Dr. J. David Rogers, Missouri University of Science and Technology (1954-2025)
You may not know that Dr. J. David Rogers was an important person to you personally.
If not for him, the nation would still be stuck on the wrong-headed idea that the pre-Katrina Orleans Levee Board (OLB) had a causal role in the Hurricane Katrina flooding.
Dr. Rogers passed away a few days before the 20th anniversary of the levee breaches.(#1)
He was a great man who did something that few people, especially someone of his national stature, do. He admitted a mistake, and corrected it publicly. Here’s what happened.
In 2005, Dr. Rogers led an academic team in the very first levee investigation post Katrina (ILIT funded by the NSF). Their report concluded that the OLB pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to build the system that failed.
Years later, Dr. Rogers learned that he had relied on wrong information and that new information had become available.(#2)
In response, Dr. Rogers lead a team to write a whole new report and set the record straight.(#3)
The New York Times ran an above-the-fold news story about it in the Sunday paper on May 24, 2015. It was titled: Decade After Katrina, Pointing Finger More Firmly at Army Corps. (#4)
With that article’s publication, all suggestion that the OLB had a causal role in the flooding was now debunked for good, by the experts.
But the stubborn myths won’t go away.
A recent OpEd by environmental journalist Bob Marshall stated the reforms of the OLB after Katrina were created “to end the corruption and malpractice of politically appointed levee boards that oversaw the levee system that failed during Hurricane Katrina.” (#5)
Mr. Marshall won a Pulitzer prize for his journalism in 2005 that wrongly blamed the OLB. And it looks like he intends to stand by his prize-winning, albeit erroneous reporting.
Here’s the facts.
After Katrina, US Attorney Jim Letten, State Attorney Charles Foti and Orleans Parish Attorney Eddie Jordan all announced investigations of the OLB. No evidence of the “corruption and malpractice” that Mr. Marshall speaks of, was ever found.
Neither did any of the six major investigations completed post Katrina.(#6)
The failure of the hurricane levee protection in August 2005 was due to the Army Corps of Engineers’ engineering mistakes which they admit in the levee study that they convened and managed.(#7)
The survivors of the flooding deserve for everyone, everywhere to know the truth.
Eleven years ago, Dr. J. David Rogers did one of the hardest and greatest things a man can do. He admitted his mistake and corrected it publicly. May he rest in peace. With all our love.
This new video helps explain who does what with our levee maintenance.
FOOTNOTES:
#1. Obituary for Dr. J. David Rogers.
#2. News article by Mark Schleifstein in the Times-Picayune about Dr. Rogers’ report.
#3. Peer-reviewed article in Water Policy, official journal of the World Water Council
#4. Sunday news story in the New York Times by Campbell Robertson and John Schwartz.
#5. Recent Opinion Piece by Bob Marshall.
#6. Listing of the major post-Katrina investigations.
#7. Volume 1, USACE IPET, I-119. Referenced in this recent OpEd in The N.O. Lens.
