De Reason:
The evacuation plans were inadequate and then bungled. The rescue was slow, confused, often nonexistent. Yet the most striking fact of the New Orleans catastrophe has received less notice than it deserves: The plan for New Orleans in case of a hit from a very powerful hurricane was to lose the city.
In other words, if a severe hurricane struck, the city's flooding and abandonment was not what would happen if the plan failed. It was the plan.
New Orleans is built between a lake, a river, and the Gulf of Mexico, and it is lower than the surrounding waters. It was kept dry by an extensive system of levees and pumps. That system was itself contributing to the slow subsidence of the city.
The levee system was largely designed in the early 1960s. By the standards of their day, the levees were built conservatively, but within certain constraints. In particular, they were built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.
Hurricanes come in two jumbo sizes: Category 4 and, most severe but rarest, Category 5. A storm of either magnitude could deliver a surge that would overtop or breach the levees. The city would be flooded, to depths as great as 20 feet. It would become a lake. Much of it would be destroyed, and many people would die.
by Kansas Joe McCoy, recorded in 1929
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