> > Ok, who builds a city under sea level on the coast in a hurricane zone? My thoughts and prayers go out to those hurt by the hurricane, but I can't get past wondering what New Orleans' settlers were thinking 280 years ago.
>
> Word. They built a city in the perfect water trap. There are two sizeable lakes to its north, the Mississippi River running right through it, and the Gulf of Mexico not too far to the south.
>
> kniv"Oops."etsil

The people who settled New Orleans were probably thinking almost exclusively in terms of trade and economics: If you have a settlement at the mouth of one of the world's longest rivers, then you should have a notable amount of control over who goes up or down the river, and you also have the easiest access to the interior -- most of which was claimed by the French in the early eighteenth century. I was also just reading somewhere that New Orleans is -- or was, I should say -- the second largest port city in the US (after New York). I am guessing that it was the economic factor that played the largest role in the city remaining in that location, despite hurricanes occurring periodically. There may have also been a strategic element during the first century or so, though I need to read up a bit more on the Battle of New Orleans et al.

As for the city being a water trap, it's only become really bad in the past century or so, as someone got the idea to claim some of that frequently flooded land through the use of levees, pumping stations, and canals. Before that, there appears to have been *some* higher ground (not sure how much higher) where the building would have occurred. Unfortunately, when you get more people arriving, again because the city happens to be easy to get to -- and perhaps also because of some more exotic elements (e.g. voodoo) that would attract attention, you start needing to find more land on which to put them. Hence the idea to claim more land got put into practice out of necessity. At least that's the way I'm seeing it. Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but these points seem fairly logical to me.

They'll rebuild. And most people will return once it's possible to do so. After all, a similar but much more tragic fate once befell Galveston, Texas. Johnstown, Pennsylvania was flooded twice. People stayed in San Francisco after the big earthquake. Some people are willing to put up with a lot because a certain place has become their home, or has come to have meaning for them. Or maybe they can't afford to go anywhere else, either financially or for other reasons. Case in point, take the Dutch, as indicated at the URL provided below.

The thing to hope for now is that when New Orleans becomes habitable again, the people who need to know will be able to determine what went wrong, and then take the necesary steps to prevent it from happening again, or at least to prevent it from happening on anywhere near as large a scale.

macrinus7