Alright I have to go look at mapquest.

Where would the water come from that would be pushed into a lake? Remember a lake just has its own water, there is no other water that would get in there.

If I understand the gist of what you're saying, Lake Ponchatrain is to the N of the city and you believe simply the force of the wind would drive the water from the lake S into the city, over the dikes?

Edit - OK, NO is sandwiched between the river on the S and the lake on the N, and looking at the map you can see that a strong hurricane passing to the west of the city would undoubtably cause more damage from rising water, because of the water being pushed up from the onshore winds, than a hurricane passing to the east of the city, which by contrast only pulls the water away. The only risk with the latter would be wind-driven waves cresting over the levees from the lake, and I seriously doubt that the levees would be compromised by such a scenario.

Besides, the predicted landfall is so far to the east that it is clear that the NO area would not get any of the high winds associated with the small area around the eye, if landfall would follow the forecast path.

I still hold by my original conclusion that for NO to go into a panic over this predicted path is really doing a disservice to the people in MS who really would need to evacuate and would need those freeways and hotels, etc, that would be taken by those needlessly evacuating the NO area.