near civil flood projects. If that were the case then many Houston area residents would see their premiums go down with each new drainage project.

I wasn't aware you cared about the people of Galveston County having their lives turned upside down. That's sweet, but why should taxpayers have to bankroll the security of someone who chooses to build a house on wooden stilts in the surf?

What is the current cost of 'defeating storm surges'? The seawall was built and paid for long ago.

Lowering building code standards in a coastal area is a great idea, provided the wind doesn't ever blow.

Galveston Bay already is a safe harbor for commerical shipping and recreational boating. Just don't do it in the middle of a hurricane. I will admit that the port closing after the hurricane is a consequence that should be mitigated. But there are too many assumptions about both the cost and efficacy of the dike to make that determination, currently.

Marine agriculture and marshes, etc. would be further destroyed by the surge in dredging and building, if a dike were to be built on the promise of consequence-free coastal development.

Increased construction debris and plain ole' human garbage will fill more landfill space, perpetually, as a consequence of increased development and population growth than would the occasional storm surge.

I left a few off, but you get the idea. OTOH, if Tillman and George Mitchell's people want to team up and build the dike themselves, I say go for it!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's possible I misread you. Were being sarcastic all along???

I wasn't being sarcastic. But I also wasn't arguing that an "Ike Dike" would do anything to protect from wind damage. If you read closely, you'll see that I was very specific about mitigating the damaging effects of the storm surge. If you have a means of keeping waters from the Gulf out of the Bay system, then storm surge basically becomes a non-issue and codes can be relaxed to reflect that. This doesn't mean that builders should be allowed to get away without affixing hurricane straps to the roof joists.

As for insurance, I've actually shopped for homes in the Bay area in the past and found that there were significant differences in premiums charged to homes based upon their elevation and proximity to the Bay. This reflects the risk associated with storm surges, not merely wind. It seems unfathomable that if that risk were altogether eliminated, there would still be such a risk premium placed on living at lower elevations closer to the water.

You ask, rightly so, why taxpayers should bear the burden of the stupidity of people that live in dangerous places. I concur with your sentiment but am resigned to the inescapable reality that we're going to do it one way or the other. A project that eliminates storm surge will ensure that the Federal government disaster relief obligations are much more limited in scope.

The issues about a safe harbor for marine activities are still valid. Don't you know that I very nearly bought a $130k sailboat early last year that I saw listed as a banged-up hull for $25k after Ike? Just because nobody was on it and it was in a marina doesn't mean that the owners or the boat were safe. Make the bay system impervious to storm surge and it induces a myriad of benefits for recreational boaters. And clearly it benefits all of the commercial activities that take place in the Bay system.

It is unclear that an "Ike Dike" would require any kinds of activities that would have lasting adverse environmental impacts. There's plenty of fill material already lining the intercoastal waterway that has historically just been picked up and moved over. Pelican Island is another source for fill, as are places along the Gulf Coast where rivers have been silted in. And of course, it probably wouldn't hurt commerce any to deepen certain shipping channels. As for increased building activity destroying marshes, that's dubious. Marshes are already protected against development. One way or the other, having borne witness to what the hurricane did to the marshes in Galveston and Chambers counties, I cannot fathom how a system that would defeat storm surge would be a net destroyer of marine life.

And as for the item about debris, you must not have seen the two gigantic impromptu landfills that arose in Galveston. I know that there were others in the Galveston Bay area. They make construction debris seem downright insignificant...and on account of that the losses are forcing the rebuilding of affected areas, the debris piles I saw didn't even begin to reflect the construction debris that was going to be generated months after the storm happened.

I honestly don't know what the cost will be, but I can say with some certainty that if it is anywhere near $2 billion, this is a no-brainer. Do it.

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I honestly don't know what the cost will be, but I can say with some certainty that if it is anywhere near $2 billion, this is a no-brainer. Do it.

