Putting it in perspective

It's difficult to get a mental grasp on the scope of the Katrina disaster, and so I looked up some comparably sized US metropolitan districts. Think about any one of these cities suddenly ceasing to exist:

• 29 San Antonio, TX MSA 1,592,383
• 30 Norfolk--Virginia Beach--Newport News, VA--NC MSA 1,569,541
• 31 Las Vegas, NV--AZ MSA 1,563,282
• 32 Columbus, OH MSA 1,540,157
• 33 Charlotte--Gastonia--Rock Hill, NC--SC MSA 1,499,293
• 34 New Orleans, LA MSA 1,337,726
• 35 Salt Lake City--Ogden, UT MSA 1,333,914
• 36 Greensboro--Winston-Salem--High Point, NC MSA 1,251,509
• 37 Austin--San Marcos, TX MSA 1,249,763
• 38 Nashville, TN MSA 1,231,311
• 39 Providence--Fall River--Warwick, RI--MA MSA 1,188,613
• 40 Raleigh--Durham--Chapel Hill, NC MSA 1,187,941
• 41 Hartford, CT MSA 1,183,110
• 42 Buffalo--Niagara Falls, NY MSA 1,170,111
• 43 Memphis, TN--AR--MS MSA 1,135,614
• 44 West Palm Beach--Boca Raton, FL MSA 1,131,184
• 45 Jacksonville, FL MSA 1,100,491

Or imagine one of these cities of comparable size in other parts of the world suddenly being wiped out:

• 293 Copenhagen Denmark 1,400,000
• 299 Lille France 1,375,000 incl. Kortrijk (Belgium)
• 304 Volgograd Russia 1,375,000
• 305 Liverpool Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1,350,000
• 311 Düsseldorf Germany 1,325,000
• 314 New Orleans USA 1,325,000
• 315 Phnom Penh Cambodia 1,325,000
• 318 San José Costa Rica 1,325,000
• 329 Prague Czech Republic 1,275,000
• 331 Sheffield Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1,275,000
• 333 Auckland New Zealand 1,250,000