We cannot design ourselves out of Katrina. No matter how well intentioned we architects may be, no matter how many plans and volunteer hours we commit, the scale and complexity of this disaster exceeds the grasp of design alone, despite the fact that many of us are trying hard.

Currently, the front line rests with government action. Think about the immense implications of the storm, the largest natural disaster ever to strike the United States. The Red Cross now estimates that over 275,000 homes were destroyed, as many as 200,000 in Louisiana alone. The storm cut a swath across three states, affecting each differently. In Mississippi, the entire coastline lies wounded, with whole communities ground into powder. Greater New Orleans stews in political, economic, and social gumbo, its people forming a diaspora scattered throughout the 50 states. Nothing alters the fact that FEMA maps due out in April will demonstrate that scores of houses and plots of land remain in harm’s way. Until the U.S. Corps of Engineers stabilizes the levee systems that have historically ringed the city, vast tracts are subject to further flooding, and hurricane season is galloping toward us again.