Radio humorist and “Simpsons” voice artist Harry Shearer turns serious as the director of a doc umentary that makes a damning case that bungling by the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the levee failures that left Shearer’s part-time residence, New Orleans, open to needless devastation during Hurricane Katrina.
While the development of wetlands — which act as a natural buffer — receives some of the blame, Shearer builds a case that the Army Corps designed and supervised inadequate protection for the Crescent City.
When disaster struck, the documentary says, the powerful corps went to extraordinary lengths to silence, discredit and punish whistleblowers, many of whose allegations were supported by congressional investigators.
Shearer packs in a wealth of information, and warns how coastal areas around the country, including in New York City, could be open to catastrophes during hurricanes unless the corps abandons its decades-old way of doing business. Aside from some brief comic monologues by John Goodman, “The Big Uneasy” is scary stuff indeed.