英语高级视听说-听力原文-unit-3-new-orleans-is-sinking.pdfVIP

Unit 3 New orleans is sinking For 300 years, the sea has been closing in on New Orleans. As the coastal erosion continues, it is estimated the city will be off shore in 90 years. Even in good weather, New Orleans is sinking. As the city begins what is likely to be the biggest demolition project in U.S. history, the question is, can we or should we put New Orleans back together again? Life has been returning to high and dry land on Bourbon Street, but to find the monumental challenge facing the city you have to visit neighborhoods you have never heard of. On Lizardi Street, 60 Minutes took a walk with the men in charge of finishing what Katrina started. Correspondent Scott Pelley reports. Before Katrina, There would be noise and activity and families and people, and children, and, you know, I havent seen a child in a month here, says Greg Meffert, a city official who, with his colleague Mike Centineo, is trying to figure out how much of the city will have to be demolished. Meffert, who is in charge of city planning, says it is very possible up to 50,000 houses will have to be bulldozed. Right now, most of the homes in the city are uninhabitable. Meffert faces a difficult task. Every time he goes to a house site here, he says, Its one more knife in me that says, She did another one. She did another one, explains Meffert, she meaning Hurricane Katrina. When you walk through these neighborhoods and you see the houses, you get a sense of the pain of the individual families. But you dont get a sense of what has happened to the city of New Orleans itself. It is estimated that there were 200,000 homes in New Orleans, and 120,000 of them were damaged by the flood. The part of the city known as the lower Ninth Ward received some of the heaviest flooding. The houses are splintered block after block after block, almost as if the city had been carpet-bombed in war. Meffert says that before the storm, New Orleans had a population of 47