The US Army Corps of Engineers and the engineering community are ramping up their campaigns to shift blame for the metro New Orleans flooding away from themselves and onto the citizens/victims.
Actual blame for the catastrophic flooding during Katrina lies at the feet of the Corps of Engineers because the agency, by federal law, is solely responsible for the design and construction of the levees.
But ever since the August 29, 2005 flood, the Corps of Engineers and its consultancy communities have been more concerned with protecting their own reputations than with finding out the truth.
After the spectacular public failure of the Corps of Engineers’ system in New Orleans, the Corps has consistently blamed the citizens of Louisiana for the catastrophic flooding using a combination of spin and half-truths.
And upcoming lawsuits in the New Orleans area have further energized the Corps of Engineers and the engineering community.
We invite you to join a new Team of people to respond to this PR campaign that has already begun.
If you join this important new Team, you will have a critical role in preserving and protecting New Orleans.
Want to know more? Click here and say “I want to know more.”
And if you live and work away from metro New Orleans, this is a truly powerful way you can help your family and friends in the City and the land you love.
Sincerely,
Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.org
www.levees.org
There you go again, Sandy, with another amateurish posting. Let’s examine your argument:
1. Only a handful of civil engineers have stepped forward to castigate the US Army Corps of Engineers – That must really get your goat since you are so convinced that the Corps shoulders all responsibility for the damages suffered during Katrina.
2. In the Levees.org parallel universe, the solution to this “problem” is quite obvious – The evil Corps, which is so inept at engineering, is brilliantly successful at public relations campaigns and punishing critics. Yes, that must be it because otherwise any self-respecting engineer would jump at the opportunity to “publicly rebuke and berate the Corps of Engineers for its well documented gross negligence.”
Are you aware that the engineering profession has a code of ethics that is relevant in this situation? Here’s a link so you can educate yourself: http://www.asce.org/pdf/ethics_manual.pdf
Specifically, refer to fundamental canon 3. “Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.” The guidelines to practise for this canon state, in part:
a. Engineers should endeavor to extend the public knowledge of engineering and sustainable development, and shall not participate in the dissemination of untrue, unfair, or exaggerated statements regarding engineering.
b. Engineers shall be objective and truthful in professional reports, statements, or testimony. They shall include all relevant and pertinent information in such reports, statements, or testimony.
c. Engineers, when serving as expert witnesses, shall express an engineering opinion only when it is founded upon adequate knowledge of the facts, upon a background of technical competence, and upon honest conviction.
d. Engineers shall issue no statements, criticisms, or arguments on engineering matters that are inspired or paid for by interested parties, unless they indicate on whose behalf the statements are made.
In simple terms, a professional engineer is duty bound to be judicious in his/her statements of opinion. They do not have the open license of the lay person such as yourself to issue outrageous, unfounded statements. Many of your engineer heros have, in fact, violated this canon repeatedly and should be held accountable. Some of them are not even engineers – Van Heerden is a geologist with no professional engineering credentials. In fact, the LSU engineering department took him to task for violating the more general canon in academia of staying within your area of expertise and knowledge.
The fact that most engineers are reluctant to join your Corps-bashing party is actually a tribute to their professional integrity.
Sandy, was it really necessary that you run off crying to WWL-TV about how the Corp was attacking you? You use your freedom of speech to bash the Corp but when someone argues against your opinion, you run off to the media like a little kid whose feelings just got hurt. C’mon Sandy, don’t waste WWL’s time anymore with such nonsense. You are soooooo obsessed with pointing the finger of blame at the Corp for everything that you will use anything you can to achieve your objective.
It is your own fault Sandy for allowing comments to be posted on your blog. I guess now you are going to whois my IP. I’m pretty sure whenever you do, you will find it is outside the Corp’s IP range.
The Corp of Engineer’s response to their failures is outrageous. When it comes to the failure of Federal government to build levees that actually protect communities the Corp of Engineers is obviously the organization that failed. This video tells the true story. It is arrogant and despicable of the Corp to threaten to withhold contracts to intimidate the public, we who they are supposed to work for, into backing down on this issue. They have NO integrity and NO respect for the citizens of this country. Maybe this is just another symtom of the total failure of the government to represent its citizens.
Dear KC,
I spent over an hour in WWL TV’s studio talking about this issue, and of course only a sentence or two made it past the cutting room.
These comments don’t scare or thwart me, in fact I welcome them. I brought this to WWL because I had irrefutable documentation that tax payer computers are being used to send crafted messages to the American people, via my blogs.
And we at Levees.org don’t believe the message of these emails has come from the New Orleans District, good folks who live here with us behind these levees. We believe they were created up the chain of command.
During Katrina, the USACE had a massive failure, the worst civil engineering failure in the history of America, and the agency is afraid of losing its power. We think these messages are crafted at a higher level in an attempt to re-write history and mislead the American public.