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Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
The Story Behind the Real Cause of Hurricane Katrina’s Devastating Impact
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- [00:02]
A
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit Leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All these reasons combined led me to start this show. And it's my hope that through this series, people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Harder. Hurricane Katrina, what do you remember about that hurricane? I remember this was on the news all the time. It was a huge disaster in New Orleans. I still remember images of people stuck on rooftops and it really devastated the city of New Orleans. There's been a lot of the news, of course, about Hurricane Katrina. And if you're younger than I am and you don't remember Hurricane Katrina, you can just look it up real quick. It's a fascinating study now because the reason I mentioned that is the initial story about Hurricane Katrina was just this massive storm caused all this devastation in the city of New Orleans where about 1400 people died. Around $125 billion worth of damage was the estimation. But the more they got looked into it, it wasn't just the stories storm that caused the problem. Actually it was something man made. And so the guest I have on the show today was one of the first ones that discovered what really was behind the full story of what happened during Hurricane Katrina. And so my guest today is Sandy Rosenthal. And Sandy was a New Orleans resident, still is to this day. And she knew something wasn't right when the official story was just that it was the storm itself because the devastation was quite severe. And she just did a little bit of digging. She'll tell you in the show, she's not an engineer, but she did her own digging and she started realizing, oh, something's not quite adding up. And the more she dug, the more she found and the more she found out and the more she started talking to people, actually people started going against her very quickly. So people actually personally came against her and tried to personally discredit her. And so she had a lot of opposition. And in fact, what she will tell you though is the more she dug and the more information she got, because the more she realized, actually as she got those attacks, got that negative feedback, she realized she was onto something. And so sure enough, what she discovers turns out to be now, years later, it's assumed, well, yeah, this is, of course, what happened. But at the time, no one really believed it. In fact, people were dead set against what she was saying. So this particular episode is all about her story, how she began to research this, what she discovered along the way, and then how she persevered through all that opposition and negative attacks on her character, on her family. And then what she started was actually a national movement. So what started as just a personal mission to get to the truth of her beloved city, New Orleans, has led now to a national grassroots movement for similar types of issues. So it's a fascinating conversation. You're going to really enjoy this. And if you are somebody who are passionate about causes that really have impacted you personally, you're going to really resonate with Sandy because that's what initially started her whole process. And now she helps people all over the country, in fact, around the world with the work she's done and the experience she's had. Well, again, so glad you've tuned in today. You'll really enjoy this particular interview. All right, thanks for listening. Now onto the show. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome back, everybody. So glad to have a special guest today, Sandy Rosenthal. And we're going to talk all about Hurricane Katrina. Now for some of my listeners, I know that may be something you'd have to go dig through your history books for because it was a while ago, but there is so much that has happened since then, and I think it's looked to as one of those terrible tragedies that hit the United States in the form of a hurricane that still, still to this day lingers. And not just because of the storm itself, but because of the reason for the dramatic chaos that happened and the traumatic problems that were caused, not just by the storm, but by some other things that my guest discovered. And so that's what we're going to dig into is what really was behind the terrible impact of that storm. Why was it so particularly devastating? So, Sandy, thank you for being on the show today. And I'm excited to dig into this because there's some interesting information that you have for us.
- [04:45]
B
I'm delighted to be here.
- [04:47]
A
A lot of my listeners may not remember, so let's just jog everybody's memory. Just talk a bit about the Hurricane Katrina. What made it particularly devastating and were some of the numbers maybe on the impact of that hurricane.
- [04:59]
B
Well, before we get too far, I want to thank you and all of the people like you who came and helped the people of New Orleans after the storm had passed. Because if it were not for the. The largesse and the heart of volunteers, I don't think we could have recovered. So thank you so much for that.
- [05:19]
A
Yeah, there's a lot of people that get credit for that, for sure. Thanks for saying that.
