Maestri says imagine what happens if a huge storm hits just to the east of the city."The hurricane is spinning counter-clockwise, it's now got a wall of water in front of it some 30 to 40 feet high, as it approaches the levees that surround the city, it tops those levees," describes Maestri. "The water comes over the top - and first the communities on the west side of the Mississippi river go under. Now Lake Ponchetrain— which is on the eastern side of the community—now that water from Lake Ponchetrain is now pushed on the population that is fleeing from the western side, and everybody's caught in the middle. The bowl now completely fills and we've got the entire community under water, some 20 to 30 feet under water."
Sorry to say, but your intuition is just plain wrong.
perhaps I don't understand the topology of NO - the wall of water from the sea, is pushed ashore in the eastern part of the eye, where the winds blow south to north. the western part of the eye has north to south winds, that pushes water from the bay south. to add to that, getting hit by the eastern part of the eye gives you the worst winds.
the ones that have hit me on long island (not cat 5s mind you), work this way. so long as we were west of the eye, we were fine, and I live right at the atlantic.