Walter Maestri

Who is Walter Maestri?

Walter S. Maestri III has been the director of emergency management for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana—which contains several suburbs of New Orleans—since 1996. After taking the position, Maestri became one of many academics and officials that promoted the idea that much of the region could become an uninhabitable floodscape following a major hurricane.

In a 2002 interview for NOW with Bill Moyers and American RadioWorks, Maestri discussed a possible worst-case scenario:

"A couple of days ago we actually had an exercise where we brought a fictitious Category Five hurricane [...] into the metropolitan area. Well, when the exercise was completed it was evident that we were going to lose a lot of people. We changed the name of the storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-B—kiss your ass goodbye—because anybody who was here as that Category Five storm came across was gone."

Maestri obtained a Ph.D. from the College of Education and Psychology at The University of Southern Mississippi. From 1970 to 1985, he held several academic jobs: President of Holy Cross College, where he had earlier served as Professor of Sociology, and Dean of Loyola University New Orleans. Since that time, Maestri has worked in various local government positions.