- [05:23]
B
So the Hurricane Katrina has recently been compared to Hurricane Melissa, which, according to the records, had stronger winds than Hurricane Katrina. Even now, after I've given my donation to the survivors of Hurricane Melissa, I pointed out, however, that if you're talking about New Orleans, which is what most people remember when you talk about Hurricane Katrina, the storm actually passed to the east of New Orleans as a category two. Aha.
- [05:54]
A
Okay.
- [05:55]
B
New Orleans flooded not because of the wind and the water coming out of the sky. New Orleans flooded because the protective levees that were supposed to hold the water back did not and actually failed at half the pressure they were designed to hold. They should have held. Had they held, you and I would never have met. People would associate New Orleans with Mardi Gras and nothing else. But for the next hundred years, New Orleans is going to be associated with a monstrous event that took the lives of almost 1400 people and devastated a city that has yet to recover.
- [06:31]
A
Wow. And we'll get back into some of the details. So you would say it still hasn't fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina?
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B
No, it has not. There are whole regions of the city that are still empty. Wow. Mainly to the east of New Orleans. I mean, the French Quarter didn't flood, so the French Quarter is doing great. St. Charles Avenue. I live a half a block from the Avenue. It looks great. It didn't flood. It's on, what, the high ground. Which half of New Orleans is at or above sea level. But no, the city has not come back yet. Then whatever the city leaders tell you. No, we haven't got a full pre Katrina population back yet.
- [07:11]
A
Interesting. Okay. That is a long time. So. Okay, well, we're going to get back to that. So let's go back to the. What you just said was so powerful because everything I've read and did a little research before this podcast. Yes, you said what you said was correct by. Based on all the data, that it wasn't really the storm just by itself that caused all this devastation. It was these defective levies. So let's talk about that. As I understand it, you were one of the first ones. Maybe the first to really discover the defective levees, talk about the process. How did you find out about this and talk about the process of going into and investigating this situation?
- [07:47]
B
Well, I was certainly one of the first, and the reason I was able to be one of the first is when I evacuated for Hurricane Katrina, me and my whole family packed for three weeks. We had just watched Hurricane Andrew come through and we had seen that in Florida they didn't have power for six weeks, they didn't have phones for six weeks. And so we thought, well, we need to pack for more than a couple of days. And we did. And because of that and the fact that our home didn't flood, I had the luxury, if you want to call it that, that I could read the news, you know, watch tv, listen to the radio, which I did obsessively and quickly I began to see that no, the flooding of New Orleans wasn't rain falling out of the sky or the wind. It was the levees broke. And here's the critical thing that they should have held. Now how did I, a novice, a non engineer, figure that out? Well, the way a lot of people figure things out, they read, they listen, right?
- [08:50]
A
Okay.
- [08:52]
B
It's not that hard. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist for a lot of these things. So just four weeks after the flood, I managed to get, because I was listening to everything, I managed to get a copy, copy of a report that out of Washington D.C. that explained in black and white that the U.S. army Corps of Engineers designs and builds the flood protection and the locals are only in the only involvement in them to maintain them after they're built. Well, I happen to know, because I live here, the levees that broke were brand new. They were not more than five years old. So I put, I did that little bit of math in my head, like I said, that's not rocket science. And I realized this is a Fed. This was federally, this was the Fed's fault. The people who designed it, it was their fault. And of course, keep in mind, these are the people we need help from. After 80% of the city flooded, as a well known statistic by now, and it could have been anywhere from a foot to 10ft.
- [09:53]
A
Unbelievable. Okay, so let's talk about the process. You start discovering this information. Who did you begin to tell this to? And then tell me about the process of how was it received? Because I understand they weren't just like open arms. Yeah, tell us more, Sandy. There's some fight involved and there's some real pushback resistance. Talk about that process.
