Home in St. Bernard Parish. Photo/Mike Collins
Levees.org saw a unique opportunity to reach out to the Obama Administration and ask him to stop calling the New Orleans flood a ‘natural disaster.’
We created a petition and are urging all of our supporters to sign it. When we get 150 signatures, our petition will be searchable on Whitehouse.gov.
And when we reach 5,000 signatures, our petition will reach the threshold to be reviewed by the White House and eligible for an official response!
But it’s up to us to reach the magic number.
Click here and sign the petition!
Levees.org is one of the very first organizations to utilize this new tool. We are grateful to Buddy Bougere, a long time supporter of Levees.org who brought this new website to our attention.
I’m not sure I quite understand. You clearly blame the Corps of Engineers for the levees breaking, yet at the same time post articles about court orders blocking them from actually doing anything. They had a plan to reinforce the levees years before Katrina, but the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against them (concerned more about the effect it would have on local birdies), effectively stopping the reinforcement. Then the levees break and you still somehow want to blame the Corps? I think John there is right, and you’ve got some sort of vendetta against the Corps.
Ad hominem. That is what people do when they run out of talking points. They go after the person.
I don’t understand the need for this petition. What is the benefit from changing how this tragedy is referred to? Will it change what happened, or what needs to be done? Is this this terminology change the most important reason for trying to mobilize public opinion regarding the disaster?
Perhaps you could do a better job of explaining all this. Then maybe we’ll feel there’s a real reason for all this effort.
(I’m not arguing with you. I just don’t understand why this focus on semantics. Will this effort change what the government is or isn’t doing? Will this petition truly benefit the good people of New Orleans? Please do a better job explaining the need for this petition.)
This is much more than semantics. Blaming a natural phenomenon for the killing of 1,600 people and the drowning of a great American city minimizes the human element involved. Saying Katrina destroyed New Orleans is just plain wrong.
But we’re arguing over words, when action seems infinitely more important.
At this point, why argue over whether it was a “natural disaster” or not? The problem is that levees failed, FEMA failed, and lives were lost or permanently scarred. THAT’S the human element! Shouldn’t we be focusing every ounce of our energy on fixing the problems, instead of arguing over what to call this horrid episode?
When we get hung up on blame, instead of addressing the real problems, aren’t we just spinning our wheels?
Organizations and the people they employ with something to hide have a whole host of responses all prepared and ready to go. They include:
Shouldn’t we just move on?
Shouldn’t we focus on making sure this never happens again?
Doesn’t this simply open old wounds?
And finally, what is the point of investigating?
Yes, we know how bureaucracies (especially government) operate. Nothing new there.
But what does that have to do with the question of whether the White House uses the term “natural disaster”??
Is there a problem getting the Army Corps (or Congress) to address the levee issue?
Has FEMA dropped the ball (yet again)?
If the answer to either question is no, then what’s the purpose of this petition about the term “natrual disaster”?
And if the answer to either question is yes, then what’s the purpose of this petition about the term “natural disaster”?
Bob, the petition is about the event that occurred in August of 2005, an event so horrific that the whole world watched it on TV. In Mississippi, the flooding was a natural disaster. In New Orleans, it was not. The flooding was the worst civil engineering disaster in US history. It was also the worst in the world rivaled only by the Chernobyl meltdown.
Since his inauguration, the President has consistently called the flooding of New Orleans a natural disaster which is not only wrong, it confuses Americans. It causes them to mistakenly believe the flooding of New Orleans was an unavoidable act of nature. This is dangerous, because the majority of the American people lives in counties protected by levees.
S, I’m well aware of the “event” of August 2005. I was part of a group that came down to work with Habitat for Humanity post-Katrina; I’ve seen first-hand the horrific toll as well as the amazing resilience and spirit of the good people of New Orleans and beyond.
But my point remains: I still don’t understand why all this energy and effort into the semantics used to describe what happened. I’d much rather see us focus on addressing the engineering issues themselves and, equally important, of ensuring that neither FEMA nor any other agency “forget” the countless people whose lives were upended, many of whom are still struggling.
So long as many Americans believe a hurricane flooded New Orleans, their leaders will not take the steps to prevent a reoccurrence. Yes, evacuation plans were improved. Yes, disaster response plans are improved. But how do those prevent a reoccurrence of the levee failures in New Orleans or elsewhere? The only way leaders will take the steps to make certain levees and floodwalls are safe is to recognize that it was a civil engineering failure, not a natural disaster, that caused 800,000-plus citizens forced to live outside of their homes – the greatest diaspora since the Dust Bowl of the 30’s.
Here is an example of how our leaders forgot the engineering failures. After the levees broke, Congress wrote true reform legislation. But four revisions later and less than half the length of the original, the final bill passed in WRDA 2007 had no Research Program or Safety Training Program. But most importantly, it had no independent Review Board at all, only a Levee Safety Committee, accountable to the Corps of Engineers.
In the end, Congress handed more responsibility and power – with no independent oversight over our nations’ levees – to the Army Corps of Engineers, the entity primarily responsible for the drowning of New Orleans.
Finally, some clarity.
Although I’m skeptical that Congress will do the right thing in its current toxic atmosphere, at least you’ve finally explained the logic behind this petition. Here. But perhaps you should do a better job of explaining why the petition itself is necessary where it counts: right in the beginning of this web page, where you ask people to sign.
I’m sure there are others like me who read the current plea for people to sign and had no idea what you’re really pushing for. But once more people understand, they may do the same.
I suggest you rewrite the page to make it much clearer what the White House’s seemingly innocuous choice of words actually represents. A more compelling argument will undoubtedly sway a lot more people to sign.
I just did.