Louisiana Book News

Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal provides the following commentary on the "Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City" by Jed Horne. The opinions expressed below are those of Sandy Rosenthal on behalf of Levees.org.

Author Jed Horne has shown his journalistic genius in converting a mountain of facts into an exciting page-turner. By blending real life stories with one of the century's most memorable - and horrific - events, Horne is likely responsible for assuring that the Flooding of 2005 is remembered, and with accuracy.

Filled with details in settings before, during, and after the terrible flooding, Horne infused these details with spirit, and at times, gentle humor. For example, in describing what Gregory Richardson, a frightened homeowner could see from the roof of his flooded eastern New Orleans home, Horne wrote "...he heard a sound, the tapping and ripping sound of another roof being breached from the inside out, and in due course the house two doors down hatched another human..."

There are countless colorfully presented documented references that explain not only the "what" and "why" of the flooding but also the intense voluminous disinformation about it that pervaded the media after the fact.

We note with interest an observation in Chapter 6 about a Post-K "...systemic disinformation campaign of putting falsehoods into the minds of a reliable stable of...stalwarts and then making them available to the media as talking heads." This is interesting because in a later chapter, Horne seems to have become ensnared in that very trap which he had described.

In Chapter 17, Horne describes how in the mid 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) had "fought hard for lakefront gates" but under pressure from the local Orleans Levee Board were condemned to abandon them and build a second rate system - which later failed during Katrina. When Levees.org asked about this in a February 2009 email, Horne explained he had relied on testimony from a past Orleans Levee Board president. The footnotes to this testimony referenced only a 2005 Los Angeles Times article, and when we called the LA Times reporter about this particular story, he confirmed his documentation was taken from verbal testimony.

Not only do Horne's assertions and conclusions about the floodgates lack the necessary documentation, both are also clearly refuted by Douglas Woolley and Leonard Shabman in the Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology, June 2007, page 82. This is important because when the London and 17th Street canal floodwalls failed in 2005 resulting in the drowning deaths of over 600 people, the local New Orleans officials were frequently blamed, without factual basis. As put forth by Woolley/Shabman, the Corps looked at the relative costs and merits and decided to only raise the canal walls. The Corps chose against building floodgates, and did so without expressing any concerns.

Nonetheless, in closing, "Fine job!" to Jed Horne for his book which is a joy to read. And precisely because this book will likely be read for decades to come, we hope Horne considers updating Chapter 17 in future editions.

Catastrophe in the Making

Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal provides the following commentary on the "Catastrophe in the Making: The Engineering of Katrina and the Disasters of Tomorrow." The opinions expressed below are those of Sandy Rosenthal on behalf of Levees.org.

Authors William R. Freudenburg, Robert Gramling, Shirley Laska and Kai Erikson tell a fascinating story of what they consider the most dangerous project undertaken in the history of Louisiana's lower delta -- the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). And as the title implies, this project serves as a warning call to us all.

The authors, one a professor of environmental studies (Freudenburg), and the others in sociology, describe how the MRGO, an obscenely expensive wetlands-killing navigation channel constructed and maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers was obsolete on the day it opened.

Intended as a shortcut for ships to reach the Gulf of Mexico, the MRGO was also a shortcut for salt intrusion (there was no flow) which killed buffering cypress trees and plants.

Then on August 29, 2005, the MRGO helped create a funnel that sent storm surge into the heart of the city exactly as predicted by Dr. Hassan Mashriqu of Louisiana State University (pg 131).

So not only was the MRGO a monstrous "environmental and economical failure," say the authors, it was also the "single cut that led to 1,000 deaths."

The authors sternly denounce the attitude that the environmental damage to south Louisiana is "inexorable" and thus acceptable and an "unavoidable by product" of the construction and maintenance of the MRGO.

A small number of business people made a lot of money in 1965, asserts Freudenburg et al. But during Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of thousands lost their homes and livelihoods. Many lost their lives.

The authors close by pointing out that the situation in New Orleans is far from unique, that "we are all from New Orleans" and the "Katrinas that lurk on the other side of the horizon threaten us all."

