Sandy Rosenthal's Blog, page 12

Another commissioner of post-Katrina Levee Board praises Words Whispered in Water

Another former commissioner of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection-East has praised Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal’s new book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, 2020).

Ricardo Pineda, a Water Resources Engineer for over 40 years, who served six years as a commissioner for the Flood Authority East, has positive remarks about Rosenthal’s book which was critical of the post-Katrina levee board reform.

Rosenthal believed the levee board reform distracted attention away from the true culprit in the disaster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Mr. Pineda is the second commissioner to give high marks to Rosenthal’s triple-award winning book.

Stephen Estopinal, eight-year veteran of the Flood Authority East, also praised Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal’s book in a book review in the double issue (vol 40, numbers 1 & 2) of the Xavier Review.

Below is Ricardo Pineda’s full review.

I have reviewed multiple reports on the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina including the reports by IPET, ASCE and Team Louisiana.  Also “ The Great Deluge” by Douglas Brinkley and “Zeitoun” by Dave Eggers. Sandy Rosenthal’s book is a “must read’ if you are interested in learning why the levees failed and what happened during the response and recovery.  Sandy’s book tells her courageous story of seeking information and truth why the levees failed, who was responsible and efforts to get the word out to national media and the state government, federal government and professional organizations. Her story is one of a David versus Goliath since many of the government and professional entities did not like her conclusions and actively worked to keep her from telling it. Sandy’s book should be required reading for professionals involved in “Risk Communications” including engineers involved in public communications after a disaster. Congratulations Sandy on an excellent book telling your own story, demonstrating your grit, perseverance and determination of your difficult journey to make your position and the facts that support it available to the public.

Ricardo S. Pineda PE, CFM
Retired Water Resources Engineer
California Department of Water Resources
Division of Flood Management
Floodplain Management Office
Sacramento, Ca. 95821

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Founder Rosenthal’s book garners 2021 Feathered Quill Silver Award

Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal’s debut book has received the 2021 Feathered Quill Silver Second Place book award in the Informational Category.

The book is titled “Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina” and was published my Mango Media in August 2020.

In her book, Rosenthal describes how she created the group Levees.org to find out the true reason that New Orleans flooded in August of 2005.

In her quest for the facts, she discovered that the culprit, the US Army Corps of Engineers had spent millions fooling the American public and harassing anyone who stood in its way.

Below are the Feathered Quill Book Awards Judges’ Comments:

– well-researched journalism / teaches a great deal about the moment and cover-ups that followed / eye-opening

– A disturbing tale considering the cover-ups and the lives lost / makes you think even worse about the people in charge, if that’s even possible / fits the Informational category well

– Editing/spelling: a few spelling errors but nothing major/ tables, graphs and pictures are well presented and printed

The complete listing of book winners for the 2021 Feathered Quill Awards can be seen here.

Words Whispered in Water has also won the February 2021 Literary Titan Golden Book Award and the 2020 Hermes award for the book jacket designed by Michael Styborski of New Orleans.

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Literary Titan on book “Words Whispered in Water:” AWESOME JOB

The online Literary Titan has awarded Words Whispered in Water, by Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal with a 5-star review.

The Literary Titan states on its website that it “is an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors that have a passion for the written word. We review fiction and non-fiction books in many different genres, as well as conduct author interviews, and recognize talented authors with our Literary Book Award.”

Rosenthal’s book published by Mango Media in August 2020 is about her quest to expose, against all odds, the true culprit in the New Orleans flooding event during Hurricane Katrina.

Here is an excerpt from the review published on January 10, 2021:

The book is “. . . about how she made the decision to investigate and reveal the bureaucratic system behind the fatal decisions that made the storm such a definitive event. It is also about how she tried to shed light where the media wouldn’t. It is not just about how she fought to help her family adjust after the storm. It is also about how she rallied support to help others and find ways to make sure the devastating effects would not reach the same level again.

Words Whispered in Water is a riveting account of a tragic natural disaster. I would recommend this read to anyone interested in being more informed about the political decision-making processes that can seem insignificant one day and become life-changing the next. A truly informative and enlightening book. . . “

For the full review, click here:

 

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The Literary Titan on the book “Words Whispered in Water:” AWESOME JOB

The online Literary Titan has awarded Words Whispered in Water, by Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal with a 5-star review.

