By Menzes Sweet

Hurricane Katrina was so astounding and relief efforts so shameful that a stupefied silence yawned across America as we tried to come to terms with what happened. It didn’t take long for politicians to start filling that hush with promises of reconstruction and aid, phone cards and free stuff. They quickly began writing checks and billing it all to “the future”.

The reality of reconstruction, the truth that few seem willing to confront, is that it will be amazingly expensive, almost certainly corrupt, possibly quite temporary, poorly managed, unfair, vulnerable, and, mostly likely racist.

Should New Orleans be rebuilt? No. It is an impossible place, built below sea level, crouched behind a gothic maze of floodwalls and earthen levees, kept dry by antique, wheezing pumps. The natural desire of the landscape is to become a seascape, to merge with Lake Pontchartrain and the swirling Mississippi River. Denying this reality, as we have for generations, created room for incredible destruction, and Katrina roared in.

Of course, this is the dry, detached and sufficiently hydrated speech of a spectator, one who lives far from the emotion of the devastated city. And, of course, this is why I am right. Only a few have dared speak out against rampant Rise Again-ism, the prevailing attitude of Louisiana’s bumbling officials and President Bush (who appeared so utterly dazed by the disaster that he should have considered allowing Bill Clinton to step in for a few days).

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert suggested that we at least ask ourselves whether the city should rise again—and he was quickly demonized. But Hastert was not callously dismissing the city or insulting its residents, as is clear from a transcript of the interview in which he made his comments. While a few others have joined Hastert, most politicians have apparently shut off their critical thinking skills.

And so we prepare to pour billions of dollars into the reconstruction of a city that wants to disappear. And we do not know where the money will come from, or how it will be spent. We know the effort will take years, and we have already seen that another hurricane, named Rita, did not even need to directly hit New Orleans to swamp the city a second time. We are not acting wisely. Reconstruction is not patriotism. It is mere stubbornness.

Many Rise Againers point out that the city’s destruction was not inevitable. They argue that the floodwalls weren’t well-built, that the disaster plan was deeply flawed and that FEMA and other emergency preparedness groups were hopelessly negligent. They say Congress has been whittling money from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for years, leaving the levee builders without ample resources to fend off hurricanes.

These are valid points. But recounting errors cannot undo the damage, and we can no longer ignore certain truths. First, New Orleans is built above a pit of unconsolidated muck. The city has always has been sinking and waterlogged. Efforts to keep it dry with pumps only cause it to sink faster. Every few years, new earth must be piled atop each levee as the goopy substrate swallows them. As the levees grow heavier, they, too, sink faster.

Second, hurricanes appear to be on the rise. Scientists warn that we are entering a period in Earth’s climatic cycle that will produce more and increasingly powerful hurricanes over the next several years or decades. Unfortunately, we are caught in a political cycle that promises science will be ignored for at least three more years, just long enough for reconstruction to begin. Compared to the sluggish bureaucratic pace at which this reconstruction will advance, next year’s hurricane season seems just around the corner. Will the hurricane gods wait until we’re ready before they strike again?

Third, if reconstruction is allowed to continue, it will occur under increasingly expensive circumstances. New Orleans cannot simply be rebuilt once. It will require steady transfusions of cash. In short, maintaining New Orleans will become the long-term hobby of every American. To pay for this, the Bush administration has proposed budget cuts. I’m all for thinning portly federal programs. But what will Bush chop? School spending? Farm subsidies? Unfortunately this administration has proven that what fat it cuts on one side is transmuted into pork elsewhere—like the ridiculous transportation bill or the war in Iraq.

Finally, the key questions are not about hurricane probabilities or expense or historic architecture. Katrina did more to expose Americans to poverty than any newspaper or television program has in years. After the storm ripped the lid off, Americans saw the aching reality of New Orleans. Nearly a third of the city’s residents were poor, black and landless, living in undesirable spots in undesirable conditions, near schools that barely functioned. Tens of thousands could not escape because they did not own cars.

As Slate’s Jack Shafer asked recently, exactly what are we going to rebuild? The hovels and shacks? Can you reconstruct poverty, shame and neglect? Are we going to ask victims to move back into neighborhoods toxified by unknown petrochemicals and resume their service-industry jobs so tourists can once again live their Big Easy fantasies or wax poetic about the birthplace of jazz? What if landlords sell out to the speculators who have descended on the city, hoping to turn storm-flattened chunks of mud into prime real estate? Where will people go then? We cannot ask, nor should we allow, the victims to repopulate the polluted, untenable margins they inhabited before the storm.

The disaster offers an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild lives—but not on the mud puddle that was New Orleans. The logical solution is to build anew, above sea level, and carefully use government resources, perhaps in the form of relocation grants to individuals and resettlement aid to states, to help hurricane victims overcome poverty rather than return to its roots. New Orleans was sinking under the weight of its corruption and inequality before Katrina arrived. What in that is worth rebuilding?

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