New map shows large sectors of American population are protected by levees

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

U.S. Counties with levees (click to enlarge)

NEW MAP: Levees.org recently discovered (in a FOIA request) that 55% of the nation’s population (156,615,630 people) lives in counties protected by levees.

We thought this information so important that we commissioned a researcher to translate the volume of data tables into a easy-to-read map.

The result is eye popping.

The graphic and accompanying table shows that living in counties protected by levees is not a distinctly New Orleans phenomenon. Nor is it even a coastal issue. Nor a sea level issue.

And the map raises very important questions.

After the federal flood, the nation questioned the wisdom of further public investment in levees and other flood risk reduction infrastructure in New Orleans and south Louisiana.

This map sheds a whole lot of light and insight on the benefits of using levees and other control structures to settle floodplains.

Click here for the data set provided by FEMA.

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The cruelty of Katrina shorthand

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Four days after a federal judge in New Orleans determined our Army Corps of Engineers’ actions “resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions,” a New York Times article continues to use harmful Katrina shorthand.

That is, a reporter for the newspaper with the third highest circulation in the country said Katrina “wrought sudden devastation” in 2005 to the New Orleans region.

After all the folks there and displaced have endured, the evacuation, the loss, the relocation……it is simply cruel to say Katrina, a natural event was the cause.

Saying Katrina wrought devastation to New Orleans is like saying traffic wrought devastation to the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis.

Both Katrina and the traffic revealed structural flaws. Both exposed blatant civil engineering mistakes.

And according to federal Judge Stanwood Duval, those mistakes throughout New Orleans were primarily man-made, and were committed by our Army Corps.

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TIME magazine’s Michael Grunwald on Judge Duval’s ruling in New Orleans

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Muriel Altikriti volunteers to help a St. Bernard Parish resident be able to move back into her home for Christmas 2009. Photo/Sandy Rosenthal)

Muriel Altikriti volunteers to help a St. Bernard Parish resident be able to move back into her home for Christmas 2009. (photo by S. Rosenthal)

Updated June 30, 2014.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddox did her homework and invited Mike Grunwald of TIME magazine to discuss federal Judge Stanwood Duval’s landmark decision holding your Army Corps of Engineers both responsible AND liable for the flooding caused when its levees broke in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.

Mike Grunwald, who once grumbled to me over the phone that “he wasted much of his career trying to shed light on the agency’s corruption and negligence,” did a stellar job as interviewee. He closed with this:

“…we‘re angry about the Army Corps killing 1,000 people…..I think this will provide a hook for people to say, “Hey, you know, the federal government did this. You know, this wasn‘t the fault of people living in harm‘s way. They were put in harm‘s way.”

Tim Graham of Newsbusters promptly pounced, saying,

“It’s liberal political pandering to insist that there people living “in harm’s way” should never be judged as irresponsible for failing to evacuate.”

Redirecting the conversation to those who didn’t evacuate is tantamount to obscuring the true issue and the obvious fact that changes must be made in the way water projects are chosen, funded and implemented in America.

Coincidentally, I volunteered for five hours yesterday caulking and sanding the Corps-flooded but now almost completely renovated home of Miss Lisa on West Christie Street in St. Bernard Parish who hopes to be back in her home for Christmas 2009.

Miss Lisa evacuated for Katrina. Her house didn’t.

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