Turns out, the devastation following Katrina was a direct result of a series of canals dredged from the swamp.
The powers that be (or were) wanted to be more than a rivertown; (they) wanted to become a seaport, and began a process which ultimately destroyed the cypress swamps; the only terra firma, so to speak, that protected New Orleans from the counter-clockwise right hook of a hurricane like Katrina.
It was as if the storm surge were channeled into a giant fire hose that eventually funneled into a hypodermic needle, blasting through the floodwall of the Industrial Canal; blowing houses clear off their foundations, and inundating the Lower Ninth Ward with twenty-five feet of water.
One young guy I picked up for a car rental told me that he had been sitting on his (second floor) kitchen counter, watching his furniture float around the room, and did what any human being would do. He prayed: "O Lord if it's my time, then take me by the hand." Or something like that. As he continued, a life-jacket floated in through his blown out kitchen window.
"A miracle!" I exclaimed, having no reason to doubt him. He was one of the lucky ones.
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