New Orleans Levee Editorial in Hullabaloo

This editorial I wrote appeared in the Tulane University Hullabaloo newspaper. https://webmail.tulane.edu/horde/util/go.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehullabaloo.com%2Fvnews%2Fdisplay.v%2FART%2F2006%2F01%2F26%2F43d9c84040cec&Horde=ad91bfcc4cd515b1c76ac916a954e970

Help wanted

We are looking for people who would like to become more involved with our organization by assuming positions of responsibility. If you are interested, please email dhyman@tulane.edu

Bayoubuzz.com

This a piece I wrote for Bayoubuzz.com, a site devoted to information affecting the state of Louisiana in particular and the nation as a whole. My thanks to Stephen Sabludowsky for running it. Click here: BayouBuzz.com - Louisiana Politics and News_ (http://bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=6063)

9th Ward Pictures - New Orleans Damage

This link is for the pictures of the 9th ward that I took on January 14, 2006. Pictures speak a thousand words...
New Orleans Levee Damage Pictures

Big Night for New Orleans

Tonight was a huge night for Tulane University and New Orleans. The stars came out to McAlister Auditorium on Tulane's campus to attend an extremely important event. Tulane President Scott Cowen played host to some of the biggest names in Louisiana. Governor Kathleen Blanco made an impassioned appeal to the youth of America to commit to serving and rebuilding Louisiana. The governor announced a new program called "The Summer of Service" with the hope that America's best and brightest will donate their time and energies this summer in a community service program of a massive scale. I was moved by her genuineness and sincerity as well as by her speaking ability. I had the privilege of speaking with the governor after the performance and she certainly did not seem like a politician. She was interested in my ideas and pledged to visit the site. Governor Blanco was followed by Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu who also delivered an excellent speech.

However, the night belonged to one of New Orleans' favorite sons, Wynton Marsalis. The renowned jazz musician and director of Jazz at Lincoln Center delivered a stirring and thought provoking speech to a packed house at McAlister. His charisma and clarion call for the college students in attendance to rise to the challenge posed by the hurricanes resonated very deeply with me. Marsalis spoke with the eloquence and conviction of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and his message was similar; "don't settle, succeed!" Oh, and the music was good too!

Overall, it was a very exhilarating and promising night for New Orleans.

New Orleans Levees and Floodwalls

Since my trip down to the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, a professor at Tulane has provided a lot more information to me regarding the levees and floodwalls. A number of factors combined to create the disastrous flooding of New Orleans. The main damage was caused by breaches in the floodwalls of the 17th Street, London Avenue, and Industrial Canals. The walls were moored in weak peat soil that had was especially vulnerable to water. The soil was a poor choice for the the floodwalls to be built upon. In addition, they were not anchored deep enough into the ground. Army Corps of Engineers plans called for the walls to be anchored 17 feet into the ground, but in some places they were only anchored 10 feet. Even that 17 feet was not deep enough. It turns out that much sturdier clay soil existed 25-50 feet down. The levees are strongest where they are found naturally along the Mississippi River and other places. They are large earthen mounds that can and have been overtopped.

Taken together, the floodwalls and levees need to designed smarter and built stronger to protect New Orleans in the future.

Disaster Zone

Today, I drove and walked through the lower and upper Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. I saw where the Industrial Canal breached. I saw with my own two eyes devastation that, until today, I thought could not exist in America. I was guided by a couple from St. Bernard whose home was still standing but was in ruins. They are living in a tent until they can fix their home up enough to make it habitable.

The neighborhoods that I saw looked more like bombed out Sarajevo or Beirut than New Orleans. Television and the internet cannot convey the extent or the feeling of the destruction. Houses were on top of cars, cars were in trees, and blocks of homes were reduced to rubble. The levee breaches left the people in those areas defenseless from the onslaught of the floods.

Seeing the devastation firsthand evoked my deepest sorrow but strengthened my resolve. This can never be allowed to happen again. New Orleans needs a new levee and flood protection system that can resist even stronger storms than Katrina. Otherwise, extinct neighborhoods will be a part of our future, rather than our past.

Interesting points

On January 10, I received an email from a concerned and informed individual who agrees that the levees and floodwalls that failed New Orleans need to be rebuilt. However, he disagreed with the Save the Big Easy Organization's view on how this should be accomplished. He raised some good points, and I responded, and I believe that our conversation should be shared.

