Dr. Joyce Levine will serve as the director for the chapter in Florida which will be headquartered Fort Lauderdale.

“My initial contact with Levees.Org involved Louisiana’s urgent needs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” says Levine, who teaches urban and regional planning at Florida Atlantic University. “However, my research focuses on disaster management and hazard mitigation, so it did not take me long to realize that we need a group like Levees.Org here in Florida, too. For example, the Corps is currently engaged in re-engineering the Everglades more to develop additional water supplies than to restore the water regime and ecosystem.

“In addition, we have our own critical levee concern. Just months ago, an independent engineering study led by the University of California at Berkeley concluded that the Hoover Dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee has a one-in-six chance of failure in the next big (Category 3+) hurricane. The Corps’s response was sadly predictable: ‘Yes, the dike needs some repairs, but the study is needlessly alarmist, ‘ said the Corps. Given that a failure would sweep away several communities, pour enough phosphorus into the Everglades ecosystem to kill it for all eternity, and contaminate the aquifer from which most of South Florida draws its drinking water, a little alarmism might not be such a bad thing. And Levees.Org can play a big role in sounding that alarm.”