Sandy Rosenthal, founder of Levees.org
Other panelists include Oliver Houck, professor of law at Tulane and Craig Colten, professor of Anthropology at LSU. The panel discussion will focus on the settlement, rebuilding and future foot print of the City.
PANEL: Know What it Means to be New Orleans: A Geographical, Historical, and Realistic Examination of the Big Easy
WHEN: Friday, March 5 from 3-4:30
WHERE: Audubon Room, Danna Center, main campus of Loyola University, 7214 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118
My complaint with the Corp of Engineers is a little different that most. In the New Kingspoint section of Slidell,LA, the levees worked too well. The main complaint was that the levees were installed completely around our section with no way to let the water out. They needed to be at least 2 foot higher.
We had 4 1/2 feet of water in our homes for over 4 days. In the rest of Slidell, the water receded in twenty minutes. I spent the night on the second flood of a neighbors home.
If our water had receded in twenty minutes, I could have salvaged most of my furnature, paintings and other valuables.
I lost about $302,000.00 in antiques, paintings and electronic equipment. Mostly inherited. IRS will only let me deduct $3000.00 each year as a loss. At 82 now, I’ll never live long enough to recoup even a small part of my Corps of Engineers losses. Boy, I sure glad that they were here to help.
FEMA was nice enough to agree to an SBA loan. Unfortunately, it took a year to process the loan. To get my home repaired, I had to liquidate $60,000.00 of my IRA’s to get the repairs started. Good old Uncle Sam then made me pay taxes on this money. I was 77 at the time so there goes a good part of my retirement.
The government was throwing money around like confetti, but, none to people with good credit ratings. For my part and my Kingspoint neighbors, I feel that the Corps of Engineers owes us a lot.
Oh! And by the way, I was told that several of my neighbors tried to breach the levee to let the water out and were arrested. Four and a half days later, the Corps of Engineers decided to do the same thing. Seems less than brilliant to need 4 1/2 days to decide to pull the plug in the bath tub.