Home shoved into street by floodwaters coming through the London Avenue Canal east breach site. Photo/Stephen Nelson
The Data Center of Southeast Louisiana has a report on its website containing blatant falsehoods about what caused the 2005 flooding during Hurricane Katrina.
The report states Katrina’s destruction was caused by insufficient funding for maintenance. This is false.
The report also states Katrina’s destruction was caused by errors in design. This is true, but the report doesn’t say the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for them.
These falsehoods – and many others in the report – shield the corps from blame for its mistakes.
These falsehoods dishonor the thousands who perished. And the million who survived.
Ten years ago, Levees.org unmasked the Corps of Engineers online attack campaign
A former federal prosecutor who worked for US Attorney Jim Letten was recently disbarred for comments he made online using an alias in New Orleans.
Sal Perricone’s comments on the Times-Picayune newspaper’s website, NOLA.com resulted in Letten’s resignation and several new trials.
Times have changed. Ten years ago, this exact sort of behavior resulted in a wrist slap.
After Hurricane Katrina, multiple people with the Army Corps of Engineers engaged in the same behavior as Mr. Perricone did.
Specifically, corps personnel – persons in a position of public trust – were disguising their identities, pretending to be objective onlookers and using NOLA.com’s user-engagement features to viciously attack anyone who criticized the corps.
One of their targets was me and the grassroots group Levees.org which I founded with my fifteen year old son after the levees broke.