G. Tracy Mehan III, an attorney and a Mississippi River basin kid just like authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer, penned this excellent review of their book, Mississppi River Tragedies: A Century of Unnatural Disasters.
Tracy was kind enough to send me his review, which will appear in the January-February 2015 issue of The Environmental Forum:
Download Mehan_Mississippi_River_Tragedies
I gave the book a hearty 'thumbs up' last April.
No spoilers from me, just this excerpt:
Nevertheless, we are seeing improvement in national policy. As I have observed before in this space, The Corps is evolving from “flood control” or “flood damage reduction” to “flood risk management.” Katrina and Sandy have moved it and other agencies toward a more re- silient strategy incorporating natural and built systems and risk commu- nication. Congress needs to support them in this policy shift.
Enjoy!
I'll close with the same quote with which I concluded my post:
"The problem of the Mississippi is a fascinating one, but more a problem of your national psychology than of your river. You treat the Mississippi as if it were a river apart, differing utterly from all other streams. It is nothing of the sort." - Sir William Willcocks, British engineering expert, 1914, interview in the New York Times, 1914 (see page 57 of the text)
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