Apart from all this, can anyone answer me a historic question? Given the geography of the situation in New Orleans, why did they not build the city to be like Venice, a canal city (pre-flooded, if you like)?   Admittedly Venice is now sinking for other reasons, but it has weathered a variety of storms over many centuries. Given that it is on a delta, and at the mouth of a big river (like the Po), this would seem to be an obvious way to build.   Did it start that way, and was the city paved over at some point in the process? I know about the draining of the wetlands around it and upstream.

Perhaps they should rebuild New Orleans that way -- a city on the water, rather than going through all that dam building process. Just curious.

yours,

Peter T.