- [10:11]
B
Well, so I opened my mouth and stated these things that I just said to you. And I was met with, pretty much with laughter, with, like, oh, oh, so you're an engineer all of a sudden. How do you know? And I said, well, look. And I would show people this information that I had. But the big challenge was that most people were busy surviving. Most people were busy trying to figure out, where am I going to live, how am I going to go to work, where are my children going to go to school? So it was difficult to get. To get to rally a crowd of people behind me. Meanwhile, these levees needed to be rebuilt. All 350 miles of levees needed to be rebuilt. And so who do you need? Engineers. So engineers, you know, would like some of that work, you know, is a trough of available work for them to make a living on. So they are not going to open up their mouths and say anything negative about that employer, which would be the same Army Corps of Engineers. The same Army Corps of Engineers responsible for designing and building our flood protection was the same people that the White House said, here you go, here's billions of dollars. You rebuild it. Same people. So engineers were very reluctant to say anything negative about their future employer. And they didn't. And if you did speak out, your engineering company was banned from getting any work or you were fired.
- [11:40]
A
Oh, wow. Okay.
- [11:42]
B
Yes.
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A
So there were serious consequences.
- [11:44]
B
You know what? I didn't need engineers. I just kept. I don't need them to tell me I'm right. I could see that I was right. Oh, and I also could see by. I got pushed back from the Army Corps of Engineers that they started disparaging me. And I thought to myself, if the Army Corps is going after me, a nobody, just a citizen of this. Of this city, I must be onto something. Otherwise why would they bother with me? Why would they trouble themselves with me? They had work to do, like rebuild these levees. So that told me I was on the right. If I wasn't exactly right, I was heading in the right direction. So I just kept on talking. And still am.
- [12:23]
A
And still talking. Right. Okay. So then you. You obviously, you. You found out there was something here. You start digging a little bit more, you get a lot of opposite opposition, a lot of pushback. How did you continue to persevere? How did you work around that? Tell me about the. The process of still getting the research done, getting the word out, even though you were receiving so much opposition to.
- [12:43]
B
This for the first two years? The media pretty much ignored me. Major media ignored Me, a local media. The. The. The popular local media ignored me. That included the New Orleans Picayune, WWL tv. They ignored me. Some of the media did, however, pay attention to me. But when they really started listening was about 18 months after the disaster. I caught the Army Corps of Engineers sitting at their desks and typing disparaging, ugly remarks about me online. I caught them using. Keep in mind, your listeners need to remember this was 2007. We don't have the same technology. We had different technology then than we do now. But back then, using tools available to any amateur, I was able to figure out, using IP addresses, which is the computer version of a caller id, I was able to figure out it was the Army Corps of Engineers sitting at their computers disparaging me, my family, and my supporters. So I picked up the phone and called WWL tv, who had paid no attention to me for two years, and gave them an exclusive in this story. And they took it. They took it. So now the media has to cover. Even though I must have seemed like a whack job for a long time to them, now I had something. And the way to get the attention of the media is asking valid question. Make a reasonable point. Back it up with the data. And I had the data. I had proof that the Army Corps is sitting at their desks disparaging us. And their job is to protect us. So you stick with it. The moral is stick with it.
- [14:32]
A
Yes. Okay. So that then got you on the map at least a little bit. Tell me about the process from going to that, you know, the first opportunity to kind of share your story, and then it kind of took off. It took like a life of its own. Talk about that process. What did that look like?
- [14:45]
B
Sure. Another event happened that right about the same time we had created a cute little spoof about the Army Corps cozy relationship with those engineers. Remember I said no, engineers were saying anything negative because they wanted work. So we created a spoof about that subject, and they threatened us with lawsuit. Oh, wow. So that got the attention of the media, that this little nonprofit that got threatened with lawsuit. And so we stood up to them. We said, go ahead, sue us. And they ended up having to back down. The Army Corps had to back down. So these things got my little nonprofit more attention, more attention, more supporters. Hey, maybe they're onto something. And then after that, it seemed to take off. Probably one of the best things that helped was a lot of the people who'd lost their homes had to move out of the city. So the Levit. Org nonprofit Actually had a lot of support from all over the country. It's called Diaspora. Diaspora. It's the people that had to move out. And so these created pockets of support throughout the country. So levitt.org actually right from the beginning was a national organization largely because of that diaspora.