I don't think it's a bad idea, but I do have a hard time believing it will be anywhere even close to $2 billion, and that it would get done in any sort of reasonable time frame (my original reference to the Army Corp and the levees). Storm surges suck, but if I had a choice of which damage to mitigate with limited dollars: storm surge or wind, I'd pick wind, and spend the $2 billion on burying power lines, upgrading the electrial grid and water pumping facilities, etc.

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I don't think it's a bad idea, but I do have a hard time believing it will be anywhere even close to $2 billion, and that it would get done in any sort of reasonable time frame (my original reference to the Army Corp and the levees). Storm surges suck, but if I had a choice of which damage to mitigate with limited dollars: storm surge or wind, I'd pick wind, and spend the $2 billion on burying power lines, upgrading the electrial grid and water pumping facilities, etc.

I concur with your concerns over the realistic cost of the project...at the same time, I don't think that the concept should be dismissed out of hand. There are too many benefits that could be realized. And actually, your comment about water pumping facilities reminded me that the greatest amount of damage to that sort of infrastructure was in places affected by storm surge.

As for wind mitigation, there is low-hanging fruit and there are extreme measures. I'm all for hardening the transmission lines and enforcing stricter codes for new construction such as would defeat wind, however burying lines at the neighborhood level is overkill on an extreme level.

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I went to Galveston the other day and talked to residents.

The GOOD news: I was told one of the major public housing units was totally destroyed. Galveston had one of the largest allotment of public housing for a city of it's size in America. NO public housing units should be built or repaired in Galveston.

I saw repairwork being done in the Strand area.

The seawall world is very active.

The BAD news: One of the largest employers, American National Insurance, is transferring people to San Antonio, South Shore Harbour, and other inland locations.

In Fish Village, the key street was Marine Drive. Houses to the west of Marine Drive survived Ike pretty well, but those to the east of Marine Drive had more severe damage.

As for the 42 proposed projects, there is a difference between fantasy and reality.

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The GOOD news: I was told one of the major public housing units was totally destroyed. Galveston had one of the largest allotment of public housing for a city of it's size in America. NO public housing units should be built or repaired in Galveston.

Yes, the public housing should go to the burbs (La Marque and Texas City)

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Yes, the public housing should go to the burbs (La Marque and Texas City)

I think that the more appropriate issue is whether there should be public housing. And I think that the answer depends entirely on the level of services that will be provided by UTMB.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Planning the 'Ike Dike' Defense

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124407051124382899.html

GALVESTON, Texas -- As the Gulf Coast braces for hurricane season, Houston-area leaders are pushing a plan to build a wall stretching some 60 miles along the coast, hoping to end the annual storm threat once and for all.

Dubbed the "Ike Dike" after the hurricane that ravaged the Houston area in September, the 17-foot-high wall would straddle the narrow entrance to Galveston Bay with 1,000-foot-long floodgates, allowing access to the city's port in good weather, but swinging shut when a storm approached to block floodwaters. Most damage from hurricanes is usually caused by floodwaters.

The total cost, according to project backers, would be $2 billion to $4 billion, although those numbers would almost certainly rise, experts say.

The idea is still in the conceptual stage and has plenty of detractors worried about cost, environmental impacts and whether it would really work. But the Ike Dike has gained significant traction in recent months.

A state commission set up by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to study disaster preparedness after Hurricane Ike supports moving ahead, and a coalition of elected officials is promoting it. The Houston business community, including powerful interests such as the chemical and shipping industries, has also signed on.

"This actually has more political legs than I ever dreamed it would have," said Bill King, a member of Gov. Perry's hurricane commission and the former mayor of the Galveston Bay city of Kemah.

Dike supporters argue that the project has implications far beyond Texas. The area is home to three of the country's 10 largest oil refineries, 40% of its chemical manufacturing capacity and the country's second largest seaport, handling some 600,000 tons of cargo a day.

"It's a national-security issue," said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, a local business group.

