New Orleans prepared for the wrong storm

Wretchard examines a prescient 2003 article in Civil Engineering Magazine

When Katrina showed up, it simply exceeded the designed defenses of city. There was never any prospect they would hold up. Nor was there any possibility any could be built until the middle of the 21st century. Given the length of time necessary to defend the perimeter of New Orleans against a Category 4 threat, a number of proposals were advanced suggesting enclosing the city's vitals in an cofferdam, in a manner reminiscent of battleship citadels.

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But cofferdaming the heart of New Orleans would have left the project open to the criticism that it was protecting property while leaving the poor undefended. Had vital services, communications nodes and power sources been proofed against the flood, extending the analogy of the battleship, the city might have been better able to respond. In the event, there was no citadel against the flood. The article quite presciently anticipated what would happen if people needed to be evacuated from a storm.

For the most part, New Orleans does not have places for people to go. The American Red Cross no longer provides emergency shelters in the city because its officials cannot guarantee the structural integrity of the locations ... that could withstand the forces of a category 4 or 5 storm. ...

Most people would not wish to remain in the city if a category 4 or 5 storm were in prospect, but evacuating could be difficult. Experts say close to 400,000 people could be stranded in the city. There are an estimated 100,000 people without easy access to automobiles, and those who can drive may not be able to do so. ... Complicating the difficulty in New Orleans is the fact that each of the city’s three major evacuation routes is over or near water.