http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/wetlands/hurricane_print.html
"...It's especially unnerving to hear him talk about disaster. He's trying to figure out, for instance, how will emergency workers start working in a city that's drowned in an 80-mile lake? New Orleans has protected itself from past floods partly with the levees, but the city also operates one of the biggest pumping systems on earth. There are giant turbines all across town, and every time there's a major rain, they suck up the water and pump it out. Combes says that system won't work after a huge hurricane.
"The problem," says Combe, "is that the city's been underwater. And the whole city has to be drained by the pumps, and since the pumps have been under the water, the pumps are flooded. They don't operate now— we have to get the pumps back in operation and in order to get the pumps back in order, we have to get the water out of the city."
Sounds like a Catch 22.
"That's correct."
Terrible Devastation
Researcher Jay Combe has reached a troubling conclusion. He's told his supervisors at the Army Corps of Engineers that if The Hurricane hits New Orleans, most of the buildings in the city would probably be destroyed. If the water didn't demolish them, the hurricane's horrific winds would. And Combe says that raises a question: How many people would die?
Some researchers say 40,000. Some say 20,000. This Army Corps researcher says those figures are probably too low.
Combe worries, "I think of a terrible disaster. I think of 100,000."
...Some scientists believe that if a huge storm hits New Orleans, the city would have to be abandoned. Bulldoze the rubble, rebuild someplace else."
Unthinkable.