Supporters hope that emphasizing the national importance of the project will help win federal funding. Robert Eckels, the chairman of the governor's commission, said most of the money would likely come from the Army Corps of Engineers, which would have to approve the project.

Supporters also are looking at building the dike along existing seaside roads, rather than directly on the coast, which might allow them to tap federal highway dollars. Even if funding is secured, Mr. Eckels said it would be more than a decade before the dike is completed.

Bill Merrell, the Texas A&M University at Galveston professor who first proposed the Ike Dike, said he based the structure on existing designs, including swinging floodgates built in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in the 1990s. London has had closeable floodgates on the Thames since 1982, and the Russian city of St. Petersburg is nearing completion of its own massive gates.

"All the technology's proven. We're not asking for a miracle," Mr. Merrell said.

Dike supporters find inspiration in past disasters. After an unnamed 1900 hurricane nearly wiped Galveston off the map, island residents built a 15-plus-foot seawall along the island's east end, then raised the island itself by as much as 17 feet, jacking up more than 2,000 buildings and filling in underneath them with sand.

Compared with that project, Mr. Merrell said, the Ike Dike looks trivial -- at least from an engineering standpoint. But the perception that the project is too difficult could be hard to overcome. Mr. King, the former Kemah mayor, said he initially thought the idea was too far-fetched. But he said the simplicity of Mr. Merrell's plan, combined with the cost of leaving the coast unprotected, won him over.

"The elegance and the appeal of something like the Ike Dike is, with one swath, all the problems are solved," Mr. King said.

Skeptics already are lining up. Beachfront property owners worry the dike could block their ocean views. Some environmentalists fear the dike could disturb the fragile ecology of Galveston Bay. Communities at the end of the proposed dike worry they will get more flooding if the wall diverts water their way. And some worry the attention focused on the dike could hurt less-ambitious efforts.

"It's a distraction from more immediate, more affordable, more realistic things that could be done to make people safer quicker," said Mary Kelly, a vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the governor's commission.

Gordon Wells, a University of Texas researcher who advises state officials on hurricane planning, warns the Ike Dike could actually make flooding worse in Galveston in certain scenarios, trapping water behind the wall.

NA-AY129A_IKEDI_NS_20090603184442.gif

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Yes, the public housing should go to the burbs (La Marque and Texas City)

I'm sure the Mainlanders would greatly appreciate that. <_<

Why would you say such a thing? These people are Galvestonians, products of the Galveston school system, and the GHA. Texas City and West Texas City/La Marque have been making their own strides in building a better community as of late.

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I'm sure the Mainlanders would greatly appreciate that. <_<

Why would you say such a thing? These people are Galvestonians, products of the Galveston school system, and the GHA. Texas City and West Texas City/La Marque have been making their own strides in building a better community as of late.

Unfortunaetly J.A.S.O.N, I agree with VicMan but, I would put Public Housing more in La Marque than Texas City. I see the strides in building a better communtiy in Texas City, but not in La Marque.

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Galvestonians !!!!

Pose a question: What does Galveston and New Orleans have in common ?

Answer: A system whereby people who learn to work the system can come and live for free the rest of their lives.

I think what Niche said is correct it is all a matter of what and how much free services UTMB will dole out to bring back the public housing and indigent population.

Galveston has a chance to remake itself into something very nice unlike New Orleans which choose to go back to the same old ways in many instances.

I love New Orleans as I spent my whole life growing up in South La but they missed the boat after Katrina. Without all the hollywood hoopla and TV exposure NO would be in a world of hurt right now. Galveston doesn't get that exposure but they still have a chance to put things together in a better way and make the island a nice destination spot.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Professor Merrell disagrees with those who say the dike would be inadequate in 100 years because of climate change. By then, engineers will have developed better technology to address those issues, he said.

The most important thing to remember about the dike is it would save lives, he said.

