8/3/2019 Irvin Mayfield Jr, Cultural Ambassador for the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana since 2003

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Ms. Nicole Hobson-MorrisExecutive Director Louisiana State Office of Historic Preservation1051 North Third StreetBaton Rouge, LA 70802

October 20, 2011

Dear Ms. Hobson-Morris,

As Cultural Ambassador for the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana since 2003, it

is my pleasure to support the nomination of the New Orleans Levee Breach Sites at the 17thStreet and Industrial Canal for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

A lifelong native of New Orleans, my father passed away during the flooding of Katrina. I borewitness the devastating impact the levees failures had on these neighborhoods, my ownneighborhood and the city. I can testify to the still unfinished efforts to recuperate from the daythe levees failed.

Listing these two levee breach sites would be an important avenue for the impacted residentsto preserve and remember their history.

These sites of civil engineering failure also serve as a warning to the nation to ensure leveesystems are designed, built and maintained properly.

Major policy changes regarding levees and floodwalls have been implemented not only inLouisiana, but nationwide. These breach sites as well as over 50 others have prompted thepassage by Congress in 2007 of the first ever National Levee Safety Act, which called for anationwide levee inventory and the establishment of a levee safety program. Also in 2007,Congress passed reform measures to the Army Corps of Engineers.

We hope to soon commemorate this event, an event so significant that people all over theworld watched it on television.

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

Yours truly,

Irvin Mayfield Jr.