ST. LOUIS - A geologist from the stable heart of North America caused a stir in the Big Easy when he urged on national television that New Orleans be abandoned.

Timothy Kusky of St. Louis University has received hundreds of angry e-mails.

"They're saying, 'Come down here and we'll kick your butt,' or 'You better watch where you walk.' A lot of vulgarity," Kusky told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Kusky predicted that in 90 years New Orleans will be 15 to 18 feet below sea level with enormous levees protecting it from the Gulf of Mexico. He described the future city as a "fish bowl."

Critics point out that Kusky, although he has written a book on geological disasters, is not a coastal geologist. Charles Groat, a former U.S. Geological Survey director quoted by Kusky on "60 Minutes" disagreed with his conclusions in a Times-Picayune article headlined "Not So Fast, '60 Minutes.'"

"No, no, no," Groat said. "You've got a lot of things between the city of New Orleans and the edge of the sea, and they're not going away."

On the other hand, some geologists told "60 Minutes" that Kusky was, if anything, conservative in his dire prediction