A Category 4 or 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans is a disaster, no two ways about it. However, the impact of a storm like Hurricane Katrina would be a lot less if people stopped trashing - and started protecting - the very features that have kept the area relatively safe for untold years. As the New York Times points out:
Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, mainly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
According to the October 2004 edition of National Geographic:
Louisiana?s wetlands are twice the size of the Everglades National Park, funnel more oil into the United States than the Alaska pipeline, sustain one of the nation?s largest fisheries, and provide vital hurricane protection for New Orleans. And they?re disappearing under the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 33 football fields a day.
Besides hurricane protection, Louisiana's coastal area wetlands provide "critical stopover habitat for Neotropical migratory songbirds...nesting habitat for many species of water birds such as the endangered brown pelican," and "habitat for many species of fish and wildlife including the bald eagle." In other words, Louisiana's wetlands are vital for many reasons. Unfortunately, they're being trashed, mainly by the pressure of human development.
Sadly, but predictably, this type of environmental destruction heightens the impact of natural disasters all over the world. In the last winter's Asian tsunami, for example, the loss of natural mangrove forests made things far worse than they would have been. Looking at it the other way, in places where mangroves had NOT been cut down, the loss of life and property was far less. This realization has led to plans and proposals aimed at replanting vast areas of mangrove forests in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Besides providing protection, these mangrove forests also create tremendously productive fisheries.
The point here is that "natural" disasters are not purely "natural." They also have a strong man-made component to them. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the presence of healthy wetlands south of New Orleans could have lessened the impact significantly. Yet ANOTHER reason to preserve our environment for future generations...