Can't say I agree with you that they shouldn't drain the city. It was actually the lake, not the river, which broke its levee. The wetlands are on the other side of the city from the lake.

The wetlands helped buffer the city from the storm, and things were fine until part of the earthworks broke which holds the lake in.

All rivers (and bays, for that matter) want to move. But a moving shoreline doesn't make for a practical port.

Knowing a little bit about you, I'll guess that you would rather let the earth decide where it wants its waterways. A major part of me agrees, and isn't too heartbroken about the concept of this meaning we would have no major cities, and civilization as we know it would not exist.

But another part of me is kind of stuck in civilization as we know it...