- [16:03]
A
Right, okay. Yeah. So yeah, you started levies.org and then was there a moment where it went from, like, this is an important story too. This is the actual narrative now that's, that's true. Based on facts and data. When did that switch? What was the moment that really turned for you?
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B
Well, I would say the, the answer to that question is when we caught the attention of CBS National.
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A
Okay, okay. How many years was that after the first start? When you first started?
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B
Not long. I would say that was at most three years. At most three years. So that was, you know, this is a 20 year long story. So about three years after the, after the catastrophe, we caught the attention of CBS national. And the reason our work caught our attention is we had figured out that the Army Corps of Engineers was in trouble. And so what did they do with all their money that those, some of those billions of dollars that the White House sent? They hired a PR firm to improve their public image.
- [17:04]
A
Oh, wow.
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B
And that's another one of the things we caught them doing. If you look, if you look, you'll be surprised at what you could find. So again, I followed that little formula. Who am I going to complain to? The media? So I sent it out to all of our supporters, which by then was numbering about 20,000 people, and said, well, how do you like that? The Army Corps of engineers is spending $5 million improving their public image. When it seems to me what they should be doing with their money, which a taxpayer, a taxpayers pay for this is they should be building flood protection for us. And so there you go. I've asked a reasonable question, I've made a valid point, and I backed it up with the data which I had, which I posted online. Of course, that PR company very quickly took all that information off their website. Too late. We had something called screen grabs. Even though in 2000 you could do a screen grab like you can today. So even though it's taken off the net, you've got a picture of it. Okay, so, and, and, and these, these very embarrassing things that the Army Corps did, none of those things were illegal. But if they're caught, it's very embarrassing. And as a note to your listeners, one of the most valuable things a company has is their image. And if that gets damaged in some cases, it's incalculably damaging and they never can get the previous image back. And I can give you lots of examples, but I'm sure you readers can think of some. I'm sure your listeners can think of some right off the bat.
- [18:41]
A
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Okay, so then, so this starts, the ball starts rolling. You're getting national news now. Window, kind of maybe fast forward a little bit because I'm not sure the time frame in there. Window. When did it finally get to the point where people beyond just the Army Corps of Engineers, but most, maybe people from Washington, a senator, someone in the House finally said, hey, we need to do an investigation of this. We need to get to the bottom. It sounds like there's something that we don't know that we should know that really caused the devastation. Tell me about that process.
- [19:14]
B
Sure. In the early years, we pushed very hard for an independent investigation. I hadn't told you listeners yet, but the White House asked the Army Corps to do the investig. These are the people responsible for the system. Why our senators and our mayor and our governor didn't speak up at the time, I don't know. And then I don't know why they didn't speak up. And of course, we, the people were too busy, as I mentioned, already trying to survive. So nobody screamed. My organization screamed. We tried to get that independent organization which after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, there was an independent investigation. After the 911 Twin Tower disaster, independent investigation. There was no independent investigation for the levee failure during Hurricane Katrina. However, we did reach a point where the media corrected the story and stopped blaming a storm for the disaster and instead started blaming those responsible, the Army Corps. And that shining moment came in March of 2015 when the. The very, very first investigators on the ground did a study and they came to a wrong conclusion. And they concluded that the Army Corps might have been in charge, but that they were hamstrung by local. That means me, not me personally, but that means us, the New Orleans hamstring them. And that was the belief for about 10 years. Well, in 2015, 10 years, a decade after the disaster, the people who wrote that study actually retracted it and said, we made a mistake. We were looking at the information available at the time. We came to a wrong conclusion. New information's come out since then, and you need to know the real facts. And that study was printed in a journal called the Water. Excuse me. It was called Water Policy, the official journal of the World Water Council. And a story about that article was in The New York Times. Now, I know all of your listeners might not think the New York Times is the shining beacon of truth, and I know that. However, I will point out that everyone in this country knows what's printed in the New York Times, okay? After that day, all the major media, including the BBC and the Guardian and the Daily Mail, all of them stopped blaming the storm. They all started saying, the Army Corps of Engineers levies failed. It took a decade.
