Ivor Van Heerden - A Good And Brave Man

From Crooks and Liars:

This week, special for Crooks and Liars readers, download for free, Palast's film for Democracy Now!, "Big Easy to Big Empty: How the White House Drowned New Orleans."

There's another floater. Four years on, there's another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Ivor van Heerden.

I don't get to use the word "heroic" very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren't for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

"By midnight on Monday the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breached. Nobody."

On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.

What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come, which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands who remained stranded.

"Fifteen hundred people drowned. That's the bottom line," said von Heerden. He shouldn't have told me that. The professor was already in trouble for saying, publicly, that the levees around New Orleans were no good, too short, by 18". They couldn't stand up to a storm like Katrina. He said it months before Katrina hit -- in a call to the White House, and later in the press.
....

So, even before Katrina, even before our interview, the professor was in hot water. Van Heerden was told by LSU officials that his complaints jeopardized funding from the Bush Administration. They tried to gag him. He didn't care: he ripped off the gag and spoke out.

Grandpère and I know Ivor. For years before Katrina, he'd told us that the levees in New Orleans were not safe. He was like an old vinyl stuck in the groove. He was compelled to speak his warnings. He described the exact scenario of a hurricane which could cause the levees to fail. Katrina was that hurricane. He was right, and he was punished for being right and for bravely continuing to speak out, even after the authorities tried to silence him.

From Wiki:

On 9 April 2009 LSU announced it was firing van Heerden, effective the end of the spring semester 2010. Van Heerden said he was not offered any reason. Van Heerden spoke to Harry Shearer on his Le Show radio program on 12 April 2009 and said, "I learned about not being deputy director through the news media. They basically didn't have the guts to tell me that to my face.... They couldn't tell me why and wouldn't tell me why.

Quotes from Ivor:

"What bothers me the most is all the people who've died unnecessarily."

"Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me. Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information."

When it was suggested that tents be prepared. "Their response to me was: 'Americans don't live in tents,' and that was about it."

Thanks to Paul the BB for the link to Crooks and Liars