Thousands of people could live at the flood-prone Navy Yard. Will they be safe?

An updated master plan released late last month for the former military site offers developers a range of tools to beat back flood risk — from digging a canal to elevating buildings.

“In a place like Philadelphia … we are subject to different kinds of flood risk,” said Franco Montalto, a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Drexel University. “So what do we do? Do we retreat from these flood-prone [areas]? Or do we try to retrofit and redesign these flood-prone areas?”