Since November 2009, Levees.org has awarded a Seal of Approval (SOA) to 63 journalists who correctly described the flooding of New Orleans during Katrina as due to levee failure, not simply Mother Nature.

Saying Katrina is solely responsible for the 2005 Flood is like saying an iceberg is solely responsible for the Titanic Disaster. Now, at the 100th anniversary, the undisputed facts are the Titanic ignored seven heavy ice warnings, was going too fast and, of course, had too few lifeboats. An iceberg exposed those human mistakes.

But this week, Levees.org rolled out a new award to journalists who resist blaming the 2005 New Orleans flood on a storm, AND who properly attribute the levee system’s failure to the entity responsible for its performance – the federal government (Army Corps).

That award goes to Chris Waddington with the New Orleans Times Picayune for this opening line of a recent article.

“John Biguenet, the nationally acclaimed New Orleans playwright, won’t let himself forget what happened to his hometown when federal levees failed in August 2005…”

In addition to the Times Picayune and the Associated Press, Levees.org has given the SOA to the following news sources: New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercy News, St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald, Bloomberg Business Week, The Lens, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Philadelphia Inquirer, Forbes, Sacramento Bee, The Advocate (BR), City Business, and WWLTV.

Click here for the article.