Currently up as the lead post on Instant History, the Weblog that catalogs important past Time and Newsweek covers and their accompanying stories, is this prescient excerpt from an article on New Orleans whose subhead reads, "If it doesn't act fast, the city could become the next Atlantis". That was five years ago. And needless to say, the city didn't act--fast, or otherwise.

Here's more:

"If a flood of biblical proportions were to lay waste to New Orleans, Joe Suhayda has a good idea how it could happen. A Category 5 hurricane would come barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, to overflow, pouring down millions of gallons of water into the city. Then things would really get ugly. Evacuation routes would be blocked. Buildings would collapse. Chemicals and hazardous waste would dissolve, turning the floodwaters into a lethal soup. In the end, what was left of the city might not be worth saving. 'There's concern it would essentially destroy New Orleans,' says Suhayda."