New Orleans No More?

As Katrina bears down, in all of its Cat-5 fury, on New Orleans, I'm reminded of something I heard on the news last hurricane season about the Big Easy. I can't remember if it was the mayor, or someone from FEMA, or somebody else entirely, but they basically said that if N.O. were ever hit directly by a huge storm, it doesn't make too much sense to rebuild it. The rationale being that a city that size in that location that's below sea level is lucky to still be around. Considering those factors, rebuilding might not make a lot of sense. Seems kind of strange that a city of almost half a million people could cease to exist, just because of the weather.

I know what you're thinking; If New Orleans is destroyed and isn't rebuilt, then Nature has won! Well, yeah. Nature wins pretty much whenever it wants to, and sometimes it decides to remind us of that.