"Dan, That's a very interesting thought. I believe, however, that it is not a function of Congress to feed money to a city with a local government that is too corrupt to take care of itself. I agree that the levees should be fixed, and preferably quickly, but it is my hope that the effort of those who live in New Orleans, along with the slap in the face that this situation has hopefully imposed upon the local government, will coerce the necessary people into allocating local funds and imparting their own energies toward this problem, and not shunning personal responsibility. Congress has already given much more aid in the form of wasted dollars than they have in motivation to fix the actual problem, and until someone defies logic by making efficient use of dollars they are not held accountable for, I think I'll hold off from signing your petition. Thanks for caring about it enough to do this though, and I hope you'll take into consideration the idea that throwing more money at the levees probably won't make them build themselves." -Anonymous

I responded..."I appreciated your forthright email. You clearly have given this issue somethought and I thank you for taking the time to convey your views. I would liketo respond to your arguments, and I hope after reading this that you will consider signing the petition.

In your recent email, your major points as I understood them were as follows: 1) The city governmnet is too corrupt to be trusted with large sums of taxpayer dollars. 2) The repairing and strengthening of the levees and floodgates is a local, and not a federal, responsibility. 3) Congress has already appropriated enough money for New Orleans.

Yes, the city government of New Orleans has been riddled with corruption in the past. And, despite strides made in fighting that corruption, it still remains aproblem. However, there is a broad movement in Louisiana now to clean up the local levee boards and to consolidate them into one board with reputable boardmembers. Any bill that our organization takes part in forming will call for thecreation of a completely independent levee board with credible and honest boardmembers. This Levee Council will not be beholden to the local government butrather to the U.S. government and will be monitored by watchdog groups. If the culture of corruption in New Orleans will not change, then it will be bypassed with a Levee Council responsible to the federal government. You would also benaive, and surely you are not, to not acknowledge the presence of corruption inother state governments and the federal government. Corruption is not native to New Orleans, and as the Jack Abramoff scandal goes deeper, we see that it is not confined to one party or one level of government either. Corruption at the local level can be overcome.

You say that you hope that, "those who live in New Orleans...will coerce the necessary people into allocating local funds and imparting their own energies toward this problem, and not shunning personal responsibility." This statement, is flawed. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed the defective levee system for New Orleans and supervised its construction. The system was designed to hold against a Category 3 storm and immediately after the storm, itwas believed Katrina struck as a Category 4 hurricane. However, it is now becoming clear that Katrina struck land as a Category 3 storm and thus the system should have protected New Orleans from flooding. Obviously, it did not. Since the federal government built that failed levee system, it is responsible for rebuilding it. If the Army Corps of Engineers had not designed the system,I could understand the argument that it is not a federal responsibility. However, that's not the case. Secondly, you say that local funds should be used to rebuild and not federal funds. Lets assume for a second that it was not the federal government's responsibility to rebuild the levees and it was the stateof Louisiana's responsibility. The Category 5 levee system will probably cost $30 billion. That is too much money for a state as poor as Louisiana. Lousianais ranked 47th in per capita income and is the 6th poorest state overall. In addition, the state gives the federal government most of the $8 billion in oil and gas revenue it collects every year from the Gulf of Mexico. So how is the state supposed to fund a new levee system? If the levees are going to be rebuilt, the federal government is going to have to help significantly.

It is also true that Congress has appropriated a lot of money for New Orleans already. Billions of dollars in emergency aid. Most of that money is going to emergency payments for individuals hardest hit by Katrina and for relief operations. Very little actually was appropriated for the levees, a billion or so, and that billion is only going to patch up the levees for next hurricane season. Without strengthening them, what is the point? The city is just as vulnerable.

Finally, as you know, the whole nation was adversely affected by the devastation that befell New Orleans. I live in NY and gasoline prices skyrocketed here. New Orleans handles nearly 25% of domestic oil refining or output (I need to checkthat figure). The point is, the damage to New Orleans affected everyone. Therefore, it is everyone's responsibility to make sure that this never happens again. Investing in new levees for the city is really an investment for thewhole country. The federal government built that levee system, it is responsible for rebuilding it the right way this time, and it must provide the funds to do so otherwise it will never be done. And if it is not done right this time, then everyone loses. So please Mike, sign the petition.

Once again, thanks for your comments and I hope you reconsider.

Respectfully,

Dan"

250!!!

On January 8, 2006, the Save the Big Easy Organization's petition collected its 250th signature! The petition is really starting to pick up steam and spread around the country and the world; people have signed from as far away as Dublin, Ireland!

Notable signatories to this point include NYS State Senator Martin Malave Dilan, NYS Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, and the influential Rev. Darren A. Ferguson of the Luke 4:18 Ministries Hip Hop Church of Harlem, NY.

Good work everyone and keep spreading the word. The fate of New Orleans is on the line; our cause must not fail!