The Literary Titan states on its website that it “is an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors that have a passion for the written word. We review fiction and non-fiction books in many different genres, as well as conduct author interviews, and recognize talented authors with our Literary Book Award.”

Rosenthal’s book published by Mango Media in August 2020 is about her quest to expose, against all odds, the true culprit in the New Orleans flooding event during Hurricane Katrina.

Here is an excerpt from the review published on January 10, 2021:

The book is “. . . about how she made the decision to investigate and reveal the bureaucratic system behind the fatal decisions that made the storm such a definitive event. It is also about how she tried to shed light where the media wouldn’t. It is not just about how she fought to help her family adjust after the storm. It is also about how she rallied support to help others and find ways to make sure the devastating effects would not reach the same level again.

Words Whispered in Water is a riveting account of a tragic natural disaster. I would recommend this read to anyone interested in being more informed about the political decision-making processes that can seem insignificant one day and become life-changing the next. A truly informative and enlightening book. . . “

For the full review, click here:

 

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FLOODLINES featuring Levees.org founder is named 2020’s Best Podcast by NPR, New York Times, New Yorker and more

Floodlines is named best of 2020’s podcasts by NPR, New York Times, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Guardian, Economist and more.

The free podcast is produced by The Atlantic Magazine and hosted by the talented Vann R. Newkirk II.

Floodlines revisits the story of the levee breaches through the experiences of four New Orleanians—Le-Ann Williams, Fred Johnson, Alice Craft-Kerney, and Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal—who remained in the city through the aftermath, and who are still living with the consequences.

Here’s a description of the ambitious 4-hour podcast released by The Atlantic Magazine at its March 2020 release:

Some call it Hurricane Katrina. Some call it the Federal Flood. Others call it the day the levees broke. On August 29, 2005, the city of New Orleans was submerged. That story of hubris, incompetence, and nature’s wrath is now etched into the national consciousness. But the people who lived through the flood and its aftermath have a different story to tell. A story of rumors, betrayal, and one of the most misunderstood events in American history.

Founder Rosenthal is heavily featured in episode VI titled ‘Reckoning.’ Click here to listen: http://go.levees.org/FloodlinesEpiVI

For the NPR story, click here.

For the New York Times story, click here.

For the Vanity Fair story, click here.

For the New Yorker story, click here.

For the Economist story, click here.

For the Guardian story, click here.

For the Atlantic Magazine press release, click here.

The post first appeared on Levees.Org.

Commissioner of post-Katrina Levee Board praises book that criticized levee board reform

Published by Mango Media (August 2020)

Stephen Estopinal, eight-year veteran of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East created after Hurricane Katrina, praises Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal’s new book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, 2020). 

Estopinal’s book review will appear in the upcoming double issue (vol 40, numbers 1 & 2) of the Xavier Review. An early digital galley has been released ahead of the hard copy issue.

In her book, Rosenthal is highly critical of the levee board reform movement, labeling it as ineffective and a distraction from the true culprit, the Army Corps of Engineers. 

Estopinal––who was president of the Authority when his tenure ended––appears to agree.

In his review, he states,

“…Rosenthal attended board meetings of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority – East during the construction of the new flood post-Katrina protection system. She observed firsthand how design comments provided by the experts on the board were routinely ignored.

“I––a past commissioner of the Authority East––can confirm that the many public comment and review meetings that the Corps hosted during the construction of the new system were simply for show. Major decisions were made and locked in stone before anyone outside of the Corps’ sphere of influence could contribute.”

Words Whispered in Water is reviewed by Publishers Weekly and has been a #1 New Release on Amazon for eight straight months.



An unboxing video promoting the book’s release has amassed over 135,000 views on Facebook alone. Stephen Estopinal’s full review can be seen below:

Sandy Rosenthal’s Words Whispered in Water; Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango Publishing, August 2020) is not a technical book, but rather, it’s a fast-paced documentary about a dedicated person’s journey after the greatest engineering failure in history. It is also a book that every engineer should read because within the pages is a revelation, an indictment of a blundering bureaucracy.

