Pursuing Holiness

Good news:

The U.S. Justice Department says a former Army Corps of Engineers worker and a subcontractor have been indicted on bribery charges stemming from an investigation into levee work after Hurricane Katrina.

written by Laura

Comment later…. but this is Very Good News. Locals begged for DECADES to have the “Mr. Go” closed. I don’t care if nobody gets a dime, I want the Corps in a courtroom and held accountable. Just once. It’s high time.

Judge: Corps Of Engineers Can Be Sued Over Katrina Flooding - New Orleans News Story - WDSU New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge said Friday that the Army Corps of Engineers can be held liable for flood damage caused by a “hurricane highway,” a navigation channel that is believed to have funneled Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge into the city.

The Corps of Engineers had argued that it was immune from liability because the channel is part of New Orleans’ flood control system. The law said the federal government cannot be sued if something goes wrong with a flood control project such as a levee, reservoir or dam.

Judge Stanwood Duval dismissed that argument. He said the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet was clearly a ship channel and not a flood control project.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers call the decision a victory for homeowners, who have suffered setbacks in their efforts to hold the government legally responsible for storm damage. They also said it clears the way for a trial on Sept. 8.

In January, Duval ruled that the corps was entitled to immunity over flood damage from levee breaches elsewhere in New Orleans.

written by Laura

This is the strangest news story I’ve read since Hurricane Katrina.

Man Charged With Stealing Houses
According to the St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office, Jesse Bryant, 47, was booked with burglary and criminal trespassing after posting signs in yards of damaged houses reading “I, Jesse Bryant, take possession of this abandoned property.”

Somehow he got the idea that he can legally claim property that he personally deems has been abandoned. He even had the locks changed on one house. What a maroon.

written by Laura

About time:

The professional organization for engineers who build the nation’s roads, dams and bridges has been accused by fellow engineers of covering up catastrophic design flaws while investigating national disasters.

… The panel is expected to issue a report by the end of April and may recommend that the society stop taking money from government agencies for disaster investigations.

The engineering group says it takes the allegations seriously, but it has declined to comment until completion of the panel’s report and an internal ethics review.

[The American Society of Civil Engineers] was accused of suggesting that the power of the storm was as big a problem as the poorly designed levees.

… The society got a $1.1-million grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the levee failures.

They got a grant to study the failures from… the organization that is responsible for the failures. Anybody see a potential conflict of interest here?

Paul from Wizbang has covered the Katrina levee failures - as he calls it, the Federal Flood - in depth. And here’s the part few people understand, because the media didn’t touch it even after the Corps of Engineers admitted it was their fault:

What I will say next will probably completely throw you. Katrina saved probably over 50,000 lives.

That levee was doomed. If it had failed without notice, the death toll would have been measured in tens of thousands. There would be no evacuation, no preparation, no Feds at all. (such that they were anyway) no Coast Guard in choppers etc. Tens of thousands of people would have been dead in hours and tens of thousands more would have died on 120 degree rooftops waiting for rescue. It would have been unimaginable. - More unimaginable.

“Luckily” -and I groan when I say that- Katrina allowed the city to be evacuated.

I’ve said it for months. Katrina didn’t flood New Orleans. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But what I find just as troubling is the history of this video. It was turned over to Federal authorities just days after the storm. The firemen who took it were told they would be fired if they spoke about it. For months the Corps -who had to have seen the video- claimed the walls were overtopped. For months the firemen listened to the lies and never said a word.

There was no national security reason to hold the video as there might be of a terrorist attack. In fact the video would have helped the scientists studying it determine the cause. Congress had the firemen testify behind closed doors then placed a gag order on them.

I routinely mock conspiracy theorists but I have trouble understanding why this tape was withheld for months. What I also find interesting is that the Corps denied they were to blame until June 1… Just TWO WEEKS before this video was quietly released.

Perhaps, I’m too cynical but it is impossible for me not to notice that if this tape had been released in the weeks after the storm, the media coverage -and the scrutiny of Congress- would have been vastly different.

You may draw a different conclusion but I’ll go to my grave believing that Congress withheld this tape intentionally. It was too damning.

What I don’t understand is where the media is today on this story… The story of their lives is waiting to be told but they just ignore it. If you didn’t read Wizbang, you’d never know the true story of the Great Flood of New Orleans.

Levees.org has a lot more, including this fact sheet which is an excellent summary of the basics.

