FLOODLINES featuring Levees.org founder is named 2020’s Best Podcast by NPR, New York Times, New Yorker and more

Monday, December 28th, 2020

Floodlines is named best of 2020’s podcasts by NPR, New York Times, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Guardian, Economist and more.

The free podcast is produced by The Atlantic Magazine and hosted by the talented Vann R. Newkirk II.

Floodlines revisits the story of the levee breaches through the experiences of four New Orleanians—Le-Ann Williams, Fred Johnson, Alice Craft-Kerney, and Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal—who remained in the city through the aftermath, and who are still living with the consequences.

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Commissioner of post-Katrina Levee Board praises book that criticized levee board reform

Friday, December 18th, 2020

Published by Mango Media (August 2020)

Stephen Estopinal, eight-year veteran of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East created after Hurricane Katrina, praises Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal’s new book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, 2020). 

Estopinal’s book review will appear in the upcoming double issue (vol 40, numbers 1 & 2) of the Xavier Review. An early digital galley has been released ahead of the hard copy issue.

In her book, Rosenthal is highly critical of the levee board reform movement, labeling it as ineffective and a distraction from the true culprit, the Army Corps of Engineers. 

Estopinal––who was president of the Authority when his tenure ended––appears to agree.

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The Lens publishes Op-Ed by Sandy Rosenthal on value of Independent Investigation of Disasters

Monday, December 14th, 2020

Founder Sandy Rosenthal and Sally Regenhard of New York City are both ordinary citizens with no special training who shouldered the responsibility of calling for independent investigations of two internationally watched disasters that occurred five years apart.

The New Orleans Lens has published founder Sandy Rosenthal’s opinion editorial about bipartisan legislation that addresses this issue. Here’s the first two paragraphs of piece:

On Oct. 9, U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) announced the introduction of  The Disaster Learning and Life Saving Act of 2020.  This bipartisan legislation would create a new, permanent and independent board to study the underlying causes of disaster-related fatalities and property damage nationwide.The National Disaster Safety Board (NDSB) would make recommendations to all levels of government on how to improve the resiliency of communities across the country.

I was so excited about the proposed legislation that I called Sen. Cassidy’s office the following Monday morning and offered to assist with the bill’s passage. After past disasters, ordinary citizens have had to spend enormous chunks of their lives calling for greater independence and  transparency in disaster investigations….

For the rest of founder Rosenthal’s opinion piece about this important bipartisan legislation, click here to see the entire piece in The Lens.

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