Rosenthal describes how the United States Army Corps of Engineers failed to professionally design or test the canal flood walls that collapsed under less-than design loads during Hurricane Katrina.

Through meticulous investigation, she then exposed how the Corps used its powerful public relations tools to hide its failures and shift the blame to others. As a result, the Corps learned nothing to improve their processes and continues to perform projects in the absence of meaningful review.

Rosenthal attended board meetings of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority – East during the construction of the new flood post-Katrina protection system. She observed firsthand how design comments provided by the experts on the board were routinely ignored.

I––a past commissioner of the Authority East––can confirm that the many public comment and review meetings that the Corps hosted during the construction of the new system were simply for show. Major decisions were made and locked in stone before anyone outside of the Corps’ sphere of influence could contribute.

The new Metropolitan New Orleans Risk Reduction System is huge, expensive, complex and has delivered a greatly increased level of protection. This was not the result of engineering innovation; it was the result of an unlimited budget. Decisions made during design and construction valued expediency over all other considerations. Someday the system will fail.

Words Whispered in Water is a must read for those engineers who have advanced to top managerial positions. It is a tutorial in the fundamentals of “why” effective oversight and peer review of major projects is vitally important. It is an indictment of the concept that big organizations are always competent and can be relied upon to provide their own quality assessment and control.

​Stephen Vincent Estopinal, P.E., P.L.S. (retired)

Former President Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East

For the full press release issued by The Brylski Company, click here.

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The Lens publishes Op-Ed by Sandy Rosenthal on value of Independent Investigation of Disasters

Founder Sandy Rosenthal and Sally Regenhard of New York City are both ordinary citizens with no special training who shouldered the responsibility of calling for independent investigations of two internationally watched disasters that occurred five years apart.

The New Orleans Lens has published founder Sandy Rosenthal’s opinion editorial about bipartisan legislation that addresses this issue. Here’s the first two paragraphs of piece:

On Oct. 9, U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) announced the introduction of  The Disaster Learning and Life Saving Act of 2020.  This bipartisan legislation would create a new, permanent and independent board to study the underlying causes of disaster-related fatalities and property damage nationwide.The National Disaster Safety Board (NDSB) would make recommendations to all levels of government on how to improve the resiliency of communities across the country.

I was so excited about the proposed legislation that I called Sen. Cassidy’s office the following Monday morning and offered to assist with the bill’s passage. After past disasters, ordinary citizens have had to spend enormous chunks of their lives calling for greater independence and  transparency in disaster investigations….

For the rest of founder Rosenthal’s opinion piece about this important bipartisan legislation, click here to see the entire piece in The Lens.

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NPR’s award-winning John Burnett will interview founder Sandy Rosenthal at Miami Book Fair

Founder Sandy Rosenthal’s new book, Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, Aug 2020) will be featured at the Miami Book Fair this coming Saturday November 21, 2020.

The Miami Book Fair––the largest book event in the United States––will be online this year.

John Burnett, decorated reporter for NPR’s Weekend Edition will interview Rosenthal via Virtual Platform for the Fair.

For more about the interview and the Miami Book Fair, November 15-22, click here.

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Founder Rosenthal’s debut book earns Publishers Weekly review

Publishers Weekly has issued a positive review of Founder Sandy Rosenthal’s new book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Mango, August 2020).

According to BookLife, a Publishers Weekly review is the most highly regarded review in the publishing industry.

Here is a snip from the review.

“Political activist Rosenthal delivers a blow-by-blow account of her fight to hold the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accountable for the flooding of New Orleans… [This book] chronicles her growing suspicions that the media and the U.S. Army were misrepresenting the causes of the flooding…[and] reveals what it takes to hold the powerful to account.”

For the full review, click here. Please consider “liking” and sharing.

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Levees.org founder interviewed by Malik Mingo host of Great Day Louisiana show

Recently, Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal was interviewed by Malik Mingo, host of WWL-TV Channel 4’s “Great Day Louisiana” show.

Rosenthal talked about her new book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina.

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