I, too, routinely mock conspiracy theorists. But then, it’s not a conspiracy theory to note the facts at hand: Congress placed a gag order on witnesses, hid their testimony, and concealed video that would have made it abundantly clear that the federal government was responsible for flooding New Orleans. Doing so allowed the narrative to be shaped in such a way that it prevented a huge public outcry and shifted much of the financial burden of the consequences onto others - primarily home and business owners, and insurance companies*. It’s also not a conspiracy theory to note that the system is badly flawed when the investigator is on the payroll of the investigatee.

The national media isn’t going to give this story the push that it needs because the story complexity to Republican bashing ratio isn’t really high enough to trouble with, and because covering it adequately now reveals the inadequacy of their earlier coverage. All the same, I’m pleased to see that it hasn’t been totally forgotten and that somebody is watching the watchers.

*And before anyone shrieks, “$110 billion not enough for you, you greedy freeloaders?!” here’s a pre-emptive shush:

Actually the $110 billion went to emergency response and administration for three storms, Hurricanes Rita, Wilma and Katrina across five states, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The allocation includes almost $30 billion for FEMA’s response and Department of Defense expenses including the restoration of federal facilities. And almost $20 billion was flood insurance payouts to citizens collecting on their own private insurance claims.

Read the rest of Levee.org’s FAQs to learn why anyone is so stupid as to build below sea level in a bowl (we didn’t) and a whole lot more.

written by Laura

As a conservative Christian, I seldom find areas of agreement with Richard at Metroblogging New Orleans; we’re probably as politically and culturally opposite as two people can be. But on one issue, I absolutely could not agree more:

Yes, we all hope that New Orleans will gradually become better than it was before the storm. (In certain ways, I think it already is.) Will it be perfect? Will it be utopia? I’m probably the wrong person to ask. To me, perfection has to exist in a bubble, and given the fact that everything is interconnected these days–informationally, electronically, meteorologically, and so on–that’s pretty much impossible. But New Orleans will continue to be a hub, there will be people living here, there will be Mardi Gras, there will be crime, there will be inequality, and there will be an ease of life unknown in most of America.

Also, I don’t think I’m the only one with these opinions. They’re pretty well documented elsewhere. Very few people–except some of the hippies who moved here after the storm and don’t know when to give it a rest–are still griping about storm-related stuff. Anyone who’s still here has to have made peace with it in some way.

I should add that by focusing only on the devastation and sadness that Katrina brought, in 60 minutes Chris Rose and Anthony Bourdain erased two and a half years of progress. The homes that have been rebuilt, the families and businesses that have returned, all the little triumphs that many of us have had, most of which came thanks to personal chutzpah and savings accounts–it’s like none of that mattered. Which is offensive and condescending and reprehensible, to say the least.

Yes. And thank you for saying it.

written by Laura

Seth Grodin commented on a problem at the Apple store and customers that care:

Obviously, not everyone complains all the time. Perhaps it’s just a few a day. But the people who complain, care. And it’s the customers that care that actually have a huge impact on your business.

If no one cares, you’ve got trouble. Goal one is getting people to care. Goal two: listening to them.

A restaurant opened up recently nearby - one of those poorly decorated neighborhood joints that often has tasty, inexpensive food. You can look at it and just know that mom and pop probably dumped their savings into it to get the doors open, and with the profit margin on restaurants, they’re living on a razor’s edge.  The first time I went in with a friend, the manager or owner was chewing out an employee in the middle of the dining room. For our second visit we sent my daughter to pick up po boys for dinner, and they were rude to her. Finally, I dialed them on speaker so my daughter could place a pickup order, and the person who answered evidently didn’t feel the connection was adequate - although I use that speakerphone all the time for business, and we could hear her perfectly. Within five seconds of answering the phone, she said, “I don’t have time for this,” and hung up on us.

I thought about it for an hour or so, then called again. The same woman answered the phone. I said that I was very interested in seeing them succeed, and I hoped she’d take what I was about to say accordingly. I told her that they were getting a reputation for abrupt, curt, and rude staff, and that was not going to enhance her business. She cut me off with “I’m sorry you feel that way, but we do try to accommodate everyone who comes in here.”

I said, “Uh huh. Well, then, good luck, and have a nice day.” I had no intentions of going back, because based on that conversation, there was no reason to think anything would change.  But yesterday we ended up trying one more time.  The manager-or-owner was courteous and helpful, and so was the rest of the staff.

Maybe something else entirely happened to account for the change of attitude. But I’m glad I made the call, because it may have made the difference - and even if it hadn’t, it felt good to try.  Since Hurricane Katrina, in what was already a city with a small-town feel, a lot of us are actively rooting for every local business.  We want them all to succeed, especially the mom-and-pops where people have gambled on staying and investing in the New Orleans metro area.  There’s a much greater sense of personal investment in others, and even where that doesn’t pay off, it’s a nice feeling.

written by Laura