As reported by the Associated Press, Congress is requiring Louisiana to pay $1.8 billion to shore up levee protection in metro New Orleans and must pay it in just three years. This Congressional requirement is unfathomable since it was the federal government’s water structures that nearly destroyed New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard parish in August 2005.

First, the federal US Army Corps of Engineers carved up the Gulf wetlands with 10,000 miles of canals for shipping and oil providing 30% of the nation’s oil and gas production but eroding wetlands making Louisiana more vulnerable to flooding.

Second, a Corps-built navigation channel, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet contributed hugely to wetland loss, intensified storm surge and helped funnel water into New Orleans.

Third, as pointed out by John Barry author of Rising Tide, federally built dams built to provide electricity, irrigation and flood protection in the Upper Midwest and High Plains have trapped sediment causing Louisiana to lose land.

And finally, the Corps of Engineers built shoddy levees in the heart of New Orleans which breached 4 feet below design specs.

The workmanship of the federal US Army Corps of Engineers has killed more than 1,600 people, flooded 85 percent of New Orleans and 100% of St. Bernard.

Haven’t the citizens of Louisiana paid enough?

If you haven’t yet, please click here to demand the 8/29 Investigation Act, a third party analysis of why metro New Orleans was so vulnerable to flooding during Katrina.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for John Barry’s oped in the LA Times.

Journalist Georgianne Nienaber recently wrote on the coordinated effort immediately after the Midwest flooding by spokespersons with the US Army Corps of Engineers to deflect responsibility for flooding away from the Corps. Just like in New Orleans after Katrina.

I will add to the fray and highlight some falsehoods coming from Eric Halpin, Special Assistant for Dam and Levee Safety for the Corps of Engineers.

Halpin tried to rewrite New Orleans’ history this week in an interview with Popular Mechanics. PM asked Halpin this question, “So the midwest flooding isn’t about levee failure, like in New Orleans?” and Halpin responded with “…In New Orleans, we had 50 breaches. Forty-six were due to overtopping. In the upper Midwest, there are up to 35 overtoppings. All of the breaches we know about there are due to overtopping….In New Orleans, it took about a year and a half, and a million dollars, to find that 4 out of the 50 were failures. (italics mine)

Falsehood A - “4 out of the 50 were failures.”
The other 46 levee breaches happened because the Corps of Engineers built the levees two feet too low, didn’t armor them and in many places filled them with erodable sand instead of good thick Louisiana clay. So water quickly eroded them during several hours of overtopping. To say they were not failures is obscene. Levee building 101 says plan for water overtopping when building a levee next to water.

Falsehood B - “it took a million dollars”
The federal government paid (with taxpayers money) the US Army Corps of Engineers over $30 million to do the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET). The cost of the peer review alone cost was 1.1 million dollars! The IPET remains controversial because it was managed by the same organization responsible for its performance - the Corps.

Want to do something? Click here to demand the 8/29 Investigation Act to find out why New Orleans was so vulnerable to flooding on August 29, 2005. The result will be valuable to all of America.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for the Popular Mechanics article.

Two more entities have joined our growing list of supporters calling for the 8/29 Investigation Senate Bill 2826 filed by Senator Mary Landrieu D-LA.

Last week, I received word that the Sierra Club Delta Chapter “strongly supports Levees.org’s campaign to get Congress to appoint an 8/29 commission. Two days later, I received word that the Southeast Flood Protection Authority East had unanimously passed a resolution calling for the 8/29 Commission and also calling for looking at how public works all along the Mississippi River contribute to southeast Louisiana’s vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding.

The resolution was proposed by authority secretary John Barry, the author of “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.”

Barry added in an interview with the Associated Press that an investigation beginning three years after the hurricane would have the benefit of fresh looks at the evidence collected for similar studies in the immediate aftermath of the flooding.

Stories about the levee authority’s support have also been featured on WWL Eyewitness News Channel 4, the Times Picayune and The Advocate.

The Board of Levees.Org is proud and pleased to add these two organizations to our list of supporters!

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

If you haven’t yet, click here to write your members of Congress and demand the 8/29 Investigation Act!

In many cases, the Midwest flooding was a failure of the US Army Corps of Engineers to properly predict and control flooding. That explains why PR masters from the Corps of Engineers are very busy this week doing apparently coordinated interviews with major news sources.

Journalist Georgianne Nienaber covers this topic with some wry humor in her piece today in OpEdNews.

All of the messengers from the Corps are saying the same thing, that the Mississippi River Basin levees were a loose amalgam of federal and non-federal levees not sufficiently monitored or maintained.

Ron Fournier, Eric Halpin and Gerry Galloway, all Corps or former Corps employees are deflecting responsibility away from civil engineers with the Corps of Engineers and toward local politicians and the residents who elected them.

