[Ditter]

I don't take issue with all of your statement but "N.O. is 12 ft below sea level"????? I don't think that is the case. It was swamped by a 12 ft storm surge that filled Lake Ponchatrain and it came over the levees but a 12 ft storm surge is not a normal everyday tide on the Gulf Coast.And BTW welcome to FR.

[Dan Zachary]

I don't take issue with all of your statement but "N.O. is 12 ft below sea level"?????

Well, it is close to that. According to Wikipedia:

...The city of New Orleans actually contains the lowest point in the state of Louisiana, and one of the lowest points in the United States, after Death Valley and the Salton Sea. Much of the city is actually located between 1 and 10 feet (0.3 to 3 m) below sea level, and as such, is very prone to flooding. Rainwater is continually pumped out of the city and into Lake Pontchartrain across a series of levees and dikes. However, if it rains more than 1 inch, or if there is a major storm surge, such as that caused by a hurricane, greater flooding can occur...

link

[dufekin]

New Orleans actually does lie in an enormous pit bisected by the Mississippi River (which flows well overhead). At its deepest point, the City, surrounded by swamps, marshes, and tidal pools, reaches 10 feet BELOW sea level. Without the levees, most of New Orleans would lie beneath the marsh water. Hurricane Katrina actually largely spared New Orleans; the levees broke the day after the storm passed. Only the northern (East Bank) half of the city filled with water, and then only three feet--not twelve feet--above sea level.

Had Hurricane Katrina NOT spared New Orleans, conditions would have been far worse. The surge on the Mississippi coast, which bore the brunt of the hurricane, reached 29 to 38 feet ABOVE sea level with higher waves, obliterating the Gulfport metropolis and killing hundreds there. And many hurricanes very narrowly spared New Orleans in the past, including Camile, a category 5 hurricane that nailed Gulfport, Mississippi.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina killed more than a thousand Louisianians, but if the levees had failed during the storm rather than afterward, the death toll easily could have exceeded 25,000. A small puff of dry air weakened the west side of the inner core while a particularly strong late-nocturnal convective flare on the east side induced a slight wobble to the east on that fateful morning. That minor phenomenon stood between mere obliteration of New Orleans and the annihilation of its non-evacuated population.

Reconstructing New Orleans with its former demographics, present level of political corruption, and current level of hurricane protection is profoundly if not suicidally irresponsible. I prefer solving this problem by relocating the city or using 25 to 50 feet of fill dirt to raise the elevation of the city and allow for more natural drainage.

[Flavius Josephus]

I believe the areas that flooded are indeed 12 feet below sea level.