Mark Fischetti, a contributing editor to Scientific American, explains what natural structures must be restored to the Mississippi delta to protect New Orleans from another assault.

The deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina are heart-rending. The suffering of survivors is wrenching. Property destruction is shocking. But perhaps the most agonizing part is that much of what happened in New Orleans this week might have been avoided.

Watching the TV images of the storm approaching the Mississippi Delta on Sunday, I was sick to my stomach. Not only because I knew the hell it could unleash (I wrote an article for Scientific American in 2001 that described the very situation that was unfolding) but because I knew that a large-scale engineering plan called Coast 2050 - developed in 1998 by scientists, Army engineers, metropolitan planners and Louisiana officials - might have helped save the city, but had gone unrealized.

The debate over New Orleans's vulnerability to hurricanes has raged for a century. By the late 1990's, scientists at Louisiana State University and the University of New Orleans had perfected computer models showing exactly how a sea surge would overwhelm the levee system, and had recommended a set of solutions. The Army Corps of Engineers, which built the levees, had proposed different projects. . . .

Fed up with the splintered efforts, Len Bahr, then the head of the Louisiana Governor's Office of Coastal Activities, somehow dragged all the parties to one table in 1998 and got them to agree on a coordinated solution: Coast 2050.

Fischetti, Mark. "They Saw It Coming." New York Times, 02 Sept 2005. Editorial/OpEd page.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02fischetti.html?th&emc=th. Free registration may be required.

An interesting proposal with much to recommend it, but considering what Frank said -- that the city is crushed -- I wonder if it will make that much difference.

Of course, people rebuilt Johnstown after their flood. Twice.