Rebuilding
A week later everyone is now chiming in about rebuilding New Orleans, but they keep forgetting about the one problem that everyone is ignoring.
As a taxpayer, there is no way that I will support rebuilding New Orleans as long as the majority of the city is under sea level. This disaster would have been infinitely smaller if the city planners would have done something centuries ago and limited city building to areas that were above sea level. The French Quarter, Downtown, etc all survivied relatively unscathed because they were above the water line; even with Lake Pontchartrain at 20 feet above sea level at last Monday.
It is one thing to deal with a historical event. It's something completely different to ignore it's lessons.