Dear Don Hecker,

To say Katrina devastated New Orleans is fundamentally incorrect.

While the storm did precipitate the disaster, it’s misleading to blame the flooding and devastation on Katrina alone.

Three weeks ago, Mike Grunwald of TIME Magazine wrote, “..It took a while, but the prevailing narrative is finally starting to reflect that Katrina was a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster, triggered by shoddy engineering, not an overwhelming hurricane….”

As hurricane season began in 2010, author John McQuaid (Path of Destruction) wrote: “...it’s just wrong to say Katrina “would have been an immense disaster no matter what.” If some engineer, back in the 1990s, under time, budgetary, or political pressures, had not made the mathematical errors that later caused the walls to fall down, most of New Orleans would have been spared...”

To say 'Katrina flooded New Orleans' is fast, easy and wrong. It's proven in three independent studies that the canal floodwalls of 17th Street, London Avenue and Industrial Canal collapsed prematurely in a surge that could have been caused by a much less severe storm.

Furthermore, the defense of "no hurricane, no damage" is a dodge. While superficially correct, it dismisses what really happened on August 29, 2005 when a major city went underwater and over 1,600 people died.

I, the undersigned, ask the New York Times to please refrain from using fast and easy ‘Katrina shorthand.’ Please report the facts about the man-made flood accurately.