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SIGN PETITION TO NEW YORK TIMES

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

The water line is visible on this Lakeview neighborhood home in New Orleans

A senior editor for the New York Times, Don Hecker told a Levees.org supporter last week that he thinks the paper is correct to say “Katrina” devastated New Orleans.

“No hurricane….no damage,” he said.

Hecker wrote to the flood victim because she had expressed surprise that the Times (in a recent article) attributed the horrific flooding on August 29, 2005 to a storm.

She had included in her letter that she had “lost a lifetime of priceless, irreplaceable art, family heirlooms, (her) health, financial and emotional stability.”

Here is Hecker’s exact reply:

I am sympathetic to your view that many bad decisions led to the damage after Hurricane Katrina. As I hope you are aware, The Times published many article on the subject after the storm and has continued to report from the city. But had there been no Hurricane Katrina, engineerrng and other decisions would not have caused the damage. So I think we are correct in attributing the cause to Katrina.
Don Hecker, Senior Editor, New York Times

Levees.org maintains that this defense is only superficially correct. To say a storm devastated New Orleans disregards what really happened on August 29, 2005 when a major American city went underwater and over 1,600 people died.

Please sign our petition to the New York Times.

Urge the paper to be more specific on what really caused the devastating flooding.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1625/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2959

Law firm felt the love from Levees.org’s supporters

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Isidore Newman students in a spoof of Corps of Engineers relationship with ASCE

Just about everyone in New Orleans remembers that 3 years ago, just before Christmas, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) threatened Levees.org with a slander lawsuit for creating a spoof of the Army Corps of Engineers’ overly cozy relationship with the ASCE.

Folks also remember that the society became an overnight laughing stock, and quickly retracted its threat after the San Diego-based law firm Cooley LLP offered pro bono representation. The spoof was a fully protected exercise of our right to free speech.

Cooley heads prevailed!

On November 30, 2010, Tony Stiegler, a representative of the law firm sent us a letter officially closing the file.

We used the opportunity to urge our supporters to thank the law firm Cooley LLP for their generous pro bono representation of Levees.org in 2007.

The supporters did just that, and Mr. Stiegler wrote to me again this week letting me know about it. Here is his letter reprinted with permission.

Dear Ms. Rosenthal,

Yes we received many, many hits and notes of thanks from your organizations’ members and supporters and we were delighted by the notes. We are truly satisfied to have helped you and the great cause for the City of New Orleans. I am a Tulane Law graduate and have a very fond place in my heart for the city, and for your cause.

I am copying Maureen Alger, who is my co-chair of Cooley’s pro bono practice and I know she too was immensely delighted to see all of those emails come through.

Have a great holiday season and please don’t hesitate to call on us again should the need arise.

–Tony Stiegler

Anthony M. Stiegler, Esq.
Litigation Partner
Cooley, LLP
4401 Eastgate Mall
San Diego, CA 92121-1909
Direct: 858/550-6035 • Fax: 858/550-6420 • Cell: 858/449-4068
Bio: www.cooley.com/astiegler • Practice:
www.cooley.com/litigation

Click here for more details about the fracas.

Click here to see the spoof that caused the fracas.

Jason Berry and Bess Carrick, latest recipients of Levees.org’s Seal of Approval

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Jason Berry

Jason Berry (American Zombie) and Bess Carrick (Blackbird Media) have collaborated and created an info-packed article about the Orleans Parish Clerk of Court Computer Crash.

We bring this to our supporters attention because of the introduction to the piece.

“…The consequences of the failure of the levees during Hurricane Katrina was a man-made disaster. Although the investigation is still ongoing, it’s probably safe to assume the Horizon oil rig explosion was also a man-made disaster. Both events were the result of faulty engineering, lack of oversight, and outright corruption…”

Mr. Berry and Ms. Carrick hereby are recipients of the Levees.org Seal of Approval. This award is for properly describing the events that caused the flooding of metropolitan New Orleans.

Saying ‘Katrina flooded New Orleans’ is very confusing and dangerous to the American public. The tendency by media and politicians to say the New Orleans flooding was a natural disaster strips the human agency out of what’s really happening and protects those who made mistakes. In the case of the levee failures, this is quite useful for the Army Corps of Engineers, the entity responsible for the flood protection failures. And it’s very dangerous because 55% of the American people lives in counties protected by levees.

Saying ‘Katrina flooded New Orleans’ is also wrong, and like saying traffic broke the Interstate-35 bridge in Minneapolis. Both Katrina and the traffic revealed structural flaws. Both exposed blatant civil engineering mistakes. And in New Orleans those mistakes were made primarily by our Army Corps.

Click here for the Berry/Carrick piece.