Words Whispered in Water. Sandy Rosenthal
team realized that the IPET, which had been described by General Strock as a wide range of experts with two different sets of fact-checking, peer-review groups,108 was in fact the Army Corps investigating itself with the help of preselected consultants.
By November 3, the Berkeley team and the members of the ASCE team had completed their initial report. Though the two teams had earlier agreed to combine their efforts, it was written mostly by the Berkeley team. The team presented their testimony to a highly engaged Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing titled, “Why Did the Levees Fail?”109
This particular hearing was convened in response to Michael Grunwald’s Washington Post article, which heavily criticized the Army Corps. Dr. van Heerden was also an expert witness, and he provided testimony that was similar to the Berkeley team. Both focused on the 17th Street Canal; it was not overtopped but rather that the canal’s steel-sheet pilings in the floodwalls had failed—a potential design flaw. Furthermore, the canal’s floodwalls had breached between four and five feet below design specification. Described in layman’s terms, the floodwall failed when water pressure was about half what they were designed to hold.
At this final statement, Dr. Mlakar blanched and urged caution in jumping to conclusions. (Mlakar had told CNN that the canal wall had failed due to the “awesome force of the storm” and that water had risen to the top of the floodwall and coursed down the other side like a powerful waterfall.110) Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) shrewdly recognized that the Army Corps spokesperson was being slow about providing anything useful.111 Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) was present for this hearing, and he would become a key figure in testimony five weeks later about the same drainage canal wall.
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At this same time, some participants at the original “secret meeting” in Dallas were busy filing a bill with the Louisiana legislature. The bill, ostensibly crafted by State Senator Boasso, was first introduced in a package of bills on October 20 and focused on the Orleans Levee Board. On November 11, when Boasso’s Senate Bill 95 was formally introduced in the legislature—and when I was able to read it—I was, as usual, perplexed.112 It conflicted with information that I had found in the September GAO report; that the Army Corps was tasked with designing and building levee protection and the local Orleans Levee District was responsible for maintenance of completed structures and for operation (e.g. closing gates when hurricanes approached).113 It seemed to me that, if the levees broke, one should look to the architect and to the contractor, which, in this case, was the Army Corps. To me, blaming the local levee officials was like blaming the janitor if a building fell to the ground. Furthermore, I had seen no stories documenting that the Orleans Levee District personnel had performed their levee maintenance improperly.
At this exact time, Jim Letten, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, told a reporter with the Associated Press that he would pursue tips that he had received about corruption relating to building and maintaining the levees.114 The reporter added, “Local agencies handle most of the building and maintenance of levees.”115 This statement was wrong. The local agencies controlled none of the building.
This news article was circulated coast to coast and nurtured what the American people already believed. Fingers continued to point toward local officials and away from the federal government—away from the Army Corps. The same Associated Press article closed by pointing out that State Attorney General Charles Foti and Orleans Parish District Attorney (DA) Eddie Jordan were also conducting similar investigations of their own.
When the media reports that federal, state, and local DAs are announcing an investigation, that is what is remembered. But, as famously stated by reporter Megan Carter (played by Sally Field in the 1981 classic Absence of Malice), the government does not tell the media that an investigation has been discontinued.
Sure enough, the investigations by Letten, Foti, and Jordan were eventually closed with no indictments and no press. But the damage inflicted—at a time when the story was under intense public scrutiny—was incalculable.
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It was now mid-November, and Louisiana politicians were getting an earful from Boasso. He pinned blame for the flooding squarely on the Orleans Levee Board while failing to provide documentation or proof of why.116 In the words of a popular political science professor at LSU in Shreveport, “Boasso gave an emotional speech, addressing several senators by name, by recounting personal anecdotes about the flooding in St. Bernard Parish, argued how consolidation of levee boards could be the only solution to improving flood protection.”117 Boasso wanted to get rid of the Orleans Levee Board by consolidating it with others (the Jefferson and Lake Borgne districts).
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