The book also blasts two persistent myths. The authors point out that New Orleans saw "the most successful rapid evacuation of a major city in human history." They also highlight how citizens did not have reason to believe the levees could breach, that "no one ever asked them to evacuate on the grounds that the levees and floodwalls were about to fail."

One assertion (page 95) does lack documentation. Author Laska credits the Army Corps for wanting larger levees not floodwalls for outfall canals in New Orleans' main basin, but provides no documentation.

Nonetheless, in closing, "Fine job!" to these four authors who presented us a mountain of data in an accessible format. This is the first book to lay out a clear story about the MRGO failure, and to neatly lance some particularly tenacious myths about the New Orleans flooding.

Perilous Place

Levees.org founder and executive director Sandy Rosenthal provides the following commentary on "Perilous Place, Power Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana" (University of Mississippi Press, 2009). The opinions expressed below are those of Ms. Rosenthal on behalf of Levees.org.

Craig E. Colten's new book presents a massive amount of important data on the man made vulnerability of coastal Louisiana. In meticulous detail, the LSU Geography professor explains how engineering mistakes, funding battles, and newly imposed law requirements resulted in an inadequate and incomplete flood protection system when Katrina arrived in August 2005.

But because the book may be referenced often in the years to come, it is important to point out some undocumented passages and unfounded conclusions pertaining to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the flood protection structures they built in metro New Orleans.

For example, on page 51, the author describes how in the 1970s, a federal court "forced the Corps to either abandon" its plan for barrier structures in New Orleans or do "additional environmental analysis." While it is true that in 1977, the court did prohibit the barriers until further study was done, there is no documentation that the court "forced" the Corps to abandon the barriers. This assertion is also completely refuted in the Katrina Consolidated Litigation Dismissal Order, Jan 2008, pages 6-12.

This distinction is important because when New Orleans flooded in 2005, environmentalists were frequently blamed without factual basis. In fact, in June 1980, the Corps elected against building the barrier structures and did so without reservations.

Similarly, on page 78, the author asserts that the Corps chose to raise the height of the London, Orleans and 17th Street canal floodwalls "despite misgivings." And, on page 127, the author draws a conclusion that the "overwhelming local preference for building higher canal walls led to their construction." Again no documentation is presented to support either the assertion or the conclusion, both of which are clearly refuted by Douglas Woolley and Leonard Shabman, Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology, Jun 2007, page 82.

This distinction is also critical because when the London and 17th Street canal floodwalls failed in 2005 resulting in the drowning deaths of over 600 people, the local New Orleans officials were frequently blamed, without factual basis. As put forth by Woolley and Shabman, the Corps looked at the relative costs and merits and found that the higher canal walls were more economical. The Corps chose to build the higher walls -- and to not build the gates -- and did so without reservations.

We do note that Professor Colten acknowledged in his introduction that the original version of this textbook was done under contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers history office. This gesture of transparency is commendable as accepting funding form the Corps of Engineers has an appearance of non-impartiality.

We also commend the author for neatly lancing a persistent myth about New Orleanians by pointing out that Louisiana had a significantly higher flood insurance subscription rate Pre Katrina than the national average.

Loaded with data, "Perilous Place, Powerful Storms" is a highly technical book that will likely be referenced often, but hopefully with caution regarding the undocumented unfounded conclusions noted.

2009 Releases

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by American Splendor artist Josh Neufeld (Pantheon) follows seven New Orleans residents who survive Hurricane Katrina while Zeitoun by screenwriter Dave Eggers follows a Syrian-American contractor of the same name who stays in New Orleans to protect his rental properties, then travels the post-Katrina streets in a second-hand canoe before being arrested for theft and taken to a makeshift prison.

Eggers is known for his screenplay for the romantic comedy Away We Go which has failed to reach Lafayette and the upcoming adaptation of the children's book, Where the Wild Things Are. He formed the Zeitoun Foundation, which will distribute a portion of royalties to the Zeitoun family and rebuilding charities and nonprofits.

