It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy,
the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were
swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who
invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane
in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as
much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As
the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people
evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however--the car-less, the
homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for
any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a
deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the
massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent
of New Orleans lies below sea level--more than eight feet below in places--so
the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of
Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned
porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints
on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet
(eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape
it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage
and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from
dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump
the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid
sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst
natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't--yet. But the doomsday
scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a
hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation,
up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York
City.