Katrina: The Jury Answers

Major Melinda Lewis of the US Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t want to be a whistleblower, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she has little choice. She can see, with a trained engineer’s eye, how and why New Orleans’s levees failed. Just as when she first brought her concerns to Washington, DC, however, she’s again ignored and ridiculed.

Determined to prove political maneuvering and incompetency caused New Orleans to flood, Lewis joins forces with environmental groups, and together they demand that the Bush administration, FEMA, and the Army Corps of Engineers explain their actions before, during, and after the hurricane. Their challenge leads to a legal showdown in New Orleans, in the federal courtroom of the formidable Judge Martin.

While Lewis battles to prove government agencies knew the levees were incapable of handling a Category 3 hurricane, her environmental allies and the defense argue the case for and against climate change in a heated courtroom showdown, with both sides fielding experts in environmental sciences and engineering.

When the jury answers, Lewis will be vindicated, discredited, or completely overshadowed by the polarizing effects of the climate change debate. Her fate lies in the hands of her peers.