Word: problems
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...Orleans has always had a complicated relationship with the water surrounding it. Everyone told the first settlers this was the wrong place to build a city. It is wedged precariously between the mighty Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, and most of it was once swampland. Aggravating the problem is the fact that much of New Orleans is below sea level, so that after a good rain, the water just settles in. There is now a decent pumping system, which helps. Old-timers, however, still talk of the days when, after a bad storm, bodies washed out of the cemeteries...
...Orleans' other major man-made problem is that its wetlands and its low-lying barrier islands are disappearing. The Louisiana coast is losing 16,000 acres of wetland each year, mostly as a result of population expansion into once pristine areas, destructive oil and gas drilling, pollution and land loss through lack of sedimentation. As it turns out, wetlands and barrier islands aren't just nice to look at; they are also a key natural barrier to hurricanes. (Every 2.7 miles of wetland absorbs a foot of storm surge.) As the wetlands go, the chance of a hurricane blowing...
...little has been done. Part of the problem, of course, is that excessive worrying and planning are radically at odds with the spirit of the Big Easy. Despite the damage inflicted by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and the near miss of Andrew in 1992, New Orleans is still a place where the primary meaning of hurricane is a fruity rum drink the law lets you carry openly as you carouse in the French Quarter. While the grimmest of the doomsayers warn that New Orleans could be the next Atlantis, some laid-back residents are saying that it could just...
...Garbage is not the biggest problem the river faces," Pregracke says, "but it's the one I can make a dent in myself." If this goal sounds overly ambitious for a shoestring operation with an annual budget of $200,000, you haven't seen Pregracke at work. He's tireless. Today he's driving a forklift around his barges, sorting old car seats and lawn ornaments and tractor chassis into separate piles for recycling. All sandy hair and freckles, dressed in a life jacket, cap and khaki shorts and sporting a pair of wraparound dark shades, Pregracke could...
...from unfit mothers. My dad admits the similarity between his idea and Newt's and doesn't apologize for it. "If it takes a fortress to develop youngsters into positive, confident, thinking young men and women, then why not?" he asks. It's a compelling idea, but there are problems with it. What parents would want to give up the care of their child? Quite a few, says my father. "I think many parents here would be relieved, frankly," he says. "No matter how much a parent loves a child, I think she realizes that she's not doing what...