This Man Saved his Town From Deadly Floodwaters. So Why Did the Us Government Try to Stop Him?
September 04, 2024 at 10:45PMWindell Curole oversaw a levee built in Lafourche parish, Louisiana that protected his community from the floodwaters of Hurricane Ida in 2021. Typically, the US federal government’s army corps of engineers dictates specifications for such monumental undertakings. Curole built his levee 18-ft high—bypassing the corps’s insistence on a wider levee reaching 13 feet in height. The big wrinkle? Ida brought floodwaters reaching 17 ft. Had Curole followed the corps’s requirements, his community would have been devastated. For The Guardian, Katie Thornton profiles Curole and reports on the aftermath of his decision.
Standing atop the levee, Curole directed my eyes to the unprotected side. Amid the lacerated marsh that surrounds the district, my eyes adjusted to make out things that shouldn’t have been there: semi-truck trailers, 5,000-gallon cisterns, washing machines – all remnants from recent storms, sucked out from nearly abandoned towns, and deposited here when the water receded. But inside, I saw well-kept homes, mowed lawns, barking dogs, playing children and downtowns open for business. From atop the protective hill, Curole nodded first toward town, and then to the littered marsh: “The only thing keeping this from looking like this,” he said, “is this,” gesturing to the levee beneath us.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/09/04/this-man-saved-his-town-from-deadly-floodwaters-so-why-did-the-us-government-try-to-stop-him/
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