A swirl of self-contradiction in New Orleans.

Deroy Murdock wrote in Townhall Nearly three months since Hurricane Katrina battered this glorious city, it has become the capitol of the Catch-22. The multiplicity of chicken-and-egg scenarios here could feed every FEMA employee in town.

Why is FEMA still there. The mayor and the governor did such a bad job, why not leave them to dig themselves out.

Business owners who wish to re-open or expand to pre-Katrina levels face a daunting labor shortage. New Orleanians, finding jobs scarce, remain in exile. Shorthanded employers are reluctant to resume operations, so they stay shut, compounding joblessness. Workers desperately need housing.

A smart employer would buy some trailers and set them up somewhere, and provide a bus to take employees from the temporary housing to his business and back home to the trailers. Don't wait for the government to do something; do it so you can open your business.

Katrina harmed some 74 percent of local residences, 50,000 of which may be bulldozed, the Wall Street Journal reports. This ranges from modest wind damage, to mold-encrusted walls in structurally adequate homes, to the Lower Ninth Ward’s jaw-dropping obliteration. Countless houses there floated off their foundations before settling atop cars or street corners, sometimes blocks away. Restoring and creating residences, in turn, would be easier if carpenters and roofers themselves had accommodations.

The ninth-ward, which is 7 to 15 feet below sea level, should be bulldozed and once new levees have been built to protect the land above sea level, the old levees should be taken down and allow a new lake to form. Alternatively they could be converted into a huge park.

Tourism might fare better if hotels, restaurants, and nightspots were more abundant. They, of course, might open more quickly if visitors proliferated — which would be likelier if lodging were plentiful.

NO lodging should be built on any land that is below sea level.

Civic boosters here need to spread good news to attract conventioneers and venture capitalists, but emphasize bad news to keep aid coming. Fortunately (or not) preaching this contrary gospel is a snap.

I think they have had too much aid already. Let the venture capitalists evaluate what should be fixed and what should be built, totally from a business basis.

Though many places are closed, it is easy to enjoy the Big Easy. Spectacular music again streams out of Donna’s, Maison Bourbon, the Maple Leaf, and other venues. Meuxbar’s tilapia in parchment is splendid, as are Yo Mama’s cheddar burgers, and Herbsaint’s Black Angus meatloaf. Bourbon Street’s saloons remain temples of modesty and self-restraint. One block south, Royal Street’s antiques and objets d’ art glisten while the Carousel Bar lazily revolves within the Hotel Monteleone. Most local landmarks are surprisingly intact, and 716 of the 720 live oaks along stately St. Charles Avenue are as avuncular as ever.

Because they are built on land that is above sea level.

Such encouraging words, however, trivialize the vast needs that prevail here. Many returnees are in dire straits, as are tens of thousands of exiles. These Americans still require assistance. Their plight should keep the armies of compassion mobilized and, for better or worse, public relief flowing.

They need new houses, but Bush had the right idea. Give them government land (in the area, but above sea level) if they can come up with a mortgage to pay to build a house on it,

This frustrating circularity applies to flood control. Reinforcing the 300 miles of earthen levees and concrete floodwalls that shield New Orleans from surrounding waters is central to its recovery. “People aren’t willing to re-invest in New Orleans and in this area unless they know that their investments are protected by the levees,” says Steve Pettus, managing partner of Canal Street’s acclaimed Palace Café. He envisions a late-December reopening after he has repaired roof damage and replaced some $250,000 worth of what has become high-end Sonoma County and Loire Valley vinegar. “The United States has benefited from New Orleans…When it costs money to rebuild these levees, it’s not just an investment in New Orleans; it’s an investment in America.”

It depends on what the levees are going to protect. It is stupid to build them to Cat 5 level protecting land 7 to 15 feet below sea level, when if a Cat 5 storm went over New Orleans it would rain would fill the bowl, even if the levees hold. Rather only build on land that is above sea level, and just protect that land from the storm surge, and make sure you have drainage area that rain falling on the above sea level land can drain to.

..... Enhancing barriers from Category 3- to Category 5-level would allow maximum cyclonic prophylaxis. Naturally, it’s not that simple. A three-way tug of war links the competing needs to protect communities up and down the Mississippi River from spring floods by building levees, keeping the Big Muddy moving to facilitate shipping, and diverting it to allow its silt to replenish the Atchafalaya Basin and marshlands above and below New Orleans. Letting the river take its natural course each spring would flood homes and businesses in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes but rebuild the area’s fragile coastal defenses, though this could hinder economically vital port operations. Hemming the Mississippi between levees, however, speeds St. Bernard’s and Plaquemines’s disappearance and hastens the day when New Orleans finds itself below sea level with Gulf waves crashing regularly against its ever-steeper ramparts.

Don't mess with Mother Nature. Turn most of the land into farm land. When it floods the silt from the Mississippi will make it even that much better farmland.