I really like New Orleans. But now I wonder whether that sentence should be in the past tense.

What will New Orleans be in the future? At this point, according to www.nola.com (great website), the news is bad and getting worse. Water levels still rising. Levees still broken. I'm no expert, but I figure that having water on both sides of a levee is only going to make it weaker. The articles say 80% of the city is under water. The Superdome, where people were sheltering, has water on the floor. As the water isn't going anywhere anytime soon (water level won't drop until the pumps start working; the pumps are under water and in any case, the levees still have holes in them), I have to think that most of the houses in the city will have to be destroyed as uninhabitable when the water finally goes down in a week (two weeks? a month?). They can't be saved, and they'll rot anyway. And the guns are coming out, as the looters are busy. ("Send in the National Guard! Wait, they're in Tikrit...")

Some of the city will, of course, be rebuilt. What will it look like? Will it ever be the same? I can't imagine it will.