While it is true that the levees and their associated infrastructure were not up to the task of defending against Katrina, what sort of infrastructure could have performed well against the most powerful storm ever seen in this country? As I recall, 90,000 square miles were affected or, put another way, 900 miles of coastline ranging up to 100 miles inland were affected by this super-storm. If this had occurred on the eastern seaboard it would have ranged from New York to Florida! Imagine those consequences.

As to citing the Dutch efforts after the massive storm they encountered over 50 years ago, it's important to realize that that storm was less severe than Katrina and has not re-occurred since then, so the improvements the Dutch made have yet to be tested.

While it is important to consider what failed and what could have been done better to mitigate the damage, the fact remains that for the entire Gulf region affected by this massive storm, little could have been done to protect it. There is no way to armor 90,000 square miles against a storm of Katrina's magnitude.

The real lesson is that one should not build a city below sea level in the first place. New Orleans was a mistake. We should not spend any more time and effort repeating that mistake. As I recall, almost all of Holland is below sea level and that is why the Dutch have spent so much time and effort trying to save their country.

If the port of New Orleans is important to our country then we should move the place where we build housing, etc. inland, above sea level, and let the port go up to that point.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to live in a city below sea level, protected by levees that are targets for Nature as well as terrorists? Times have changed and we should change with them.

The last time I was in New Orleans was in 1969. The people who lived there were concerned about the levees and their lives and property at that time and probably since the levees were built. It has always been a bad idea.

I often hear the response that New Orleans should be abandoned. As a Dutch man, I don't understand why. It is MUCH easier and cheaper to protect land against a storm surge than against earthquakes or even twisters. Are they seriously considering evacuating all US states where there are natural risks?

The whole situation can be totally blamed on consistent negligence of the necessary infrastructure, not the fact of living below sea level itself.

Besides, in the estimates I have seen so far it is a LOT cheaper to build Cat-5 protection (about $30 billion) than to move New Orleans as a city ($100+ billion).

Ms. Gelinas states in the first sentence of her piece that the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina is a story "of the greatest failure of civil engineering in American history." As a civil engineer (licensed in California) I can tell you that this statement is factually incorrect. Ms. Gelinas makes my case by listing all the reasons that civil engineers weren't allowed to build the infrastructure needed to protect New Orleans. These reasons were all political. This wasn't a failure of civil engineering. It was a failure of politicians to do the right thing. It was a failure of voters to elect honest leaders. It was multiple failures of news media to inform the public. You can blame a lot of groups for this, but one group you cannot blame is civil engineers.

Protecting a city of hundreds of thousands that is hard by the coast and fifteen feet below it is not impossible. It's just expensive. Spend the money needed, or don't try at all.

Despite her initial trip and fall, Ms. Gelinas has the state of infrastructure spending pegged. We spend much less on real public works (not infrastructure) than we used to, and much of what is built with "infrastructure" money is not really public works. California will have four bonds on the ballot in November, two that will go to "education" and one that will go to "affordable" housing. Another, the largest of the four ($20 billion of a $37 billion total), will go to "transportation." Unfortunately, some transportation projects will be murals on the facades of public transportation portals to entice people to use the system, advertising campaigns to entice people to use the system, subsidizing of fares to entice people to use the system, and . . . well, you get the picture. Probably far less than half of the $20 billion will go to actual construction, upgrade or rehabilitation of any road, freeway, airport or harbor. When it costs $700 million to build 13 miles of light rail from downtown L.A. to east Pasadena, $20 billion doesn't go very far, especially when half of it doesn't go anywhere.

So, there are two problems. One, spend enough money on the project, whether it's levees for New Orleans or Sacramento, or don't start. Spending some money but not enough gives citizens a false sense of security. Two, stop calling schools and day care centers infrastructure. They're not. Infrastructure, real public works—sewage systems, water systems, flood control, roads, power plants—is what you need before you can build the school.

Infrastructure, yeah, but not the way you see it. The Mississippi is confined to continue flowing past New Orleans; if there were no barriers it would change course near Natchez, MS, where the Corps of Engineers maintains a barrier to prevent course change, and then to the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya. The millions of tons of sediment now being dumped to the deeper Gulf would then be deposited and rebuild the wetlands. As it now flows, this sediment accelerates the sinking of New Orleans and increases "the problem of the levees." The correct remedy—abandon New Orleans, let the river flow free. Does anyone have the courage to suggest this?—hell no!