Photo by Sandy Rosenthal
I attended the BP Protest and Rally in Jackson Square New Orleans on Memorial Day weekend because there is a distinct connect between the oil drilling debacle and the flood of New Orleans.
At the center of both disasters are engineers and the lack of adequate legal federal oversight.
We felt a spokesperson at the Rally Site was important because we wanted to lend our support and be certain the messaging - this time - was done right.
Levees.org's mission is education on the facts surrounding the metro New Orleans flooding and we vigilantly watch out for Katrina 'shorthand' or laziness by journalists who erroneously call Katrina a 'natural disaster' there.
Sandy Rosenthal of Levees.org joins rainy protest. Photo by dlightful
Two recent New York Times pieces were devoted to our quest for accurate messaging. An article by Brian Stelter spotlighted Levees.org's Seal of Approval program that recognizes reporters who accurately describe the significant federal engineering failures of Hurricane Katrina including the collapsed, poorly designed and constructed floodwalls and levees. A Sunday column by public editor Clark Hoyt discussed our petition to the Times calling for a style change memo.
We take the goal seriously because our city, a major metropolis went underwater. And as noted by decorated journalist John McQuaid in a recent post,
"...our collective thinking - amplified by the media - is to lump everything together in a way that tends to strip the human agency out of what's really happening. This is quite useful for those who screwed up. But it's very dangerous."
And in the case of the levees, the human component is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who were found responsible for the New Orleans flooding by a federal judge in Jan 2008.
New Orleans' new mayor Mitch Landrieu is shouldering some of Levees.org burden. Two weeks ago, Chris Myers (host of FOX Sports' NASCAR coverage) mocked the victims of Hurricane Katrina while comparing them to the victims of the recent Nashville flooding. Without naming names, Myers described other flood victims as "standing on a rooftop trying to blame the government" while the citizens of Nashville were "hardworking, tax-paying, legal American citizens." It's obvious to the whole world who Myers was talking about.
In a sternly worded letter to Myers's boss demanding for an apology, Mayor Landrieu wrote:
"...The historic disaster of 2005 was a manmade disaster that should never have happened. Faulty construction caused the breach of levees, causing the flood waters, forcing the people of New Orleans to "stand on rooftops." Almost every levee by the United States Army Corps of Engineer failed, leaving nearly 80% of our city flooded and causing 1,464 deaths. Subsequently, this failure has been called the worst engineering disaster in the history of our country...."
And now, inside of 5 years, due to the carelessness of engineers and lax federal oversight, a large portion of south Louisiana's geography is again laid waste.
Too often engineers trust other engineers too much whether it's the ability of blowout preventer to function or or making sure levees are being built to design specification. BP's blowout preventer had components that are engineered, but if you trust the wrong people and dependable components aren't provided, you can get terrible consequences.
NASA didn't do that. NASA would have multiple levels of redundant computers, literally up to five computers doing the exact same thing. NASA used a safety factor of 3.0 or 4.0. We now know - because they failed - that the Corps of Engineers' levees in metro New Orleans had an actual safety factor of less than 1.0. There was no redundancy to protect the population once the protection system failed.
Obviously this rig wasn't robust and did not have the levels of redundancy we take for granted in the space program. Obviously, the design of the blowout preventer was inadequate.
Engineering brings us good things like cars and the gadgets we use every day.
But careless engineering brings death, destruction and pollution. So we need - at all times- to hold engineers and their institutions accountable. That will happen only with completely independent oversight by both government and the engineering community.
Follow Sandy Rosenthal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LeveesOrg
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/explainer.worst.oil.spills/index.html
But in my wildest dreams, I didn't foresee that the next catastrophe would befall south Louisiana yet again.
"not five years after getting pummeled by one of the worst natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina)?
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/06/01/vitter-and-bp/?xid=huffpolitics#ixzz0pfPIbxJk
This "calculated risk" mentality always ends badly somewhere down the line, with the costs always being much greater, in both money, loss of community trust and respect, and sometimes loss of life.
These companies are always trying to figure out how to produce their product as cheaply as possible, and they rarely spend time or money doing anything they're not forced to do.
Clearly, BP's engineers didn't even follow the regulations already in place. "Calculated risk" reared it's ugly head again, catastrophically this time.
We now know that the tried and true relief wells being drilled in the Gulf, are probably the only way to stop this leak. But they'll take months to complete.
The Canadian government requires a relief well to be drilled simultaneously with the main well, thus providing the method to stop a blowout much quicker.
It's time for President Obama to demand this same requirement. It's also time for President Obama to order his Army Corps of Engineers, to stop the rebuilding of those flood protection systems in New Orleans to inferior pre-Katrina specs, and to begin the rebuilding of those systems to superior standards.
We can no longer tolerate this "calculated risk" insanity.
Listen to the Democracy Now programs on the oil spill.
Spill the oil and then pour huge amounts of poisons into the water to break it up.
BP = BEYOND POISON
I write the objective news about this disaster at Green Heritage News and not opinions for the most part. This allows me to share what I have learned from being in the press huddle and to also give Sandy her due, which is great thanks from all of us in Louisiana.
Thank you, Sandy, for keeping the Facts in the forefront for all of us.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Matter to this Country. We are determined to Save New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and force BP, TransOcean, Halliburton and other corporations to do the right thing. Courts will force them as well. It seems to fall under Criminal Negligience and certainly does not comply with the Clean Water Act !
A NEW ORLEANS FAN.
are emotionally numb.
The levee's have to be shored up and the spill has to be cleaned up, or people will be physically and emotionally destroyed along with the wildlife, water, land and air. we need help!!!!
I agree with you and it is as if we the people are the last to know. All states should be concerned because your state could be next. Every month a city that never floods is now flooding. We have become to lackadaisical, we need to become more proactive.
If you eat anything that you don't grow in your own back yard, you are part of the problem. If you have an elected official that voted to allow this oil well (and other) to be drilled, you are part of the problem.
Nothing will change, the business "bad guys" will do what they do best, the business "good guys" will do what they have to do to compete, and the politicians will do what ever they have to do to get elected again...nothing will change until WE decide that it's important enough to each of to make sure it changes.
Decide what you want, read more than you want to read, learn more about how the system works (or doesn't) and get after it. You can't have everything, but you can have what you want... and remeber you won't find what you need on any TV.
It's is not my fault that the levees were built two feet too low. And it's not my fault that the Blowout Preventer did not work. And that engineers on the rig violated nearly every safety procedure.
I usually replied with a question about what they thought we should do with the people in Oklahoma and Kansas, then. They didn't follow. I asked them if we should all pay higher home insurance rates people some people don't have the sense to steer clear of living in a place called "Tornado Alley?" What about people in New Mexico or California? Wildfire "season" and earthquakes? You'd have to be a lunatic to live someplace like that!
Do they expect everyone to live in Wisconsin?
Stop blaming BP's victims for damage caused by BP. BP is already paying many professional to do that.
Personally, I feel there is nothing more dangerous than over-confident incompetent engineers.
The price South Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, is paying for others mistakes is just a lot more than we can handle.
because then all you have left is the word of a Liar.
We learned that in New Orleans 8/29/05.
Now the rest of the country is going to learn it again in the Gulf.
Thanks Mrs. Rosenthal,
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
http://noladder.blogspot.com/