How will such a city recover from such a devastating blow?

I don't know much about what floodwaters do to structures, but from what I can imagine, entire neighborhoods, perhaps entire sections of New Orleans will need to be razed once the water (if ever) is pumped from the city.

I guess it's just beyond my comprehension how a city would even begin to tackle that kind of a project, aside from all the search and rescue and unfortunately dead body recovery they have to do right now. Is the city destined to be merely a shell of what it once was?

I know it's not as easy as to just find a spot above sea level and say "Okay, this is where we'll rebuild", but I don't see any logical reason for rebuilding entire neighborhoods in their current locations when the city will still be wedged between two major bodies of water and will still rely on levees to keep those two major bodies of water out. It was just asking for trouble to drain those areas below sea level in the first place.

What I'm wondering is, once recovery begins (a long way down the road, I know), will New Orleans just cross its fingers and hope another devastating hurricane doesn't hit, or are we looking at permanent large-scale abandonment of certain areas of the city?

Hurricanes will never stop lashing the coast. Unless New Orleans builds a 200ft concrete wall around the entire city, levees will be continue to be breached, and it is destined to flood again.

Plus, apparently the higher you build the levee, the harder it is to remove the water which has breached the levee.

Venice-style canal system is the solution.

Thank goodness that after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which destroyed much of that city, people didn't say, "let's abandon San Francisco because this place is just too earthquake-prone." That might have seemed the prudent thing to do at the time, but the funny thing about cities is that they're amazingly resiliant. San Francisco picked itself up, and rebuilt, and emerged stronger and greater than before the disaster. Same story with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Or the London fire of 1666. And history will write the same story for the New Orleans hurricane of 2005 -- New Orleans will be rebuilt, and 50 years from now those of us still around will point to Katrina as a turning point. The point at which New Orleans appeared finished, but emerged stronger and greater than ever before.

Definitely, it will recover. It will look differently though.

yes some form of the city will remain/rebuild it is too prominent a strategic trade location to abandon i mean it is the gateway to/from the mississippi river. I would like to see a venetian and dutch combo of levies canals and irrigation systems but knowing america, the investment and the quantity of poor in that (floded) region/ i doubt the improvements will be great enough.
the downtown and french quarters will rehab first but it will still be a while.

yes some form of the city will remain/rebuild it is too prominent a strategic trade location to abandon i mean it is the gateway to/from the mississippi river. I would like to see a venetian and dutch combo of levies canals and irrigation systems but knowing america, the investment and the quantity of poor in that (floded) region/ i doubt the improvements will be great enough.
the downtown and french quarter will probably rehab first but it will still be a while.

Wouldn't hurt to ask the Dutch. Invite them over for some beignets and coffee w/chickory.

Seems to me that the port and city of Baton Rouge, is whats in store for New Orleans. The exact same senerio of Galveston and Houston all over again, well not exactly, but close!

i suspect New ORleans will loose a large portion of its population. Unless the majority of the people that left decide to comeback.

Louisville went through something very similiar with the great flood of 1937.

For all we know, the city of New Orleans as we know it, no longer exists.

^Agreed

It will be back, bigger and better than before.

This thread is basically bordering on the same subject and includes a poll, let's continue the discussion over here:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=252272