- [21:54]
A
Wow.
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B
But it was 10 years. And it's worth it because the survivors of this catastrophe deserve the truth. Deserve for everyone to know the truth.
- [22:01]
A
Right, Right. Wow. Okay, so this is so interesting. Now I want to get to kind of go into the mechanics and, you know, what kept you going and the process, because as I think about this nonprofit leadership podcast, most of our listeners are social impact leaders. They're, you know, on a staff of a certain nonprofit or social impact organization. So you basically kind of took this investigation as like, a personal kind of, you know, you just did this on your own. In other words, it was a personal mission. How did you turn that experience and really turn this into a national grassroots movement? And then I know you're starting to do other issues now. There's other causes you're about. So talk about that. What. What was the transition from just you, a person who had a heart, because you live in New Orleans, you had a heart of getting to the truth, but now it's moved to a much bigger than that. Talk about that process that.
- [22:49]
B
Actually, I have a happy answer to that. It was actually a lot easier than I expected it would be.
- [22:55]
A
Okay.
- [22:55]
B
What we did is we opened up chapters in other states where they have as high or almost higher chance of serious flooding as New Orleans and Louisiana. So let me point out that almost two thirds of the American population lives in counties protected by levies. Okay. So wherever you live, you probably are protected by Army Corps federal levies. Okay. And in. In California, in the Sacramento area, there were more people in danger of levee failure and flooding than Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi combined. Okay. Washington, D.C. is protected by levees. Chicago is largely protected by levees. So what we did is in Florida as well. So, of course, there's a lot of lakes in Florida. So what? A lot. So what we did is we set up chapters in those states. And that. Which was not terribly difficult. We remember the diaspora I mentioned. So there are people from New Orleans and all these states. It wasn't difficult to find people who would serve as a chapter director in their state. And what this did is it turned levy.org almost overnight into a national organization which was very, very well received and respected by the people of this country and by the media in this country. So that was it. I mean, was it done overnight? No, but it took about a year to find the people, interview the people. You had to make sure you didn't put in a. I don't mean to be ugly, but you know, you really need to make sure you've got the right person for that job because they'll be speaking for levy.org if someone were to call them, for example. But I think that was really, really critically important and not as nowhere near as difficult as it sounds.
- [24:58]
A
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofit's donations? Well, look no further than DonorBox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations, and simplifies giving for your supporters. With DonorBox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations, and send auto receipts. And the best part, there are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is www.donorbox.org. Well, again, a lot of my listeners, they have big hearts for really important causes, you know, whether that be food or housing insecurity or you name it. And obviously you had a big passion that led to all this movement and impact that you eventually had. Talk about how you turned that personal kind of drivenness into advocacy is really that aspect of taking it from one local situation to now. Let's advocate for a large group of people or for a cause that impacts the whole nation, Maybe talk about that, how you've gotten into more advocacy work and the different things you've been involved with, how you got personal, maybe that passion led you into it. And then what are some of the things you're seeing down the pike that are literally some big issues that you feel like now you're got a new focus now of what you want to kind of fight for, if you will.
- [26:31]
B
Well, one of the things I worked on from the very beginning was making our disaster our woe, this devastation we're going through. And the heartache is to try to help people understand it. And it's hard to do. At first I thought it was really hard to do. Imagine, let's say your house gets struck by lightning and you're not home and it burned down and you lose everything. But imagine every house in your neighborhood struck by lightning, or every house in town Got struck by lightning and every church and every post office and every grocery store and every restaurant struck by lightning and all went. It wasn't just you, it's everybody. So you couldn't go move in with your mother or your sister or your grandmother because they were struck by lightning too. So I had to make it appreciable to other people. But even more so, I had to look for a connection. And what we did for levies.org is we asked, we put in a request under the Freedom of Information Act. We wanted to know how many counties are protected by levies. And that's how we got that information. Boy, were we surprised to find out it's almost two thirds of the nation is protected by levy.
