Our strategy to rebuild New Orleans for the threats it will face in 50 years' time

Jeff Hebert was moved to return home to New Orleans by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. In the decade since, he has been at the heart of efforts to rebuild a stronger city, culminating in today's launch of a future masterplan

I'm from the New Orleans area, but in 2005 was living in New York doing neighbourhood redevelopment work. I watched Katrina unfold on television, and after seeing those shocking images, I felt passionately that I needed to come home and use my training to help rebuild the city.

I didn't get to New Orleans until about a month later. My brother picked me up and we drove around the city - we saw awful devastation. His house on Jena Street in Uptown, near the Baptist hospital, was flooded. The entire first floor was ruined; mould had begun to eat the walls. The wooden floors were buckled and the smell was putrid. There was debris all over the streets, and there had been many fires in that neighbourhood.