A reason repeatedly cited for slow delivery of relief supplies to New Orleans after the storm, and slow evacuation, was the obstruction of the roads, and of navigation through Lake Pontchartrain owing to collapse of the bridges across its connection to the Gulf.
But the levees on the Mississippi River side of the city have held throughout the storm, and the highest land in the city is up against them and has been dry throughout the week. The Mississippi is navigable from the Gulf past the city for two thousand miles. Does anyone know why the city couldn’t have been evacuated and/or supplied with rations, water, and policing almost immediately by shipping from the Mississippi side, over the levees? Is the southern shore of the city a quay suitable for tie-up and loading?