Sine our focus is on our friends in the Gulf, and since we have a lot of rail buffs here at DailyKos, I was wondering what some of the engineers around here thought of rail’s place in hurricane evacuation efforts along the Gulf Coast.
We’re fortunate this time around that, not only does Gustav appear to be weakening (at one point last night it was projected to come ashore as a Cat 4), but that there has been a lot of advance notice. By comparison, Katrina didn’t blow up into a powerful storm until 72 hours before landfall.
But that still leaves the question of how to move very large numbers of people-in NO and southern LA in general-in a very short time. Rail would seem to be the primary remedy, by its very defintion.
Given that Baton Rouge is only 70 miles away, and inland enough to avoid severe storm damage, perhaps a multi-track rail "highway"-with no crossings-directly between the two cities could be the solution. No traffic jams, no gas shortages, a much more controlled and orderly evacuation and assistance effort (since evacuees could be channeled directly to stops where federal and state aid have operations centers).
I looked on Google Maps, but incredibly, there appears to be only one rail track running between the two cities. One. That amazes me. Within the city there are one or two rail loops in industrial sectors, and there are several places where rail lines abruptly end, due either to Katrina, or general disuse over the years.
So I thought I would throw the topic out to the engineers on here, to take a look at the map, design a system that could move mass amounts of people across NO and perhaps Souther LA in general. Where would you run the system, where you would place its stations (centralized or widely dispersed?)how many tracks would you use, what is your estimation of the capacity requirements (how many trainsets can move X people in X hours), and what would be the cost?
For that matter, where would you get the trainsets on such short notice (in the absence of a robust commuter rail system in the region). Dallas? Houston? St. Louis? Atlanta? Could these be pressed into service and routed to NO in time? You begin to get into the question of not just how to engineer a system, but how to utilize that system in a variety of evacuation scenarios. I'm not an expert on these topics, but I know some of you out there are.
So I throw that out there to anyone who might take up the task, as simplified or complex as you want to make it. And if Biden becomes VP, your idea might be the genesis of something that is actually implemented, saving future generations along the Gulf Coast a l
It just seems that running a large number of trainsets over a 24 or 36 hour period could move a massive number of people to safety, considering the short "loop" between NO and BR. I’m surprised there wasn’t discussion of that after Katrina