            Hurricane Katrina: America's Unnatural Disaster (University of Nebraska Press) compiles essays exploring how the natural and man-made forces of Katrina's wrath affected African Americans of New Orleans disproportionately. The book is edited by scholars Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker.

            "Specifically, this text argues that the inequalities linked to race, class, gender, and other socially constructed indicators are not preordained and absolute," the authors write in the introduction. "Rather, they manifest deliberate choices rendered by political and economic resolutions and executed by public and private institutions."

            Perilous Place, Powerful Storms: Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana (University Press of Mississippi) by Craig E. Colton, professor of geography at LSU, looks at the history of storm protection leading up to its failure in 2005. The scholarly book contains 18 maps and eight photographs of levees and Louisiana flooding.

            Climatologists Barry D. Keim and Robert A. Muller examine the hurricanes and tropical storms that have entered the Gulf of Mexico, from the deadliest storm in U.S. history at Galveston in 1900 to 2005's Hurricane Katrina and everything in between (Audrey, Andrew, Rita, Wilma to name a few), in Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico (LSU Press). The authors maintain that after years of technical advancements, hurricanes remain difficult to predict.

            Thomas Lakeman's novel Broken Wing reunites readers with FBI Special Agent Mike Yeager as he goes undercover to infiltrate the New Orleans mob to rescue a kidnapped journalist amidst the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Journalist and children's author Timothy Weeks, who spent time in New Orleans, won awards with The Wise Mullet of Cook Bayou. His followup story is Ol' Middler Saves the Day, where Ol' Middler fish journeys throughout the Gulf Coast to find his mullet buddy, Goldie. His travels take him through Hurricane Katrina and into the flooded waters of New Orleans.

This summer Ilene Fine launched Brandy and Val, Real Dogs with Real Tales, a children's board book series about two shelter dogs, one a Katrina survivor, who find new homes.

"We have Val's papers tracing how he came up here and there's not a day that goes by that I don't look at him and wonder what his story really is," Fine wrote me by email of her Katrina pouch. "Clearly one of survival, heart and will. He came to us in March, 2006, with so many health issues, including being only 40 pounds (he's a lab). He really must have been on death's door."

Much of the proceeds will go to rescues and other charitable organizations. For information and to order, visit.www.brandyandval.com.

--Chere Coen

There have been numerous books discussing the landfall of Katrina, its effect on the population of New Orleans and the rebounding spirit that followed. Several books have been written about footballs teams, for instance, and their triumphs during the storm's aftermath.

Pelican Publishing of New Orleans adds another Katrina sports book to the lineup, but Finn McCool's Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead is a different kind of football.

Penned by Belfast native Stephen Rea, who moved to New Orleans and discovered an eccentric Irish pub in the Mid-City neighborhood, the book follows the Finn McCool's Football Club, or soccer team to us Americans, comprised mostly of ex-patriots. The book opens on Aug. 27, 2005, as the team discusses meeting the Olympiakos the next day, "the first competitive eleven-a-side game many of us have played in years - in some cases decades," he writes.

The game, of course, gets cancelled due to the approaching Hurricane Katrina and the team members are scattered, while two find themselves stuck in harrowing conditions in New Orleans. This captivating tale of the unusual pub soccer team amidst the horrors of Katrina provides both a humorous and heart-wrenching memoir.

The book has been heralded an "uplifting account of friendship, football and overcoming the odds in the face of tragedy," by Derek Rae, senior UEFA Champions League commentator at ESPN. "Stephen Rea has scored an impressive winner."

Rea is a freelance writer who has contributed to national and international newspapers, magazines and Web sites for more than 20 years and is the recipient of a writing grant from the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival in 2006.

A party to celebrate the launch of Rea's book was held at Finn McCool's Irish Pub, the locale that inspired the book, at 3701 Banks St. in Mid-City, New Orleans.

-Chere Coen

Publishing a book is a thrill in its own right, but seeing that story on the Big Screen can be icing on the cake.

Trent Angers, publisher of Acadiana Profile magazine and Acadiana House Publishing, was contacted by Creative Artists Agency of Los Angeles to turn his biography, The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story, into a film. Studios were interested in the story of the helicopter pilot who intervened in the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Toby McGuire wanted to play the lead and A-list directors and writers were on board, Angers said.