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Professor Merrell disagrees with those

“If you don’t build it, you kill people,” he said.

It is sad that there is someone, an accredited engineer no less, who thinks this is the issue. Engineers know that the American public could, for one instance, be led to shell out some number of billions of money to have better quality guardrails along any arterial with a speed limit over 45 - so much better that almost no one in future generations would be killed by running off of the road. Compare that to the casualties of our flimsy metal suboptimal guardrails today. This is something there's no question we could have done. The problem here is that you have to prove why the frame of reference you're picking is in fact the right one to which to optimize.

In this case, at least, it's straightforward to disprove.

While Merrell may see it guarantee future loss of lives if we decline to eventually try building barriers down every populated coast in the nation (although, hello, evacuation?), when the same limited resources poured into highway safety would save 35,000 more lives per some area per some time period, then to be consistent he would have to admit to "killing 35,000 people" by choosing to do a pet dike project instead, no matter its benefits. By the same token, to pour those resources into highway safety would also be unjustifiable on Merrell's logic if there were some other deployment that was even more preventative still.

I understand and respect your reasoning on this point, however an Ike Dike and upgraded guardrails are not mutually exclusive projects. We can do one, the other, or both. Granted, we have a finite budget and can only take on so many projects in aggregate, however that does not immediately disqualify the Ike Dike from the running.

I do fault the engineer for being accurate but very imprecise about the "if you don't build it, people die" comment. It makes a good quote, however. If he wanted to be academic and not have the idea gain any political traction whatsoever until after the next big storm, he could've gone into dollar figures for damages and firmed up the rationale supporting the estimated project costs.

Edited by TheNiche
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I understand and respect your reasoning on this point, however an Ike Dike and upgraded guardrails are not mutually exclusive projects. We can do one, the other, or both. Granted, we have a finite budget and can only take on so many projects in aggregate, however that does not immediately disqualify the Ike Dike from the running.

I do fault the engineer for being accurate but very imprecise about the "if you don't build it, people die" comment. It makes a good quote, however. If he wanted to be academic and not have the idea gain any political traction whatsoever until after the next big storm, he could've gone into dollar figures for damages and firmed up the rationale supporting the estimated project costs.

Really? It looks like a shovel ready project to me

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Really?

Yes, really.

In a thread that was started not too long ago, someone asked the question, "what house would you build for yourself if money were not an issue?" When I was done explaining it, I was the benevolent dictator of a nation of floating cities housing most of the world's multinational corporate headquarters and was engaged in overt nuclear weapons proliferation. When resources are unlimited, I can find ways to make that happen.

It looks like a shovel ready project to me

The environmental studies alone would take several years to complete and would be so expensive that funding to start them would have to be arranged by an act of Congress.

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Not only did he not do much research into costs and benefits, his statement that 'If you don't build it, people die' could be the opposite of the truth. If you do build it, it is a gut cinch that many, many more residents will stay put, thinking that the dike will kick Mother Nature's arse. This places many more people in danger of dying from any number of other perils, other than storm surge.

He should stick to dollars saved due to less damage to structures. That argument may actually hold.

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Not only did he not do much research into costs and benefits, his statement that 'If you don't build it, people die' could be the opposite of the truth. If you do build it, it is a gut cinch that many, many more residents will stay put, thinking that the dike will kick Mother Nature's arse. This places many more people in danger of dying from any number of other perils, other than storm surge.

He should stick to dollars saved due to less damage to structures. That argument may actually hold.

One of those storm-related perils is evacuation, itself. He's probably right, netting everything out. Not by a huge margin, though, I'll grant you that.

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I understand and respect your reasoning on this point, however an Ike Dike and upgraded guardrails are not mutually exclusive projects. We can do one, the other, or both. Granted, we have a finite budget and can only take on so many projects in aggregate, however that does not immediately disqualify the Ike Dike from the running.

