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Some thoughts from a fellow engineer.... You can't win a war against Mother Nature. She's bigger than you, stronger than you, and relentless. She's a mother. You MUST plan for the failure of any man-made device or structure. Everything man makes, will eventually fail. If you're not comfortable with the failure of something, then you've failed in your plans. Only a fool would base his life on the successful operation of a single piece of critical equipment. Redundancy can reduce the odds of failure, but failure is still a certainty, eventually. If you don't plan for failure, you've failed to plan. The only successful designs are the ones that are inherintly simple and self-sufficient. Elegance in design is often discussed, and most often creates the most successful design. I'm not talking about the artistic merits of a design, but about the simpleness and completeness of a design. The way you make a place so it won't flood is to make it higher than the surrounding water. If you want to prevent N.O. from flooding in the future, you have few options: 1. Raise it above the surrounding water. 2. Move it away from the water. Higher levees, more levees, self-contained pumping systems, etc., will only reduce the magnitude of the next flood from a levee failure, but will not prevent it. For those areas with 3' or less water in them, I say RAISE them to above the water line. For those areas in deeper water, break up the areas with more levees. Build the levees to withstand the overflow of the storm surge from a CAT 5 hurricane. This will require building levees to withstand the erosive effects of the water cascading over them. Seriously consider protecting areas by RAISING the surrounding areas to above sea level, effectively creating mega-levees. Install pumps above sea level for pumping, so they are not damaged by catastrophic flooding. Backup generators are a must. Finally, in the future deny flood insurance for all structures below sea level or Lake Ponchartrain. Mark in Utah
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