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The Homeland Security Secretary told a group of reporters last Wednesday that others besides the Army Corps of Engineers should take responsibility for the flooding of New Orleans. Michael Chertoff said more money should have been spent on maintenance rather than “earmarks and other things” over the years. (Chertoff is referring to allocations by Congress.)

The good news here is that Michael Chertoff didn’t try to blame the state and local governments for the failure of the federal flood protection.

The bad news is Chertoff doesn’t know what caused the worst engineering failure in the entire world since Chernobyl.

Chertoff should know by now that the levees failed due to egregious design and construction flaws, not bad maintenance. Chertoff also ought to know that the federal flood protection wasn’t yet even completed and was slated for completion in 2015.

But at least Chertoff didn’t blame the victims. And that’s a bit of progress since the days after the levee failures in metro New Orleans that turned the lives of a million people upside down.

Click here to write your members of Congress and demand the 8/29 Investigation Act. Don’t we all deserve levees that work?

Sandy Rosenthal
www.levees.org

Click here for the whole Chertoff story.

Updated June 28, 2014

In three pristine paragraphs, a oped contributor to the New York Times describes why the levee failures in New Orleans are a national problem, not a local one.

The piece explains, as actor Harry Shearer said in a video Levees.Org created in April 2006, that over 120 levees nationwide are danger of failure. Some of the locations would shock you.

The piece recommends reforming the US Army Corps of Engineers and repealing an 80-year old law that shelters the corps from financial liability and gives gross incompetence the same punishment as a simple mistake.

The way to initiate these things is to demand the 8/29 Investigation Act. Don’t we all deserve levees that work?
Click here to take action.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for the 60-second video.

Click here for the oped by Alex Prud’homme.

Click here for a list of levees judged in “active failure” by the corps.

The Jefferson Parish Council recently unanimously passed Resolution No. 109488 supporting the 8/29 Investigation Act. By doing so, Jefferson Parish joins St. Tammany, St. Bernard and New Orleans City Council in a show of unity that will be enormously significant when Congress decides if this legislation is worthy of passage.

Here’s an excerpt from Councilwoman Jennifer Sneed’s introduction of me at the Council public meeting on February 13, 2008:

“…Armed with our Resolution, Mrs. Rosenthal will continue Levee.Org’s campaign for the passage of the August 29 Investigation, an independent, bipartisan analysis modeled after the 9/11 Commission that would examine the flood-protection failures in New Orleans.”

After my presentation, Councilman at Large Tom Capella spoke on the record and publicly criticized me and Levees.Org for our adorable little student-made video spoofing the corps’ investigation of their own work as well as the corps’ overly close relationship with the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Sandy Rosenthal
www.levees.org

Write your members of Congress demanding the 8/29 Investigation Act.

Click here to see the cute 64-second video.