So it sounds like it would be a bit unfair to blame everything on the Feds and the Army corps of engineers.
To my mind the real question in all of this is how they're going to rebuild the city. It's now pretty clear from climatologists, atmospheric scientists, oceanographers and most every other branch of science that sea levels will be rising--maybe by inches, maybe by feet. It seems to me the height of foolishness just to rebuild with an improved levee system. As horrific as this has been, once it leaves living memory it will lose urgency. Future taxpayers will again reach a point where they're not willing to pay, and the protective system will be underfunded and neglected--just as it was this time. So what's the answer? Do they truck in a few cubic miles of fill and raise the level of the city another 20 feet? Should they purchase a few thousand acres 20 miles inland and build there? Beats the heck out of me, but it's hard to think of a lesser endeavor being successful for more than another hundred years or so.