The Death of New Orleans is Assured

Back in May 2005, and again in November 2005 and again in May 2008, I posted articles in the "Death of New Orleans" series chronicling the levee failures and the causes of those failures. In all of those articles, I stated emphatically that the only way that New Orleans could ever be classified as safe was if the low lying areas were backfilled to above sea level before rebuilding. The alternative was that New Orleans, or at least the low lying areas, had to be abandoned. There is no way in which a levee can ensure that there will not be more loss of life due to catastrophic flooding.
A panel of the US National Academy of Engineering has arrived at that very same opinion.