In the back of my mind I have been wondering if we are seeing the end of a modern city due to natures ebbs and flows. It has been surprising to me that no major human outpost established 100+ years ago has succumbed in the last 100 years. Nature is moving underneath us, despite our best efforts to adjust. New Orleans may be the first major human outpost that was established in an area that could not be sustained forever.

Why do I say this? Drudge is reporting this article claiming New Orleans could be uninhabitable for for 4 months.

The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. “We’ve sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers trying to plug New Orleans’ breached levees struggled to move giant sandbags and concrete barriers into place, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was growing more desperate and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.
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We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in,” Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC’s “Good Morning America, “and the other issue that’s concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue.”
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Once the levees are fixed, Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the Army Corps of Engineers said, it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans’ homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert.

The question is will people wait for 4 months to simply move back into an area that is 13 feet under sea level. I may be wrong – Holland has massive regions of their country behind dikes. So it could go the other way. But the earth is changing underneath us and I doubt New Orleans will be completely the same if it is rebuilt. I hope we are not seeing the end of a major city. I truly hope not.