The US Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged in a just released 6600 page report that the levees it controls in New Orleans were an incomplete and inconsistent patchwork of protection containing flaws in design and construction.The report laid out in lengthy engineering language what the people of New Orleans and South Louisiana knew all along with their common sense. That the federally built levees broke because they weren’t designed and built right by the Corps of Engineers.

The list of errors is long. The Corps acknowledged using a Standard Project Hurricane that was inadequate for today’s storms, using an inappropriately low safety margin not suitable for one million people and their property, selected projects based on revenue generated not protection of human lives and their property, ignored critical subsidence data and built I-walls that cannot be raised, and did not plan for overtopping of levees. On top of all this, the engineering of what they built was fatally flawed.

These are the truths, yet Congress is slow to respond and negative in their attitude toward helping the people of New Orleans and South Louisiana. Before the Memorial Weekend, and nine whole months after Katrina, Congress broke for holiday still without agreeing on funding for housing and levees.

We do not understand why we find ourselves having to beg for help when the primary cause of all this death and devastation was the Corps of Engineers’ incomplete and inadequate flood protection and Congress’ on again, off again funding. If the levees had been built right and properly funded, Katrina would have been little more than a wind event with some inconvenient flooding.

Every American should be outraged.

I hope that, with the admissions of the Corps and with the expert opinion revealed in the U.C. Berkeley report that the Nation and Congress will come to a better understanding of the issues concerning Great Flood of August 29, 2005. Hopefully, finally, we can all agree on what caused the Flooding and truly embark on the process of rebuilding New Orleans and southern Louisiana and making its citizens whole.

Levees.Org challenges the citizens of South Louisiana from now until Flag Day June 14 to drape their flooded home with a flag to send a message to the nation that we’re Americans, too.

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Sandy Rosenthal
Levees.org Founder