I think my choice to stay or not would depend entirely if I had children or not... I would not put a child through that voluntarily... and well essentially that is what the survivors in New Orleans are choosing to do.

If I didn't have children... and everyone I had left in the world was still going to be in New Orleans. It would be a hard decision, but I think that I would move more inland. Still close, but not in the hazard zone.

Originally, I think, that area was one giant swamp. Natural buffers can be good things and perhaps we as a species shouldn't be so keen on transforming whatever land we want to. I was just watching on the news yesterday when a manmade Levy had broken. Truly sad.