- [27:49]
A
Wow.
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B
It's really pretty shocking. And we're talking 13,201 million people.
- [27:56]
A
Wow.
- [27:57]
B
And that was, I think that that's old census data. Okay. So once you find that data and you have it in your hand and you can prove it, you didn't make it up, you know, it gets remarkably easy to create empathy with other people and get them to sit up and go, well, maybe I should be paying attention to this and maybe I should listen to what they're saying and at least have some, show some understanding of what we're going through. So that's what you want to do. You want to look for. So the answer for your listeners, look for commonalities. Look for something they can appreciate as well because they're in the same boat as you are. That too many people thought, oh, New Orleans was all of. New Orleans was 20ft below sea level and just full of corrupt people. And goodness knows what they were thinking at the time because we were busy, as I said, we were busy trying to survive. But look for that commonality. And I think also one of your questions is what are we working on now? Or do I have that right? Yes. So we felt very strongly that with education, disasters like this could be prevented. And this obviously should never have happened. I mean, as horrific as Hurricane Melissa is and still is, we're still seeing the impacts of Hurricane Melissa. The scope of that disaster hasn't come close to what happened 20 years ago in terms of the destruction and death. So this shouldn't have happened. How do we prevent this? Well, I found out fairly recently, maybe two years ago, that I always assumed all these years that engineering students receive instruction on failures and, and learn about lessons learned from failures. I just assumed it. Well, come to find out, if not the only way an engineering student might be learning about. Let's say, for example, the Katrina disaster or the Tacoma bridge disaster. Everybody remembers the bridge that was wobbling and wobbling for days before it finally collapsed. Lots of disasters like this on the book. The only way is if a professor happened to personally take a personal interest in it, they're not required to do it. So levies.org we made it our mission two years ago that we want for all 200 engineering schools in the country. Every student working toward their bachelor's in engineering must be required to receive instruction in engineering failures and lessons learned. And if the school doesn't provide it, they can lose their accreditation.
- [30:35]
A
Oh, wow, that's fascinating.
- [30:38]
B
The goal.
- [30:38]
A
There you go. All right. So you also, along the way, wrote a book called Words Whispered in Water. Talk about, you know, what would you like listeners to get out of that book? I know it's a lot out of your experience and your advocacy. Yeah. What would you say is some of the main takeaways that you'd like people who to pick up that book and read and to take away from it?
- [30:56]
B
I wrote the book because on the advice of a close friend advisor, and he called me up in 2013 and said, Sandy, you really need to write a book because no one could tell the story but you. And this was my response. Okay, I'm not a writer. I really didn't want to do it, but he had a good point. So I set to work, and it took me years to write the book, but I did finish and it was published in 2020. And what I want people to take away from that book is, hey, if I could do what I did, I'm not. Wasn't an engineer, no political experience, no advocacy experience, and are born profoundly deaf. There's few of your listeners may hear it in my speech, but I'm born profoundly deaf, which means I learned to speak improperly and I had to take speech therapy to learn to talk like, like, hopefully like the rest of us. So. But again, if I could do this, anybody can do anything they set their mind to. Hmm.
- [32:04]
A
What a great story and a great lesson. And thank you for sharing a bit of that. And I encourage my listeners. Yeah. To check out your book again. It's called Words Whispered in Water. I'll put a link in the show notes. So, yeah, let's move on to. You've mentioned this earlier, but the role of education. So important talk about what role does education play in preventing future disasters and how have you gone about to really expand that and broaden that across all different states and countries?
