Not to diminish the terrible situation of the victims, but looking at maps and pictures [1], it seems to me like a very unstable land: It dried over time, diving under the average sea level, and it's been kept free of water only by humans' constant work. Didn't we do a mistake here by considering it habitable in the first place? Imagining humans as a single entity, should we have settled there, climate change or not?

[1] http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2015/09/hurricane_katr...