Douglas Brinkley:
It’s a great question.
Well, what we got right is to save and defend New Orleans. There is no United States of America without that important city. It was — meant everything to us. And just think of the arts and culture alone with Louis Armstrong and the birth of modern jazz or playwriting Tennessee Williams or Lillian Hellman.
And the list is long and it’s a deep, rich cultural history. People all over the world love New Orleans. It may be our most loved American city. What we got wrong is, it was built in part below sea level, but it means we have to defend it. And back 20 years ago and even now, we still turn to the Dutch, look how to build better dams, better levee systems.
I believe the Army Corps of Engineers this time around has built durable levees, but you never know what’s going to happen. There’s a fear factor, if a Category 4 or 5 storm comes to New Orleans, because Louisiana is losing all of its wetlands. And every storm that comes, that power of the surge is getting closer to the city of New Orleans.
So being there is like living on the edge, sort of like Key West. You just feel that life’s good, but at any hurricane season, the big one can hit, and it might be the one that knocks New Orleans off its feet.
