Levees Not War

The third annual Rising Tide conference of Katrina bloggers and activists will convene in New Orleans on the weekend of Aug. 22–24, the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (8/29/05). The main event is Saturday at the Zeitgeist Arts Center at 1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (504-827-5858).

John M. Barry is the keynote speaker on Saturday. Barry, a resident of New Orleans and a recognized authority on the Mississippi River, is the best-selling author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

As usual, there will be a meet ’n’ greet Friday night (TBA), a full day of truly lively panel discussions (Saturday at Zeitgeist), and an optional public service action on Sunday (such as painting a classroom or repairing a house).

Click here for the Rising Tide III blog.

We’ll be there again, as we were last year. (See ‘Making Blogging Sexy’ below.)

More details to come . . .

Today is both Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday. Sounds auspicious to us. May the best candidates win, and may the public have some good news to celebrate. Drink up. Tomorrow it’s all ashes.

From The Isle of Orleans:

The Krewe Perdu and the Skeleton Krewe were scheduled to roll in a combined parade soon after sundown. Everyone in town would be there—parents and children, the shopkeepers and gardeners, carriage drivers, vendors from the French Market, the priest and the cremator, the morbids and junk-eating vagabonds from the ragged edges of town, and all but a bare-bones staff from the restaurants and bars.

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Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security

Times Books, 2006 • $26.00
• paperback $16.00
http://www.disasterthebook.com

We spoke with Christopher Cooper and Robert Block in August 2006 as Times Books was publishing their powerful behind-the-scenes account of the federal government’s failure in Hurricane Katrina.

Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security is a superb, authoritative work that focuses on the federal response to the disaster-a catastrophe within a catastrophe-but also gives an excellent background on the history of FEMA and of the levee system around New Orleans. Cooper and Block know New Orleans (Cooper lived there 10+ years as a Times-Picayune reporter) and they know FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.

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