John Barry: Blowing the levee is not some wild idea drawn up on a napkin
May 3rd, 2011
John Barry, Sandy Rosenthal and Harry Shearer photographed on Feb 10, 2010. Photo/Jill Craft
Ever since the metro New Orleans levees broke, we have held the most respect toward the Wall Street Journal among other news sources.Only three times has our letter-writing team (endorsed by Harry Shearer) needed to contact the WSJ for inaccurate reporting on the cause of the Federal Flood in New Orleans in August 2005.
Our respect continues in its featuring of an essay by John Barry (author of Rising Tide) this past Saturday entitled, “Battling Nature on the River.”
We are very pleased to find a passage that, to our knowledge, had not been reported before.
In his piece about the current horrendous Mississippi flooding, Mr. Barry referenced outfall canals which during Katrina, breached and badly flooded the heart of New Orleans.
All the old levees held; the newest ones, poorly designed structures that were supposed to contain that storm and were completed just six years before the storm, were the ones that collapsed.
This passage strikes the myth that the levees broke due to poor maintenance, a responsibility that lies with the local levee boards. Also, it strikes the myth that Katrina “overwhelmed” the flood protection. In fact, the levees and associated floodwalls were egregiously mis-designed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
This month, Levees.org will hold an Unveiling Ceremony of a Historic Plaque at ground zero at one of those canal’s breach sites – the London Avenue Canal.
Soon, we will be commemorating a historic event that people all over the world saw on CNN.
Click here for Wall Street Journal opinion piece by John Barry.
http://on.wsj.com/jzTm4l
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