8/3/2019 Angele Givens, President Vista Park Neighborhood Association

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Ms. Nicole Hobson-Morris

Executive Director

Louisiana State Office of Historic Preservation

1051 North Third Street

Baton Rouge, LA 70802

November 11, 2011

Dear Ms. Hobson-Morris,

As President of the Vista Park Neighborhood Association, it is my pleasure to support

the nomination of the New Orleans Levee Breach Sites at the 17th Street and Industrial

Canal for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

I bore witness to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the devastating impact the levees

failures had on the neighborhoods and the city. I can testify to the still unfinishedefforts to recuperate from that fateful day the levees failed.

Listing these two levee breach sites would be an important avenue for the impacted

residents to preserve and remember their history.

These sites of civil engineering failure also serve as a warning to the nation to ensure

levee systems are designed, built and maintained properly.

Major policy changes regarding levees and floodwalls have been implemented not only

in Louisiana, but throughout the nation. After Katrina and the levee failures, Corps of

Engineers officials rewrote the standards for building earthen levees, including thematerials to be used, floodwalls and other structures, with the design revisions now

being used in new levees nationwide.

The nominated breach sites as well as over 50 others that day have also resulted in the

passage of the first ever National Levee Safety Act which called for a nationwide levee

inventory and the establishment of a levee safety program to make sure levees protect

the citizens they are supposed to protect.

If you have any questions regarding this letter, you are welcome to contact me at your

convenience.

Yours truly,

Angele Givens

President

Vista Park Neighborhood Association