In the week after the flood, contractors were being contacted by the government about bulldozing most of the flooded homes and dredging the Lake/River to put in fill to bring the bottom of the bowl of the area around the French Quarter up above sea level before rebuilding any homes.
I don't know if these discussions went beyond the information seeking stage. It was the mood of many in Congress at that time to do that. I don't know how they feel now.
However, always keep in mind that New Orleans continues to sink around 1 inch per year and eventually, the Atchafalaya River will become the new course for the mighty Mississippi leaving New Orleans and its ports in a bayou. Such an even will occur when a flood similar to that of 1927.
So, IMHO, billions more will be wasted trying to protect New Orleans from economic disaster in a fruitless attempt to control Mother Nature, and in the meantime, the Mississippi delta continues to vanish along with its fisheries as the fight of man against nature, or better yet, commerce dollars versus common sense continues to wage on. I too have yet heard or read from anyone of authority at the city, state or federal level even address the long term issue of the future of 'The Toilet Bowl of the South'.
Over the centuries, the same attitude would direct development of the rest of the lower Mississippi. Earthen levees rose ever higher to corral the river in its channel. But they have come at a price: The same volume of water just moves faster through a smaller space, scouring the channel and weakening the levees from below.
When the rains broke records in April 1927, the Gulf of Mexico was full and worked as a stopper to the Mississippi. The Mississippi was full, too, pushing its own waters up tributaries, breaking levees and causing flooding as far as Ohio and Texas. All that water had to go somewhere.
It couldn't go to New Orleans, panicky city fathers told the Army Corps of Engineers; it would devastate the regional economy.
To save New Orleans, the leaders proposed a radical plan. South of the city, the population was mostly rural and poor. The leaders appealed to the federal government to essentially sacrifice those parishes by blowing up an earthen levee and diverting the water to marshland. They promised restitution to people who would lose their homes. Government officials, including Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, signed off.
On April 29, the levee at Caernarvon, 13 miles south of New Orleans, succumbed to 39 tons of dynamite. The river rushed through at 250,000 cubic feet per second. New Orleans was saved, but the misery of the flooded parishes had only started. The city fathers took years to make good on their promises, and very few residents ever saw any compensation at all.
The water, which had started rising on Good Friday, would not recede until July. Many victims would never return to their homes. Hoover, who won support for leading relief efforts, went on to win the presidential election. And the Corps of Engineers, who had said the levees would hold, was humbled. Says Daniel: "People complained about the corps . . . but they never blamed the river. They understood: 'That's the river. That's nature. That's what it's supposed to be doing.' " -Judd Slivka
Source:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/timeline/timeline2.html