It's below sea level, the land has sunk, and as a result, the city has to pump water uphill over the levees into Lake Ponchatrain into the Mississippi River. That means that a monster hurricane could do this city in. In 1998, Hurricane Georges, a relatively small storm, destroyed camps and houses, and almost overtopped a levee. But it's what you don't see in the marshlands that really puts New Orleans at risk. They are slipping underwater and subsequently vanishing.
Marshlands are the only buffer for hurricanes that come regularly out of the Gulf of Mexico.
Since 1930, an area 50 percent bigger than Rhode Island has been washed into the sea. Shrimper Coon Martin sees the loss every day. It used to come right out by that camp and that's what you got left now. Federal and state governments haven't come up with the money yet. In the meantime, Joseph Suheyda, a geologist at Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge, believes he has one alternative.