"How do you relocate a half mil people and their houses? Not to mention replacing every business, of which there are thousands."
They may have to.
It certainly would be cheaper and healthier to relocate the city on other side of the "Big Muddy" or the other side of the lake on higher ground than trying to refurbish a city that will be sitting on a cesspool inundated with raw sewage, chemicals & human remains unfit for man or beast.
And even if you were able to replace the entire levee system tomorrow, clean the entire city of raw sewage, chemicals and human waste what would stop some terrorists from flying planes into the walls after another storm and flooding the city again.
I couldn't agree more with Not rebuilding New Orleans in it's existing location. For anyone to respond with simply saying that the levy system need to be fixed and or made higher, I say that you could rebuild that entire levy system several feet higher, but it's still at the mercy of mother nature. There's no garuntee that during any other hurricane that large debris being pushed into the levy walls won't breach it again.
Now lets factor in the enviros claim of global warming and sea levels rising. Actually the real fact of what is causing global warming is not greenhouse gas emissions, it is the fact that the sun itself is getting hotter, melting icecaps, that are making sea levels rise. Hurricanes will also continue to increase in frequency and intensity as this is natures way of maintaining temperature balance across the globe.
Why rebuild an already vulnerable city that is sure to be even more and more vulnerable by not only more frequent deadly storms but also gradually becoming even farther below sea level?