In the weeks after the federally designed and built hurricane protection broke to bits in metro New Orleans, public officials and experts immediately assumed the worst and publicly scolded the vast majority of the city’s residents for not having flood insurance.

It turns up they were wrong, as revealed in data painstakingly gathered by aides to Donald Powell, the Bush administration’s liaison to the disaster zone.

While the New Orleans Times Picayune reported on this in March of 2006, the initial image of lazy irresponsible New Orleans residents remains entrenched.

As observed by Harry Shearer last month at the National Press Club, it is in the early stages of news stories that Big Media creates a “template.” Later, despite the appearance of conflicting data from experts, news editors tend to cling to the original versions.

So Levees.org is publishing Myth Buster #5 — Per capita, more New Orleans residents had flood insurance, even if it wasn’t required, than the rest of the nation, on the day the federal hurricane protection failed them.

Click here for the full article featured on the Huffington Post.