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1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036
P 202.588.6035 F 202.588.6272 E [email protected]
www.preservationnation.org
August 11, 2011
Ms. Nicole Hobson-MorrisExecutive Director, Louisiana State
Office of Historic Preservation
1051 North Third Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
Dear Ms. Hobson-Morris,
The National Trust for Historic Preservation supports Levees.org
in its efforts to commemorate
the 17th Street Canal and Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC)
levee breach events as theorganization seeks to list the two breach
sites in the National Register of Historic Places. The
flooding of New Orleans that followed Hurricane Katrina remains
one of the most devastatingevents in the history of both New
Orleans and the United States. Approximately 2,000 people
were killed as a result of the flooding that followed the
hurricane, and the levee breach sites
represent tangible locations that can be identified and
acknowledged as part of the story of the
tragedies. These two breaches were especially significant in the
aftermath of the storm bothbecause of the incredible damage that
resulted in many New Orleans neighborhoods and because
of the impact the events had on the nation as a whole.
After the levees breached in New Orleans, the federal government
reexamined the construction
of federally-built levees across the nation, prompting an
improvement of the nationwide levee
system. For example, in 2006, the Army Corps of Engineers began
to develop the National
Levee Database (NLD), which records information pertaining to
the safety of the federal andnon-federal levee system. Part of the
NLD includes an Automated Levee Inspection System,
which continually assesses the integrity of the levee system and
ideally identifies issues before
they can result in a levee breach. As a whole, the database
ultimately serves to construct andmaintain levees more efficiently,
and it includes risk assessment programs to prevent another
disaster like what occurred in New Orleans. The Army Corps of
Engineers also created the
Levee Safety Program, its goal being to assess the integrity and
viability of levees and
recommend courses of action to make sure that levee systems do
not present unacceptable risksto the public, property, and
environment. Development of the program began shortly after the
breaches in New Orleans, and it became fully operational in
November 2007. These programs
affect many more areas than simply the Gulf Coast; levee systems
are in place throughout theUnited States, and they have a
significant presence in the northeast and southwest regions of
the
country. Furthermore, in addition to creating programs to assess
and maintain the federal levee
system, the Corps implemented programs to monitor the efficiency
of its own department. For
example, the Corps established the Interagency Performance
Evaluation Task Force, whichspecifically investigated the failure
of the levee system during Katrina.
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These effects demonstrate the widespread impact that Hurricane
Katrina, the subsequent levee
breaches, and the flooding that followed have had on the
country, elevating the levee breach sitesto a position worthy of
consideration for the Register. According to the evaluation
criteria, a
property may be considered for listing if it is associated with
events that have made a significant
contribution to the broad patterns of our history. The National
Register traditionally holds that
properties that have achieved significance in the past fifty
years, like the levee breach sites, maybe considered eligible for
listing if the sites are of exceptional importance, which
primarily
guards against the listing of properties of passing contemporary
interest and ensures that
sufficient time has passed in order to develop historic
perspective. In addition to a generalconsensus that the levee
breaches were an historic event of enduring national
importance,
hundreds of books have been published in the past five years
that cover the effects of the
breaches from a historical perspective. The continued national
discussion of the flooding ensures
that the event will be remembered as a highly important moment
in the nations political,cultural, and socioeconomic history. The
breach sites are not locations of passing contemporary
interest alone.
Through the response that the levee breaches prompted from the
federal government and theimplementation of these programs
throughout the country, the effects of the breaches
demonstrated their heightened importance and historical impact.
Listing these two locations asofficial historic sites would be a
tangible sign to the people of New Orleans that the damage done
and lives lost from the levee breaches will not be
forgotten.
Sincerely,
Bradley J. Vogel
Ed Majkzak Historic Preservation Fellow
National Trust for Historic Preservation
New Orleans Field Office
923 Tchoupitoulas StreetNew Orleans, LA
[email protected]
(504) 388-8298
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]
