How Humans Sank New Orleans

The unintended consequences of what seemed, at many times in the last 300 years, to be completely reasonable city planning and engineering decisions - to literally "drain the swamp" and pump out groundwater - that led to soil compaction as layers of peat and other organic material became dry, and thus able to decay and compress, leaving land that once was above sea level to now be below it - even without the effects of climate change and hurricanes.

Great user comments:

  Covfefe_Jesus • 8 hours ago
  If it wasn't for the "Old River Control Structure,"
  upstream, the Mississippi would have found a new path to the
  sea and New Orleans would be history right now.

    Aedes • 4 hours ago
    If it wasn't for Captain Shreve removing the Great Raft, a
    log jam that blocked the Red River/Atchafalaya confluence,
    the Mississippi would still be flowing through New Orleans
    without the Old River Control Structure.

      SpartanWarrior • 2 hours ago
      If it wasn’t for the Reelfoot Rift, a failed
      longitudinal tectonic border that bisects the North
      American continent, the Mississippi would be flowing
      through Chicago into the Great Lakes regardless of the
      Old River Control Structure or Captain Shreve.