Then Oliver Stone got a contract to do a similar film titled Pinkville and Angers's deal fell through.

However, because of the Writer's Guild strike last year, production on Pinkville halted and the film was eventually cancelled.

"To me, it was like the hand of God," Angers said with a laugh.

Angers is back to the drawing board on selling My Lai to Hollywood, but he's now publicizing his latest book, An Airboat on the Streets of New Orleans, one he thinks may also have movie potential.

The story follows Douglas Bienvenu and Drue LeBlanc of Breaux Bridge, who watched the horrors of Katrina unfold on television, then took off for New Orleans with their airboat to help. The couple rescued hundreds of people that week, even though Leblanc was suffering with kidney disease.

Angers first read about the duo in The Teche News.

"I thought, 'Wow, this is the most exciting story since the Hugh Thompson story'," he said. "I feel stories of pure heroism to be truly inspiring."

Angers interviewed them for Acadiana Profile, which resulted in a magazine series.

"I wrote it in dramatic non-fiction style, like the tone of a novel, and the first thing you know I'd written a couple of chapters," he said.

An Airboat on the Streets of New Orleans is the latest book from Acadian House Publishing, which has produced 60 books to date, including the best-selling Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux? by Marcelle Bienvenu. In addition to the book showcasing what happened after the storm hit New Orleans and the couple's heroic rescues, Angers hopes people will learn more about organ transplants; LeBlanc is waiting for a kidney transplant to save her life, he said. Angers has sent a copy of the book to Oprah Winfrey in the hopes she will spotlight the book in April, National Organ Donors Awareness Month.

"Drue would be the poster girl, to put a human face on people needing donors," the Nobel Prize-nominated journalist said. "The same woman who helped save 800 lives in New Orleans is in danger of losing her own life."

Still, Angers isn't giving up on Hollywood, for either book.

"You get addicted to the idea and it makes you spend lots of time and energy," he said with a sigh.

-Chere Coen

Journalist Mark Folse worked in New Orleans for years before serving as deputy press secretary and speechwriter to Sen. John Breaux, then later in the computer and banking industries in Fargo, North Dakota. When Katrina hit New Orleans, Folse started a Katrina Internet blog titled Wet Bank Guide, which was featured by French National Radio as one of the unique voices of the post-Katrina disaster. Folse then swam against the tide and convinced his family to move back to New Orleans, a decision that was featured on National and Minnesota Public Radio. He and his family now live in the Mid-City section of New Orleans where he continues his observations on Crescent City life online at Toulouse Street: Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans (go to www.toulousestreet.wordpress.com and click on the book cover). You can read his collection of essays from the early post-Katrina days in his book, Carry Me Home - A Journey Back to New Orleans, available online through Lulu.com and selected South Louisiana bookstores.

Sept. 11, 2001, disturbed the young son of author Lauren Thompson, and she needed a way to reassure him that there was hope in the world. "I wanted him to know that while bad things happen, the world is nonetheless a good place to be, full of people who want to help," she writes in the end of Hope is An Open Heart (Scholastic), a board book for young readers. The book's many faces of hope include Hurricane Katrina transplants.

Martha J. LaGuardia-Kotite, a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, collected heroic stories from members of the Guard, including several who rescued people after Hurricane Katrina, in So Others May Live, Coast Guard's Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death (Lyons Press).

Performance poet Patricia Smith has published Hurricane Katrina, Blood Dazzlers, in which Smith assumes the voices of flailing politicians, the dying, the survivors and of Hurricane Katrina itself.

Katrina Personal Objects, edited by Francesca Sorrenti (Trolley), compiles haunting, emotionally gripping photographs by Jarret Schecter that spotlight ruined personal relics of New Orleans residents of the Lower Ninth Ward. Images include pages of a yearbook, wedding mementos, the contents of a briefcase, an empty birdcage and the stark view from a front window, among many others. Even though Schecter points out the obvious, of the loss of people's possessions, he also looks at a bigger picture. "On a larger scale, the remaining symbols of a broken past should not be forgotten either as they presently point to a hauntingly unjust reality for the many millions of impoverished people who call themselves, Americans."

