People listen when one of the President’s men speaks.

So it got noticed last week when Donald Powell, recovery czar for the Gulf Coast said

“…the federal government is responsible for this hurricane damage (to New Orleans) because of the failure of the levee system…”

Powell said this before the Senate Disaster Recovery Subcommittee.

It took almost exactly one year, but it finally happened. The White House acknowledged that it was the failure of the federal government’s levee system that caused the flood damage in metro New Orleans. This comes one year after Lt. Gen Carl Strock, commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers accepted responsibility for the August 29, 2005 catastrophic failure of the levee system that protects metro New Orleans.

And rather than retract the statement, Mr. Powell even softened his stance regarding bailing out Louisiana’s Road Home program designed to help homeowners rebuild after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Powell’s spokesperson said, he

“is not opposed to additional funding — if the state can make a clear case for more funds.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that the Louisiana Road Home’s problem of having a shortfall of money has “reinforced the fears of many in New Orleans that they are being abandoned by the federal government, even as it acknowledges that its levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina.”

It took almost a year, but Donald Powell, one of the President’s men, and the New York Times are saying it like it is; that New Orleans was destroyed not by a hurricane but rather by federal flood protection that should have held and didn’t.

Please go to www.levees.org and join us. Don’t we all deserve levees that work?

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org