Katrina 'Blame Game' May be Over for New Orleans Special

New Orleans citizens received some relief from the ongoing "blame game" that has gone on since Hurricane Katrina. These residents said they did not know New Orleans flooding would occur from levee breaches, and a federal court has upheld their claims.

It was reported yesterday in an email from Levees.org, citing a news story from MSNBC, that a federal ruling declared the Army Corps of Engineers' mismanagement of the Mississippi RiverGulf Outlet was directly responsible for the flooding that nearly wiped out whole communities of New Orleans, including the homes of St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. News reports immediately after the destructive storm Katrina hit the Gulf Coast more than four years ago declared New Orleans had "dodged the bullet.". Hours afterward, however, severe flooding spread throughout the parishes, leaving thousands of people homeless and helpless. Television images of people calling for help as waters submerged their dwellings, of riverboat rescues and of the long, terrible days of suffering captured the attention of viewers across the country. There was also the ongoing message, however, that these people were somehow to blame for their own tragedies, that they knew the city could flood and chose to build their homes and remain in the area nonetheless. New Orleans folk, however, individually and through organizations like Levees.org maintained otherwise, claiming they believed they were protected from flooding by the great levees built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Despite these protestations of innocence, journalists continued to write stories that blamed the people of New Orleans for what happened to their city. In a column written in the Edmonton Sun by Lorrie Goldstein recently, the author declared "...The problem in New Orleans was that decade after decade, governments at all levels and of all stripes failed to fix the levees they knew would not protect the city from a direct hit by a powerful hurricane. ..." This reveals how four years after the hurricane journalists continued to focus on the culpability of New Orleans residents as opposed to the core structural problems of the levees, the recent court decision substantiates. I spoke with Sandy Rosenthal following the recent federal court decision. She said, "This shows why laws need to be changed. It doesn't make sense the Army Corps of Engineers should operate in such a way there are no consequences to bad workmanship and no special recognition for workmanship that is done well." She went on to talk about how vulnerable the rest of the country might be and how it is in the best interests of everyone to understand what happened during Hurricane Katrina. "Now," she continued, "People will see they could be in danger too because 55% of the population of this country live in areas protected by levees. I feel a sense of relief now that a light has been shined in the right place. We ought to be able to trust those who are assigned to build and maintain levees. This decision and the consequences of poor workmanship show that the Flood Control Act of 1928 needs to be rewritten." Rosenthal reminds us how laws need to be written in such a way so there are avenues of solution for bad workmanship and poor construction of levees that are supposed to be built substantially to protect citizens. Given the impact of the federal court ruling, I asked Rosenthal what the mission of her organization might be after this. She answered, "We will embrace the judgment as further support for our message. The judge's opinion can be introduced as fact. Data can be used to continue the mission. That mission is to educate folks on why New Orleans was vulnerable." She reminds the rest of us we could be vulnerable as well. Rosenthal and I spoke of how there is a tendency at times to cover up a problem as opposed to fixing it and how patterns like this can have devastating consequences. Those citizens like Rosenthal, however, remain steadfastly devout in seeking the truth, and in this case a new truth has arrived to bring relief to the people of New Orleans, something they have sought since 2005.