Federal Flood

Not entirely certain but I think that term was coined by G Bitch close to 10 years ago. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong about that. Or maybe not.  It took a hell of a long time for anyone to make this correction, after all.

A pending article in the peer-reviewed journal Water Policy, written by experts involved in some of the most significant previous examinations of the catastrophe, sets out to refine some high-profile early versions of the factors that led to the disaster. The article rebuts assessments of the levee system’s design process that had spread responsibility around to include local officials, and it contends that fault should fall even more squarely on the corps.

It only took a decade of arguing with purveyors of  the heavy bullshit theory that poor dumb old hapless New Orleans must have deserved its fate one way or another.  We're still trying to put a lot of that to bed.  

The authors of the study looked through a more extensive record, including hundreds of pages of meeting minutes examined by researchers from Levees.org, a New Orleans activist group. They found nothing to suggest that local officials had “behaved irresponsibly,” or that the corps or levee board had “believed that the risk would be significantly increased” by raising the levees and flood walls instead of building the gates.

But myths persist.. aided in no small part by our own lack of "civic self-esteem" I referred to here last week.  It's also the genesis of the post-Katrina "blank slate" myth still in operation today. It tells that the New Orleans deserved to flood and that the flood was a "blessing in disguise" as it paved the way for "New New Orleanians" who, unlike their supposedly incompetent predecessors, are doing things the right way now.

This one is also bullshit, of course. Maybe in ten years we'll finally get that settled.  But, one thing at a time, you know.