Michelle Mahl Buuck, a writer for Nunez Community College's History Lecture Series in Chalmette, documents first responders during Hurricane Katrina in The St. Bernard Fire Department in Hurricane Katrina (Pelican). In a parish where every structure was flooded, the role of the firefighters was vital. More than 6,000 stranded residents were saved by both firefighters and other first responders.

Jason F. Wright, author of The Wednesday Letters, tells the story of a man estranged from his father who's believed to have been caught in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in Recovering Charles (Shadow Mountain). As Luke Millward contemplates going to New Orleans to find his father, he recalls the years leading up to the death of his mother and the following years that drove the two men apart. Heading down to the city, he comes to peace with his past.

If you watched Spike Lee's documentary, When the Levees Broke you'll remember outspoken Phyllis Montana-Leblanc, who achieved fame as the woman who told it like it is in. Her memoir, Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina discusses in great detail with the same honest gut-wrenching but God-fearing style what happened to Montana-Leblanc on Aug. 29 and the horrible months that followed. As the title suggests, her family, life and mental health were broken along with the levees.

Montana-Leblanc describes in horrifying detail the riding out of Hurricane Katrina, the ceiling collapses in her apartment which sent her literally out into the raging storm, the rising waters that followed and the endless days trying to find a way first out of her East New Orleans apartment complex, then out of the city. And, like what she related in Lee's documentary, there were numerous incidents of government indifference, arrogance and hostility towards those needing evacuation and assistance.

"Word of mouth comes back to us that ice and food are back by the building where the chairs are," Montana-Leblanc relates of their experience waiting for rescue with hundreds of other people on the grounds of UNO. "I volunteer to go and see, and what they have is, believe it or not...watermelon. Hot watermelon. I refuse to take it. I mean, if there was ever confirmation that we were being thought of as niggers, this is it. Watermelon! All we need now are fields of cotton. We already have Lying Larry as the overseer. We have the black bodies and my cousin named Kizzy. The only thing missing is Kunta Kinte saying don't call him Toby."
 

Montana-Leblanc wavers back and forth between outrage and trauma to having faith in a higher source, knowing that God will see her through. She later pontificates on black-on-black crime, people who still rip off the system and each other and the glorification of the almighty dollar. It's amazing that someone so traumatized and humiliated would offer such an uplifting book, but then she did steal Spike Lee's show.

"If we could have more of one person being kind and generous to another," she writes, "not based on how much money they have or what shade of color their skin is or how they speak or what school they went to or how or if they went to school -- damn, I know I'm asking for a lot but it is not too much. I'm just being Phyllisophical and nobody has to agree with me. I am but one person and sometimes one person can make a difference. I just pray that God blesses me with the wisdom, knowledge, and grace to share it with the world."

For those who doubt the horror of that week, the past and present race problems plaguing the city or the lack of both proper response and compassion by government agencies, this heart-wrenching and thought-provoking book is a must read. And through it all, Montana-Leblanc maintains that faith, forgiveness and seeing the larger picture as God's plan are all part of life. Amen sister!

Within hours of Hurricane Katrina's landfall on New Orleans, and the following levee breaks that flooded 80 percent of the city, evacuees began flowing into Lafayette looking for shelter, health care and food. In response to these hundreds of people arriving daily, Greg Davis, executive director of the Lafayette Cajundome stepped up to the challenge. Knowing that this was an historic event that should be documented, he enlisted the aid of Ann Dobie, a retired English professor at ULL. Dobie brought her laptop and set up shop among the thousands of evacuees who ended up calling the Cajundome home during the 58 days after Katrina (which also included evacuees fleeing Hurricane Rita on Sept. 25). The result is her Fifty-Eight Days in the Cajundome Shelter, published by Pelican Publishing. The book includes day-by-day reports on what happened and how government agencies and the Cajundome staff responded, personal stories of the evacuees and her "reporter's notebook" that Dobie kept during the ordeal.