This exact thing happened after Katrina’s storm surge toppled levees in New Orleans. Even though the responsibility for the flood protection’s performance belonged exclusively to the Corps, upper level Corps officials were blaming us, the locals, even as we were running for our lives.

Click here and demand the 8/29 Investigation, a truly independent analysis of why metro New Orleans - like the Midwest - was so vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder Levees.org
www.levees.org

AccuWeather has posted their three favorite photos of the Midwest Flooding. The Number One photo is a submerged farm in LaGrange, Missouri, a whopping 314 feet above sea level. So much for the theory that New Orleans was doomed because parts of the city were below sea level.

What happened to the Midwest is the same thing that happened to New Orleans. It was a failure of US Army Corps of Engineers, the largest civil engineering entity in the world to properly predict flooding and to properly build structures to alleviate it.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder of Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Want to do something? Click here and demand the 8/29 Investigation, a truly independent analysis of why metro New Orleans - like the Midwest - was so vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.

The flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa over 700 feet above sea level, has been accurately compared to the flooding in New Orleans when levees breached during Katrina.

Also mirroring New Orleans is a Wisconsin town 1100 feet above sea level when an embankment of Lake Delton breached last week and emptied the lake into the nearby Wisconsin River. Add this to the January midnight levee breach in Fernley, Nevada, 4200 feet above sea level and a scenario is emerging that suggests levee failure and flooding is not just a New Orleans problem.

Founded after Katrina, Levees.Org has campaigned to educate the nation that what happened in New Orleans is a case of federally directed civil engineering failures, not a simple case of a natural disaster. We contend that the flooding during the August 2005 storm could have been avoided had levees been 2 feet higher and built to withstand a few hours of water overtopping them.

Responsibility for the design and construction of levees in New Orleans like most important levees in America belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers. Levees.Org claims that what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere, but this problem is not being addressed.

There are more people in the state of California in danger of catastrophic levee failure than in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Florida combined.

So we have been clamouring for the 8/29 Investigation. Senate Bill 2826 filed by Senator Mary Landrieu D-LA is needed because the organization responsible for the levees, the US Army Corps of Engineers sponsored the original investigation as to why the levees failed, a conflict of interest.

Click here to write your members of Congress and demand the 8/29 Investigation.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Levees.Org recently launched another very successful YouTube campaign. In the first 24 hours, our new video won 5 honors and went straight to the Home Page of YouTube where it gets very high visibility.

Click here to keep our video at the TOP of the YouTube charts!

Want to do more? Register at YouTube. That way you can rate, comment on and “favorite” the video. That will keep it on the homepage of YouTube where it may be viewed by millions!

Click here to register with YouTube.

Thank you!
Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Metro New Orleans came together today for a Day of Action, united in a single message. We said “No” to flood protection we cannot trust, and “Yes” to the 8/29 Investigation.

Citizens and volunteers gathered at Hot Spots, three busy intersections in each of the three “polders” or basins that flooded due to the failure of the federally built levees designed and built by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Citizens waved signs, handed out leaflets, and called for the 8/29 Investigation, a truly independent and complete investigation of the flood protection failures on August 29, 2005.

The board of Levees.Org is pleased with the turn-out at all three locations. The Hot Spots were in eastern New Orleans, Lakeview New Orleans and Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish.

If you haven’t yet, please click here and demand the 8/29 Investigation!

Thank you,
Sandy Rosenthal
Founder of Levees.Org
www.levees.org

I recently spent 3 hours in New Orleans lower ninth ward “lovebug swatting” while camera crews filmed Miss Juliette Allen for our Public Service Announcement (PSA) released today to an anticipating audience at a press conference. They were not disappointed by the 30-second video and also a second PSA featuring a toddler in nearby St. Bernard Parish.

Members of southeast Louisiana know that lovebugs swarm this time of year. Though harmless, they messed up some footage that we had to re-shoot. But Miss Allen was so patient and gave a splendid performance despite the physical and emotional hardship she endured.

Click here to view our two newest PSAs. Then, if you haven’t already, please demand the 8/29 Investigation Act.

Thank you,
Sandy Rosenthal
www.levees.org

Some experts recently clarified what it means for New Orleanians to be protected from a 100 year storm. At the annual Tulane Engineering Forum, Rick Anderson, chief actuary for California-based Risk Management Solutions, said 100-year storm protection does not translate into a “100-year guarantee.’’ He adds that 100-year protection means there is a 39.4 percent probability of failure during a 50-year span.

I am not a math genius, but even I can figure out that Congress has authorized the Corps to rebuild levees, which for my 17 year old son have a 40% probability of failing during his lifetime.

Forty percent is very very high! Clearly we need a better level of protection. We should demand Senate Bill 2826 which will determine that our flood protection is simply not robust enough.

Click here to Demand the 8/29 Investigation

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder Levees.Org

Click here for the expert’s statements on 100 year protection.