I do fault the engineer for being accurate but very imprecise about the "if you don't build it, people die" comment. It makes a good quote, however. If he wanted to be academic and not have the idea gain any political traction whatsoever until after the next big storm, he could've gone into dollar figures for damages and firmed up the rationale supporting the estimated project costs.

I don't think he was simply being pragmatic: I think he was making an appeal to some idea that this protection is a human rights concern. And a person can make that implicit in all sorts of arguments once we have the barest option of choosing to actually do it. You and the rest of us are right in concluding that we will end up subsidizing disastrous locations one way or the other. But the conscience flag professor's throwing is poorly conceived.

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I don't think he was simply being pragmatic: I think he was making an appeal to some idea that this protection is a human rights concern. And a person can make that implicit in all sorts of arguments once we have the barest option of choosing to actually do it. You and the rest of us are right in concluding that we will end up subsidizing disastrous locations one way or the other. But the conscience flag professor's throwing is poorly conceived.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to communicate, but I'm pretty sure that we're on the same page that this was an appeal to some notion of human rights. What is not perfectly clear is whether his motivation was based in political pragmatism or morality, however I'm willing to provide the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't adhere to baseless morals.

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Yes, really.

In a thread that was started not too long ago, someone asked the question, "what house would you build for yourself if money were not an issue?" When I was done explaining it, I was the benevolent dictator of a nation of floating cities housing most of the world's multinational corporate headquarters and was engaged in overt nuclear weapons proliferation. When resources are unlimited, I can find ways to make that happen.

The environmental studies alone would take several years to complete and would be so expensive that funding to start them would have to be arranged by an act of Congress.

My apology, I was being a little flippant. I was thinking about the statement in terms of how our government wants to spend money it does not have. If there is a place that could put federal money to work quickly and at the same time help a truly depressed area Galveston is one of them.

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Also there are parts of Texas City in the La Marque school district.

Unfortunaetly J.A.S.O.N, I agree with VicMan but, I would put Public Housing more in La Marque than Texas City. I see the strides in building a better communtiy in Texas City, but not in La Marque.
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  • 1 month later...

Only three of the public housing sites are being rebuilt. Land Design Studio is the Architect.

GalvestonR.jpg

The Galveston Housing Authority has engaged Civic Design Associates, in association with Land Design Studio, to prepare a master plan for three public housing sites damaged during Hurricane Ike: Oleander Homes, Cedar Terrace, and Magnolia Homes. Demolition of 569 public housing units on the sites is currently underway, and we have a significant opportunity to re-think the form, function, and aesthetics of public housing in Galveston and how it fits into the community.

http://recoverygalveston.org/documents/GalvestonHousingInvite.pdf

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Face-lift for Seawall is on the drawing board

By HARVEY RICE

Aug. 19, 2009, 8:17PM

The bleak concrete expanse of the Galveston seawall will be transformed into an oasis of visitor-friendly shade, landscaping, benches and kiosks in one small section under a plan being developed by the city.

***

The idea is to use the little money available to create an island of green along the barren seawall. That would then show what the rest of the seawall could look like if enough federal, state and private money can be found to transform the entire length of Seawall Boulevard, Galveston Park Board Chairwoman Jeri Kinnear said.

The project will combine about $4 million in federal funds with a $1 million grant from Frito-Lay to refurbish Fort Crockett Park, a concrete stretch of the seawall that includes a statue dedicated to the thousands who died in the Great Storm of 1900, Kinnear said.

Part of the project includes putting bus stops along the seawall for the first time. Kinnear said the concept is to allow visitors to the island to park once, for example at Moody Gardens, then take the bus to the beach or other points of interest and avoid traffic and the hassle of hunting for another parking spot.

Kinnear said the plans for Fort Crockett Park will be ready by early September and that a larger plan for refurbishing the seawall from 45th Street to 69th Street will be completed by the end of the year. Officials want the park improvements to be completed by Memorial Day 2010, she said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6579310.html

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