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What could happen to New Orleans if areas to the north of it experienced heavy precipitation?

Why would a city, such as New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, be especially concerned with precipitation in other parts of the country? What could happen to New Orleans if areas to the north of it experienced heavy precipitation?

Public Comments

1. Seeing as though the city is at the mouth of the river, then any excess precipitation could cause an overflow in proportion to the amount of rain. Too much could cause major problems.
2. Assuming you are asking if heavy rains or other runoff would raise the level of the Mississippi River, that happens every year during Spring. It's why the river is lined with high levees - to prevent the overflowing river from flooding the areas around it. The "Great Flood of 1927" was the event that caused the construction of the modern levee system, though levees were built along the river since Europeans settled in Louisiana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnet_Carre_Spillway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morganza_Spillway Note that the levees protecting New Orleans in 1927 were not breached by the high waters. Also note that the city is not at the mouth of the Mississippi. New Orleans is 90 miles from the mouth of the river.
3. If the rain levels were at a historic high (like, really really high), I would think that most of the New Orleans area and most of coastal southern Louisiana would be flooded, and not just a three-foot flood that is annoying, I mean the kind of flood that would re-arrange the coastal outline of the Gulf Coast. This would not just affect Louisiana, though. Coastal Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida would feel the flood, too. If it was a big enough flood, the coastal Floridian Panhandle would be swallowed up, under the rising Gulf of Mexico, for a short time.