Levee Exhibit Hall And Garden: My Perspective Five Days After Hurricane Ida

Press release from Levee Exhibit Hall and Garden:

2021-09-03

For those wanting to help the victims of Hurricane Ida, click here.

Today, it’s five days after Hurricane Ida, and I am compelled to offer up some stark differences between the outcome of this storm and the storm exactly sixteen years ago.

Five days after Hurricane Katrina exposed design flaws in the New Orleans, these were the conditions:

These were the condition five days after H. Katrina’s surge triggered failures in poorly designed levees.

In contrast, a top story today, five days after H. Ida on WWLTV is that “historic oak trees at the Oak Alley Plantation in St. James parish are damaged. I love Louisiana live oaks as much as the next person. But this very well illustrates the stark difference between the two August 29th events sixteen years apart.

We know now that as many as nine souls lost their lives during H. Ida. In contrast, sixteen years ago, it would be many months before the death count could even begin to be verified, a number of over 1,500.

My heart goes out to all those affected by Hurricane Ida and the resulting power outage in Louisiana. This is a disaster.

Hurricane Katrina and the exposed design flaws in the New Orleans outfall canal levees was a bona fide catastrophe.

For those wanting to help the victims of Hurricane Ida, click here.

Sandy Rosenthal, founder of Levees.org
Author, Words Whispered in Water (Mango, 2020)

This press release was produced by Levee Exhibit Hall and Garden. The views expressed here are the author’s own.