Ok. This idea may not be so practical, I don't know the details and I am speaking from intuition. So I had to ask ChatGPT of the possibilities.

These thoughts were originally triggered by Mr Musk's relay on the NYC flooding.

I was thinking, if to dig tunnels and direct the water into into single place,
where it will be separated into many levels (by height) and released on to an surface of heated metal, in order to instantly vaporize. The amount of water dropped at a time will
be controlled, as aiming instant vaporization vs large volume of water through boiling point (which will take much longer).

So spreading out the surface area of the heated metal and volume of water in small droplets
but spread out. And in height, (layers of heated metal).

And the same thought turned into:

Turning seawater into drinkable water. Distillation process has since long existed. And now changed into more sophisticated methods like reverse osmosis. But. Distillation may have higher advantages these days as energy consumption is better than sophistication of setup and filtration. If it eliminates extra steps and keep it simple by collecting already filtered to an extent, water vapor.

So the design, as mentioned maximizes use of 'height' rather than spreading out via surface area, by layers of heated metal. And assist of gravity by turnneling in slopes, controlled release of water onto the heated metal....

But it could be wishful thinking, no idea how much water needs to be vaporized at what rate to be able to stop the flooding, and seawater distillation also needs to clean up the brine, impurities and filtered again. The energy required to do this would be intensive. But... If solar panels.... maybe as a tower? Mr Musk would you know the answer. haha

anyway, just a thought.