Words Whispered in Water

Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane Katrina (Natural Disaster, New Orleans Flood, Government Corruption)

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Pub Date 10 Aug 2020 | Archive Date 15 Feb 2021

Description

Words Whispered in Water is a rare story about how a tiny woman prevailed against a mammoth federal agency and won. With corporations getting ever larger –- and even able to influence the outcome of presidential elections –- the power of a single individual might seem lost. Words Whispered in Water proves that the power of a single individual is alive and well.

When steel flood-walls built with inherent engineering mistakes broke in New Orleans, the responsible party, the Army Corps of Engineers, went into full-time damage control mode. The federal agency – with cooperation from Big Media and Big Business – spent millions bamboozling the American public. The Army Corps blamed the resulting flood devastation and death on Mother Nature and the low moral character of the city’s residents. But in the chaotic aftermath, Sandy Rosenthal uncovered evidence that the Army Corps had made egregious design mistakes in their steel floodwalls fifteen years before they buckled and failed, causing hundreds of deaths in 2005! With no special training, she exposed the scandal and eventually changed the narrative from “natural disaster” to “federal floodwall failure.” How this miracle of public truth-telling was accomplished is the subject of Words Whispered in Water.

Everyone relies on the Army Corps of Engineers whether they know it or not. Fifty-five percent of the American population lives in counties protected by floodwalls. The Army Corps’ budget for 2019 is $4.8 billion for civil projects. A pie chart of annual federal spending in the United States shows a sliver big enough to see with the naked eye. The Army Corps employs 37,000 people, and there are Army Corps-built structures in every state of the nation. In fact, many of them are ongoing disasters including the Sacramento Central Valley region of California, the sugar-fertilizer soaked South Florida Everglades and more recently, sacred tribal lands and lakes in North Dakota invaded by a pipeline, stopped by the Obama administration and more recently greenlighted by a Trump order.

Words Whispered in Water highlights the importance of exposing the bad behavior of giant corporations and bureaucracies whose unsavory activities affect millions of people, because once bad behavior is exposed, there is noticeably less fraud and better behavior on the part of an organization. Just as Facebook and Wells Fargo are owning up to their bad behavior by flooding the airwaves with advertising promising to do better, Rosenthal’s vigilance regarding the Army Corps has the potential to produce a similar pay-off that could hundreds of thousands of lives in the future. Rosenthal’s story is crucial reading for potential citizen activists looking who desire to make a difference. Additionally, Words Whispered in Water provides lessons for politicians and bureaucrats from City Hall, to Congress, to the almost faceless Army Corps. In this era of lies and deception at every level in public life, the author shows how to use persuasiveness, persistence and free tools like the Freedom of Information Act, videos and social media to prevail.

Finally, Words Whispered in Water offers a valuable warning as to what is likely to happen in this time of eroding coastlines, coupled with America’s history of trying to control – instead of coexist – with water.

Words Whispered in Water is a rare story about how a tiny woman prevailed against a mammoth federal agency and won. With corporations getting ever larger –- and even able to influence the outcome of...


Advance Praise

“Sandy Rosenthal is a courageous and indefatigable warrior for justice.”— Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Zeitoun

“Everyone alive at the time remembers the live-on-TV horror of Hurricane Katrina and the deadly drowning of a great city, New Orleans. The ‘who, what, and why’ of the catastrophe was thereafter carefully PR managed to protect the interests of the powerful, especially the notorious Army Corps of Engineers, shifting the blame to Nature and the city itself. It took a tireless, driven citizen movement to set the record right, confronting the failures of scientists and journalists as well as the devious smears, attacks and propaganda of the powerful. Sandy Rosenthal led their fight and tells the story here. The truth of Hurricane Katrina has been terribly incomplete but is now unspun and revealed in this heroic book, Words Whispered in Water.”

John Stauber, author of Toxic Sludge is Good for You!

“As I traveled through New Orleans in early January of 2006, there were no birds, no dogs, no children, no streetlights, no mail...but there were, I discovered as I drove around the haunted cityscape, yard signs in neighborhoods—seemingly everywhere—that said ‘Hold the Corps Accountable.’ They were, I soon learned, the work of Sandy Rosenthal, whose newly constructed Levees.org suspected, before two university investigations made it uncomfortably clear, that ‘Katrina’ was no natural disaster. Sandy is bright, dedicated, and fearless—a bad combination if you're an Army Corps of Engineers PR person.

“As those university investigations' results became known, at least to locals, Sandy turned her efforts to doing what would seem normal in other disasters but was ridiculously challenging locally—erecting monuments at key points of system failure to commemorate those who lost their homes, their livelihoods, or their lives through the mis- and mal-feasance of this mysterious federal super-agency. She has fought for her city, and her community, harder than most soldiers fight in war. And, with a new Corps-built system starting to reveal its own problems, she's not through fighting yet.” —Harry Shearer, actor, producer, and voice of The Simpsons

“An inspiring memoir and gripping detective story, Words Whispered in Water investigates the cause of the 2005 New Orleans flood in all of its muddied complexity. In this era of climate breakdown and failing infrastructure, Rosenthal's book is more than a history lesson. It’s a master class in citizen advocacy and a rousing call to action.”Robert Verchick, former EPA official in the Obama administration and author of Facing Catastrophe

“Sandy Rosenthal is a courageous and indefatigable warrior for justice.”— Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Zeitoun

“Everyone alive at the time remembers the...


Marketing Plan

Author Sandy Rosenthal will be appearing at various virtual events nationwide coinciding with 2020's hurricane season, and the 15th anniversary or Hurricane Katrina. She will also be a featured speaker at Miami Book Fair 2020 in November. 

Author Sandy Rosenthal will be appearing at various virtual events nationwide coinciding with 2020's hurricane season, and the 15th anniversary or Hurricane Katrina. She will also be a featured...


Available Editions

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ISBN 9781642503272
PRICE $19.95 (USD)

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