Crescent City, Post-Apocalypse

Hurricane Katrina was vast, horrendous, biblical in scope, and it occasioned a classic complex systems failure in the city of New Orleans. Coming back home after evacuating, I am, in a sense, returning to the city of my great-grandmother, a crescent of populated area along the river. New Orleans is a city with a good situation on trading routes, and a dreadful site, sealed in a bowl rimmed with water. Water, the city's best friend and worst enemy, has always been the focus of its primary technological problems. The technological tragedy of New orleans lies at the confluence of power and science. Power now lies with the federal government, specifically the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which made the technological choices that led to this catastrophe. Yet, I believe that New Orleans will continue. Changed, perhaps, but not deserted. And others, like me, who could live nowhere else, will still be here.