NEW ORLEANS -- In the weeks after the levee system failed in New Orleans, public officials scolded the vast majority of the city's residents for not having flood insurance. It turns up they were wrong.
"Two out of three New Orleanians carried flood insurance -- 67% compared with the national rate of about 5%."
And "Louisiana is a more enthusiastic participant in the National Flood Insurance Program than any other state in the nation."
This was revealed in data painstakingly worked up by aides to Donald Powell, the Bush administration's liaison to the disaster zone.
But real damage was done because, as observed by Harry Shearer last month at the National Press Club, it is in the early stages of news stories that Big Media creates a "template." Later, despite the appearance of conflicting data from experts, news editors tend to cling to the original versions.
Even researchers at the Cato Institute got caught up in the herd mentality.
"Although flood insurance is heavily subsidized, many -- even most -- property owners in New Orleans do not buy this insurance, expecting the federal government to bail them out whether or not they are insured, " said Institute Chairman William Niskanen in testimony to Congress in September 2005.
Chairman Niskanen was wrong about New Orleans.
Nonetheless, myths, like this one about New Orleanians and flood insurance, have become established fact in the immediate aftermath and remain stubbornly entrenched.
So Levees.org is publishing Myth Buster #5 -- Per capita, more New Orleans residents had flood insurance, even if it wasn't required, than the rest of the nation, on the day the federal hurricane protection failed them.
"Of the 113,053 single family homes in Louisiana that sustained hurricane-related flood damage in 2005, at least 72,787, that's 64.4 percent, were covered by flood insurance, according to Powell's data."
Simply for the sake of comparison, "30% of the 28,800 flood homes in Mississippi had flood insurance."
Billy Kohlman, whose home in New Orleans took on 4 feet of water, had sold flood insurance since 1982 and insisted that all his clients have flood insurance.
"I thought Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River could overtop the levees," said Kohlman. "But never in my wildest dreams did I think the levees themselves could break."
According to Ed Pasterick, senior advisor to FEMA, Louisiana was a stand out success in a nation where the vast majority of people living in high-risk areas don't buy flood insurance.
"Much as Louisiana nursed the hope that the big one would go somewhere else," said Pasterick, "there was an awareness that the region was a hurricane target."
Levees.org's Myth Busters 1-4 can be seen here.
Follow Sandy Rosenthal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LeveesOrg
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/warn_archive/LIX/NPW/0828_155101.txt
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/pub/al122005.public.022.shtml?
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/pub/al122005.public.023.shtml?
Following the flood , I , to this day have never been contacted by my SF agent of 20 years..
I had to find another agent to help me through the nightmare..
They were horrible to deal with..refusing to speak to me after I filed a lawsuit...when I called regarding another property.
State Farm sucks.
We even had a video that a retired Federal Judge took during Katrina and it showed the neighboring properties being destroyed by the wind and water.
It was irrelevant because our property was not in the video.
I have insurance engineering reports from my insurer that the winds were only 90 mph in the northeast eyewall of Katrina when Katrina made her second landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with a cat 5 storm surge. Eventually I was able to prove the winds gusted over 130 MPH.
Those Insurance folks are evil and political. They know we need insurance for flood, property and health. They make BIG money off of us and refuse to pay when we are at a loss.
Please see Government Accountability Office testimony Sept 2005: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d051050t.pdf
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12689498
After an internet search it was discovered that Mr. Harvey is a generous and
successful lawyer. Search (FindLaw) with his name to view his profile. The OLD acomplisments
are listed in his profile.
You are correct about the facts becoming myths, but you are forgetting about the
myths becoming facts.
There are a too many slanderous myths that demonize New Orleanians.
About 90% of South East Louisiana evacuated before Katrina's arrival, but many report we ignored evacuation orders. Could their cities successfully evacuate as well? As bad as our evacuation went, it was the most successful ever.
The barge did it, levees were blown up, overwhelming devastating storm, angry deities, levee failures due to local corruption, misdirected local money, etc. There are a lot of myths not fair to New Orleanians. And, in N.O., due process doesn't apply like some might assume.
I guess what your saying is the Corps is the ones we should hold accountable for the levee failures.
Other than the Corps, who else can we hold accountable for the levee failures?
A Judge ruled that the Corps was Primarily responsible for the levee failures. Since the Corps was not wholly resposible for the failures, who should we direct the rest of the responsibility too for the levee failures?
With your involvement with our levees, you must have an idea who else we should target for our levee failures?
Thank you,
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
But after five and a half years, there is still no comparable investigation, ordered by Congress or the White House, of the levee protection failures that drowned metro New Orleans and killed over 1,500 people.
Fifty-five percent of the American population lives in counties protected by levees. Clearly, there should be a truly independent analysis of the flood protection failures - and the decision making involved – that led to the devastation in metro New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.
That is what we're saying.
And in thesed ay's of GIS mapping and floods being tied to specific property that is well charachterized and locatable it's surprising there isn't a google app for that. Well not really no profit in it.
Time of flooding is interesting in this story: Had time to clean up outside?
Mr. Harvey's home was not insured for flood during the levee breach caused by hurricane Katrina's
storm surge.
How many of the Orleans Levee Districts properties were not insured for flood during Katrina? My bet is they were all insured.
Sandy, Listen to the story provided by NPR. Seems like President Harvey even thought the Levee District provided flood protection to the city of New Orleans.
Where was Mr Harvey's house? The 3 catastrophic engineering failures perpetrated by the Corps --which accounted for 80% of the floodwater in the city (and 100% of Lakeview and Gentilly)-- have nothing to do with whether Mr Harvey was insured or not.
As for your initial fact-bending: you simply are misstating the law regarding who was "charged" with Hurricane/Flood protection. You need to read the law. I'm not interested in helping you there. Look it up. Hell, go check out Mrs. Rosenthal's website. Do something other than dance around the fire spitting greasy BBs of McRhetorical Syllodomy.
Thank you,
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
If so, let's start a movement to have him indicted for perjury!
That flood was over five years back. It's really old news it would be interesting to see more recent and more important issues that the press got wrong. Perhaps you see this as a way of keeping New Orleans flood fresh and in the news? This was a bit of a stretch.