The Big Uneasy Screening Across the Country

Movie is a wake-up call to stopping water projects harming wildlife habitat and public safety

Hurricane Katrina
Inundated areas in New Orleans following breaking of the levees surrounding the city as the result of Hurricane Katrina. Photo: NOAA

Actor/Director Harry Shearer, perhaps best known as the voice behind several Simpsons characters like Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns, is touring the country promoting The Big Uneasy – his new documentary revealing the true story of why New Orleans flooded.  Over the next few weeks, the film is showing in Charleston SC, Duluth MN, Columbus and Cincinnati OH, Louisville KY, Santa Cruz CA, St. Augustine FL, New York City and Los Angeles  — click here for all showtimes.

“The flooding of New Orleans was not a natural disaster, but rather the product of more than four decades of design and construction flaws in a system Congress had ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to build to, ironically, protect New Orleans from serious damage from a hurricane,” says Shearer in a statement about the film.

Shearer continues: “And because taxpayers in more than 100 American cities are being similarly “protected” by levee systems designed and built by the Army Corps (not to mention all the communities around the country battling short-sighted, environmentally-damaging Corps projects), what happened in New Orleans could happen next in Sacramento.”

National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is promoting this documentary to bring attention to federally-subsidized water projects that can and have had devastating impacts on wildlife habitat and public safety.  For every harmful project, NWF is promoting better, cheaper and safer ways to meet our country’s water challenges –- solutions that work with nature, that don’t put the public at risk, and preserve and enhance wildlife habitat.

Ways to get involved:

  • Get out and see The Big Uneasy.
  • Take action by telling Congress that restoring wetlands, rivers and floodplains is the cheapest and safest way to protect communities and solve water challenges at the same time.
  • Visit the Water Protection Network (formerly Corps Reform Network) — a coalition of hundreds of organizations from around the country that NWF coordinates, working to ensure our water projects and policies are environmentally and economically sound.