If New Orleans is so vital to American Shipping,.. and Energy why is it located over a swamp?

Question

Its a bad idea to build anything close to the coastal areas.,,statistically Hurricanes and Monsoons have continually destroyed billions of dollars of Residential and commerical constructions..my question is how many times does something have to be destroyed by Nature..due to its geographical location ,.before...Money mongers...realize that continually building in these areas..is just plain lunacy.

Answer 1

It is also on a geologically subsiding zone. Regardless of what we do that area will eventually become permanently submerged. It is built on a river delta. Once it was important because it was at the mouth of one of our major waterways and as the result the key to the main transportation artery of our nation. With our modern rail and trucking system, this is not as big a factor as it once was. The fact is that they should have just written it off and moved the city from the delta onto one of the adjacent banks and had the govt. buy out the landowners in the city. It would have been cheaper in the long run and a more permanent solution. Now we are stuck fighting a losing battle and pumping massive amounts of money into a battle with nature we cant win.

Answer 2

Other than being on a river delta, I didn't know New Orleans was that vital. There are literally hundreds of cities that come in as a close second I would think that are safer and better.
This was news to me. I always was under the impression that the highway and the the railroad was first, the Eastern seaboard and Western seaboard also.