There can be no other word.
The city and populace are shattered and while some may return, many will not.
While it makes financial and logistical sense to repair and rebuild Downtown, the waterfront and French Quarter (which are on higher ground). It may make sense to simply (hah!) level whole swathes of the low-lying suburban residential districts and resettle the inhabitants elsewhere and return those area's to the wetlands they were. The debris and rubble can be used to raise the ground-level around those parts of the city that house community assets like the hospitals and the universities. Just as low-lying communities where replanted on higher-ground along the Mississippi River after the floods of the 90's, it may be time to consider similar options. Is it practical to rebuild 1-in-3 homes and have open lots of rubble between as many families take their settlements are move elsewhere?
There will be another hurricane cat-4 or cat-5, it's inevitable. To merely replicate the existing bad situation and hope that "higher, stronger" levees will hold is the same whistling-in-the-dark that the Mayor and Governor's offices did this time. Here is the opportunity to re-fashion the problem, not just paper-over it.
