Lancing the Myth of the Drive-by Levee Inspections

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Site of 17th Street Canal breach before work crews arrived. Photo/Matt Ewalt

Three months after the the levees broke during Katrina, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported that annual levee inspections in Orleans Parish tended to be quick drive-by affairs ending with lunch for 40-60 people costing the state as much as $900.

While this is true, the same report went on to suggest that the quickie inspections might have contributed to the catastrophic flooding and that the local Orleans Levee Board (OLB) may be partly responsible. Neither suggestion was ultimately borne by the facts, but the myths persist.

Here is what really happened.

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LeveesOrg Hosts Levee Disaster Bike Tour

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Bikers ride along Lake Pontchartrain on the first ever Levee Disaster Bike Tour on May 6, 2012. Photo/Hubie Vigreux

On Sunday May 6, Levees.org will launch its first Levee Disaster Bike Tour.  The 90-minute tour starts at the City Park Boat and Bike Rentals at Big Lake Trail.

We leave at 9 a.m. and taking safe, marked biking routes, we will bike to the 17th Street Canal breach (6932 Bellaire Drive) and hear a short history of the levee breach disaster. Then we will bike through the Lakeview neighborhood, through beautiful City Park to the London Avenue Canal breach (5300 Warrington Drive) in the Filmore Gardens neighborhood of Gentilly. Again, we will hear a short history of the breach disaster.

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Reaching an impasse, Levees.org fast-tracks quest to list levee breach sites historic

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

Homes on Bellaire Drive directly across from levee breach site of 17th Street Canal. Photo/Francis James

The Army Corps of Engineers has failed to respond to a request for comments on Levees.org’s nomination of two major levee breach sites to the National Register of Historic Places.

That failure to provide technical comments within the required time frame has created an impasse in the nomination process.  For this reason, Levees.org will exercise its right to appeal, meaning it will advance its nomination to the official arbiter for such procedural breakdowns, the Keeper of the National Park Service.

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