Levees.org to meet Director with Department of the Interior

Monday, November 7th, 2011

This morning at Xavier University, Sandy Rosenthal, founder of Levees.org will meet with the Director of Intergovernmental and External Affairs at the Department of the Interior, Gail Adams.  The invitation to this roundtable of 20 participants comes from Congressman Cedric Richmond.  The subject is ensuring the long term viability of the Louisiana coastline.

“…By funding ecosystem restoration projects, we protect our culture, strengthen our hurricane protection, and ensure that Louisianans can continue to support their families through fishing and shipping on our waterways…”
Cedric Richmond, Member of Congress

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Stopping Katrina Myths From Becoming Household Knowledge

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Stanford Rosenthal and his mother, Sandy Rosenthal

On Halloween Day, six years ago, I realized I had to do something about the myths that were taking root and quickly becoming established fact about the New Orleans flooding during Katrina.

Nine weeks after the levee failures and deadly flooding, I applied my skills (and my 15-year old son Stanford applied his) to respond to many myths, but mainly, the myth that the residents of greater New Orleans understood the risk they faced from hurricanes and thus were stupid for living there.

My most recent Huffington Post article was a Myth Buster revealing that even the most insistent calls from public officials to New Orleans area residents to evacuate for Katrina did not warn that the levees could break. A comment was posted that seems to be sarcastic and aimed at the victims of the 2005 flood.

It is totally sane to live at sea level and rely on bending moment resisting walls pounded into clay for protection from 20 foot storm surges; as opposed to either stout earth levees or T-Walls.

Engineer and blogger Matt McBride left a comment so creative that, with his permission, we have reprinted his comment here as its own post.
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Sandy Rosenthal is guest speaker for U.S. Dept of State program

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Sandy Rosenthal

Today Sandy Rosenthal will speak to 10 international journalists. Five of the group are from the People’s Republic of China, two from Taiwan and one from Viet Nam, Hong Kong and Macau. The journalists, in town for two weeks, are invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Their program is arranged by the Graduate School International Institute.

The group is interested in meeting with Ms. Rosenthal to discuss the role of grassroots citizen activism in holding the government accountable for the events that occurred during Katrina.

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