John Barry, Sandy Rosenthal and Harry Shearer photographed on Feb 10, 2010. Photo/Jill Craft
Ever since the metro New Orleans levees broke, we have held the most respect toward the Wall Street Journal among other news sources.
Only three times has our letter-writing team (endorsed by Harry Shearer) needed to contact the WSJ for inaccurate reporting on the cause of the Federal Flood in New Orleans in August 2005. Three times in nearly six (6) years is very low.
Our respect continues in its featuring of an essay by John Barry (author of Rising Tide) this past Saturday entitled, “Battling Nature on the River.”
We are very pleased to find a passage that, to our knowledge, had not been reported before.
In his piece about the current horrendous Mississippi flooding, Mr. Barry referenced canals which during Katrina, breached and badly flooded the heart of New Orleans.
All the old levees held; the newest ones, poorly designed structures that were supposed to contain that storm and were completed just six years before the storm, were the ones that collapsed.
This passage refers to the London Avenue and the 17th Street canals and addresses the myth that the canal walls broke due to poor maintenance, a responsibility that lies with the local levee boards. Also, it strikes the myth that Katrina “overwhelmed” the flood protection. In fact, the levees and associated floodwalls were egregiously mis-designed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
This month, Levees.org will hold an Unveiling Ceremony of a Historic Plaque at ground zero at one of those canal’s breach sites – the London Avenue Canal.
Soon, we will be commemorating a historic event that people all over the world saw on CNN.
UPDATE: The 120-pound plaque has just arrived via freight!
Click here for Wall Street Journal opinion piece by John Barry.
http://on.wsj.com/jzTm4l
I’m glad to see they are starting to get things right! And true enough the new Corps is nothing remotely like the Corps of our fathers.
But, there is something going on I don’t yet grasp. A story to be uncovered. Something fishy is is in the works…
Currently I am looking out across a US Corps of Engineers flood control reservoir at a Corp’s flood control dam in central Ohio. It’s been raining heavily for weeks. Usually in a situation like this (as it did a few months ago) this dam and those around are closed and the lakes rise. Creeks overflow and fields flood…as the system is designed to alleviate major flooding downriver.
Oddly enough NONE of the local dams are shut, and in fact this reservoir has dropped a number of feet over the last two weeks! That means there is actually more water heading downstream than the rain is delivering!
So why is the Corps of Engineers blowing up a levee at the corner of the Ohio & Mississippi rivers while not utilizing the flood control system upstream?
I plan to inquire at the local USACOE office tomorrow and will forward any reply.
Good luck, you’re doing a great job!
@Leko: Thanks for bringing this to the attention of readers and Levees.org. I expect your’s will not be the only inquiry into this seemingly oversight. Especially with the cascade on water in the Mississippi necessitating the opening of spillways in Louisiana.