KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Judge: Corps' negligence caused Katrina flooding
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Associated Press - November 18, 2009 10:04 PM ET
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A federal judge ruled late Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina.
U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with five residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where 1 of the plaintiffs lived.
Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, or about $170,000 each. However, the decision could eventually make the government vulnerable to a much larger payout. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.
Joe Bruno, 1 of the lead plaintiffs lawyer, says the ruling underscored the Army Corps' long history of failure to properly protect the New Orleans region.
The corps referred calls seeking comment to the Justice Department.
The shipping channel - known as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, was dug in the 1960s as a short-cut between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans. The corps has acknowledged the area's flood risk and closed the channel with rocks in July.
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