The Difficulty of Preventing another Katrina Disaster

From the Sunday, September 4, 2005 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer~

The article was entitled "Figuring out the future of New Orleans"

"The below-sea-level city is hemmed in by 300-square-mile Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. Built on newly deposited alluvial soil, the city has been sinking ever since its founding in 1718. Draining land for development has made it sink even faster. Sea levels are rising. And the city lies in the regular path of hurricanes, which are in a cycle of increasing frequency."

"You can reduce the probability of disaster, but you can never reduce the risk to zero," said J. Richard Weggel, a former Army Corps of Engineers coastal engineer who is now an engineering professor at Drexel University."

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