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When Good News Turns To Tagedy

Thursday, February 3rd, 2022

Recently, US Senator Jim Inhofe was jubilant over bringing home federal funding ––$137 million––for a levee project in his home state of Oklahoma.

Senator Inhofe is rightly happy about this news. Funding for lifesaving levees is of the utmost importance.

Exactly thirty years ago, an equally jubilant US Senator J. Bennett Johnston had just brought home $50 million from the federal government and the Army Corps of Engineers for levee improvements in New Orleans.An equally triumphant Orleans Levee Board called for a press conference to announce the news.

But what the board members didn’t know was that the US Army Corps of Engineers would proceed to build flimsy floodwalls that crumbled at half the pressure they were designed to contain when Hurricane Katrina arrived 14 years later.

A Manifesto: Engineering Students Must Learn About Engineering Disasters

Friday, January 28th, 2022

A bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh hours before President Joe Biden’s visit to the Pennsylvania city to talk about his infrastructure plan. 1-28-22

It’s come to the attention of Levees.org that civil engineering students are not being taught about the worst civil engineering disaster in US history.

Students are graduating without the crucial knowledge that engineering mistakes led to the collapse of the Army Corps of Engineers’ levees in New Orleans in August of 2005.

“There is no acknowledgment from academic institutions that they are responsible for instruction of “professional practice” issues, such as the applicable “standard of care” engineers can expect to be held to once they graduate and begin their practice,” says nationally renowned engineering expert J. David Rogers.

New Orleans Book Festival will showcase founder Sandy Rosenthal and her debut book

Wednesday, December 8th, 2021

In a recent press release, the 2022 New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University states that it will host its inaugural weekend, March 10-12, with a three-day, in-person literary celebration featuring more than 100 national, regional and local authors, including some of the nation’s most beloved bestsellers. The festival is free and open to the public. A schedule of events will be released in early February.

The lineup of Best-Selling Authors includes Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal for her debut book, Words Whispered in Water; Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, 2020).

The press release continues: The new, major literary event for the Crescent City, whose debut was postponed by the pandemic, will feature panel discussions, moderated conversations, keynote lectures, book fairs, family programming and workshops. Each day will include at least one major plenary session, which will feature a leading author. The event will also provide a forum for media outlets, authors and readers to network and collaborate in one of the world’s most vibrant and culturally diverse cities.

Find out more about the Festival.