The number of people and population density factored in hugely, you've got 8 million plus people in New York City alone. Louisiana has four-and-a-half million people statewide, maybe a million in the exposed area. So, far fewer people were exposed to damage here.

Craig Colten

There are very few basements in Louisiana, very few people live below, or even have a part of their house below the land surface, architecture and the local high water table -- which makes people not want to build basements and the fact that simply most houses are elevated, even with the same kind of rapid flooding that happened in New York Citys, if that had occurred in Louisiana, you wouldn't have seen the fatalities.