Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal has released the first of four excerpts from her debut book, Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango Publishing, August 2020).
The excerpt is called The Big Lie and How it All Started. It comes from Chapter 2; The Flood.
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In Washington, DC, (September 28, 2005) the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development hosted a hearing on the costs associated with the August 2005 flood.[i] Members of Congress, who were responsible for how much aid the people of Greater New Orleans would receive, needed accurate information.
Anu Mittal, Director of Natural Resources and Environment, testified on why the levees were still not complete when storm surge arrived. She read from a script, which she later destroyed, and which bore little resemblance to the General Accounting Office (GAO) report she had submitted that day. Here is the key excerpt:
“… After the (levee) project was authorized in 1965, the Corps started building the barrier plan … parts of the project faced significant opposition from local sponsors and they did not provide the rights of way that the corps needed to build the project on schedule. But most importantly there were serious concerns relating to environmental impacts of the control barriers that were supposed to be constructed … on the tidal passages to the lake. This ultimately resulted in a legal challenge and in 1977, the courts enjoined the corps from constructing the barrier complexes. …” [Emphasis added.][ii]
The effect of the testimony was lethal.
