Oil and gas will continue to flow. The pipelines will settle but we can keep them whole. The offshore ports will continue to receive ships. The OCS will continue to produce. Rail lines and grain elevators in Orleans will continue to work. Others will start working in Grammercy, Sorrento and Baton Rouge. The channel is 45 feet deep all the way to Baton Rouge.

There are still hundreds of billions of dollars at stake but they can move a few miles up river.

Most homeowners south of Lake Pontchartrain will gradually pack up and leave.  The personal price will be enormous, but the country will go on. Business has already figured this out and is abandoning the city as fast as it can. The $10 billion or so that is being distributed to first round victims will not be repeated as the country will grow weary of bailing New Orleans out.

About 100,000 will stay in one way or another, mostly in hardened industrial facilities, high rise dwellings or on the high ground of the relatively small 1898 footprint, to run the vital infrastructure. They will be well compensated for their efforts. It will be an expensive place in which to live.