New Orleans is the least shitty place to put a port on the Mississippi. Or at least it's been that since its founding. Rising sea levels and "hundred-year storms" becoming "twenty-year storms" may change that.
And also... it's home. I grew up there, left for a while, came back right before Katrina, and leaving after that ripped a chunk of my heart out that I've only started growing back after returning a couple years ago. The place is fucking magical for the 347 days out of the year we're not staring down a hurricane that might be aimed right for us. Most of them see us staring and decide to go elsewhere.
I'd say the major threats are fallen power lines, downed trees, and CO poisoning from generator misuse. We'll get routine summer monsoons that bring more damage than some category 1 hurricanes at times, so unless it's a direct hit from a major hurricane I try not to panic too much so long as we have supplies.
Also keep in mind that a majority of the East Coast is under threat from Hurricanes. If we just abandoned any area that has been severely damaged by a hurricane, there would effectively be an unpopulated coastline from Boston to the Mexican border.
It seems like something flood insurance and building codes should get increasingly stringent about, similar to how some California fire codes started requiring houses to be built to support sheltering in place during wildfires so you didn’t have so many people evacuating and needing to rebuild as many homes. It’d be nice if that started as guaranteed annual premium increases for unsafe properties with an assistance program for primary residences which phases out based on property value.
That’s how you can almost literally wipe a city off the face of the earth and see it rebuilt within a decade, think Germany after WW2or London/SF/Chicago after fire and earthquakes.