- [32:32]
B
So I did Mention earlier that we want for all those engineering students coming out of those schools to get instruction, but we shouldn't just rely on everybody else. We should have some self reliance going on here too. Ask any New Orleanian what they're doing in early August and they'll all tell you they've been working on getting the amount of food in their freezer down to very little because they might have to evacuate, they might have to leave. And if they're gone and the electricity goes off, everything in that freezer is kaput and the freezer might get ruined if everything in there defrosts. So any New Orleanian has a storm plan or has a hurricane plan. And that amount of self reliance is really important because you have to do some of the things yourself. Yes, we need a fema, need a Federal Emergency Management act agency, but we also have to rely on ourselves as well. And so we have those lists ready and we don't wait till the last minute to start stocking up. Because if you do, what if you're at work that when you get word that the storm's coming and you can't get to the store, so you do this in advance. And so that is education means. Yes, education also means reading the news, listening to the news, or getting the news however you get it. And you can't live in a bubble. You really do have to be paying attention. And so often the savior, if it isn't volunteers such as yourself who came and helped us out after Katrina, so often the savior's is the next door neighbor, not the cavalry, because often by the time they get there, it's too late.
- [34:21]
A
Okay, maybe a last question. I think about others that are listening to this show and maybe they have a cause they're really passionate about and committed to. What advice would you have for people that are trying to mobilize a community support for a particular mission that's really, really close to their heart? What advice would you give when it comes to all the work you've done, the advocacy that you've done? How can they get started? How can they keep going? How do they hang in there when they have the kind of opposition that you went through? What advice would you have?
- [34:48]
B
This is my favorite. First of all, I will point out that the job is going to take a little longer than you thought it would and it's going to be a little harder than you thought it would. Okay? But it's all going to be worth it. And the two pieces of advice that I have are. One, welcome criticism. Embrace Criticism, because when people criticize you, they're inadvertently giving you useful information that you either need or don't know you need yet until you get it. And it's. And it doesn't cost a dime.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, good point. That's a really good point.
- [35:23]
B
So listen to all the criticism you can get. You know, ask for it. Ask for criticism, because that's going to make you, that's going to hone your techniques. It's going to make, it's going to make your message better. That's going to work for you. And then the other piece of advice that I have is there's some people out there just purely bullies. They're just, they're just, they're just mean. And by criticizing you, yeah, they may help you by giving you information you didn't need. But as for that, for these people who may criticize you and tell you you're wrong, they're really no different than the third grade bully on the playground. They may be bigger than you, but they're not smarter. They're only bigger. And by being bigger, that makes them arrogant. And arrogant people make mistakes. Remember we caught the Army Corps of Engineers sitting at their computers harassing me. They thought they were being so clever and thought they were hiding behind their computers and no one could see them. Well, they put themselves out there where I could see them with their IP address. It's like calling someone when caller ID first came out, realizing they exist. But arrogant people make mistakes. And when they do, they're big. They're big mistakes. So fear not. Press forward. You know in your heart you're right, you feel it and don't. I guess the last little piece of advice, you didn't ask me for three, but I'm going to give you three. You don't have to know all the answers when you first start out. Now, there may be some things you don't know yet or don't understand yet. It'll come. It'll come with time. People will help you with that. But all you have to do is keep asking the questions.
- [37:13]
A
This has been good. Well, Sandy, thank you so much for being on the show today. For people that want to get to know a little bit more about, you know, about your cause, levies.org where would you send them?
- [37:22]
B
What we tried to do, me and my son who helped me found levy.org tried to. We always kept it simple. So if you want to know about levy.org if you want to know about my podcast, if you want to know about the book, if you want to know about the flooded house museum that we have. We can all be found by going to one thing. That's my name. Sandyrosenthal.net.net.net okay.
- [37:47]
A
Sandyrosenthal.net There you go. Check it out. I'll put in the show notes as well so people can just click on that. That'll make it easy with Sandy. Again, thanks so much for sharing your insights and what an impressive show of perseverance and research to dig in to really get to the bottom of that. I'm impressed. That's not easy to do, particularly when you have such opposition. So thank you for sharing your story and then for my listeners, thanks as always. Great having you here. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Hey friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to like subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the nonprofit leadership podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website, nonprofit leadershippodcast.org well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox, DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.