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U.S. found liable for Hurricane Katrina Flood


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WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- The United States government must pay for some of the devastating Hurricane Katrina flooding damages in New Orleans caused by a faulty canal system hastily installed decades ago, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Judge Susan Braden, of the United States Court of Federal Claims, ruled the Army Corps of Engineers is liable for flooding in the New Orleans area, including the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Braden focused on an Army Corp navigation project known as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, or MR-GO, which essentially funneled flood waters into the parish areas. The canal has since been closed.

In her ruling, Braden admonished the Justice Department for pursuing "a litigation strategy of contesting each and every issue—whether evidentiary or substantive."

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Expect a tax hike near you (or--much worse-- more debt)

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So god acts and I pay.

Did it not occur to people living in a hurricane hole is not a great idea?

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So god acts and I pay.

Did it not occur to people living in a hurricane hole is not a great idea?

I live 3 hours east of N.O. and I can tell you they recieved BILLIONS to get ready for the eventuality of a storm such as Katrina. No one seems to know what happened to all the $$ and no one has been held liable for it's disappearance and NOW the government is going to have to fork even MORE out? Craziness....
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The government found liable and the taxpayers get to pay for it once again. How about sending the guilty to jail instead of taking more of our money and find that money "and then" mentioned.

Have to wonder if no one thought it possible that land at or below sea level would actually flood. Maybe they should move to a safer area before this happens again or assume all risks themselves.

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Sounds like the only one that should be liable here is Louisiana. They received more money than even California and chose how to spend it themselves. They just didn't think a category 4 or 5 hurricane would hit them and didn't think it necessary to be prepared for that now we all have to pay for it.....again.

It turns out Louisiana has gotten more than its fair share of federal dollars for infrastructure but its own lawmakers thought the New Orleans levees were not a priority.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/katrina_federal_money_for_louisiana_went_to_pork_not_levees/

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Hastily installed? Wow...I thought another factor was the Nutria? Maybe a combination of many factors.

Nutria devour the plants that keep river banks from eroding, canal walls from collapsing and endangered wetlands from becoming more endangered-erd. And with nutria populations all but out of control in New Orleans, the damage has been in the millions of dollars.

Source: https://animalreview.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/nutria/

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Hastily installed? Wow...I thought another factor was the Nutria? Maybe a combination of many factors.

Source: https://animalreview...0/05/20/nutria/

On top of poor engineering I've heard that those Federal dollars were used by local politicians as slush funds. I have no evidence of it of course, but it was spoken of a lot around the time of the event. I can remember talking with friends about "the big one" that was going to wash N.O. away back when I was a teen. EVERYBODY knew it was just a matter of time.
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This is from a report made to Homeland Security by a UC Berkeley professor: "Although it is somewhat customary to expect levee failures when overtopping occurs, the performance of many of the levees and floodwalls could have been significantly improved, and some of the failures likely prevented, with relatively inexpensive modifications of the levee and floodwall system details." Go here and enter" Hurricane Katrina levee failure" to find the report: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/. Overtopping means water flowing over the top of the levee. I see no reason why the Feds and the Corps of Army Engineers should not be held liable, along with city officials and other politicians who knew of the problems and did nothing to mitigate them.

It's pretty clear there was some negligence, and pretty clear that the extremely high water was an important factor. Poor people don't have the means to pick up and move, and the disaster response was just that, disastrous, at all levels of government. One of these days the levee system in Sacramento, California, is going to fail for pretty much the same reason, poor maintenance. If it ever rains again in California, that is.

Edited by Beany
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That was a disaster that could've been prevented much like the Fukushima disaster if the sea walls were built stronger. I think that reparations are due to the inhabitants if they were under the impression that they were safe from flooding. Perhaps though, the city should have expanded in another direction so that such a disaster could be entirely avoided.

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That was a disaster that could've been prevented much like the Fukushima disaster if the sea walls were built stronger. I think that reparations are due to the inhabitants if they were under the impression that they were safe from flooding. Perhaps though, the city should have expanded in another direction so that such a disaster could be entirely avoided.

I agree that the people have a reason to be upset but I cannot believe that they didn't suspect that nothing was being done to protect them. Those dollars that the Corps of Engineers should have been using wound up as a slush fund for leaders of the various Parishes. I found an article that explains it somewhat. I got the total numbers wrong, it was only about 100 million, NOT a Billion.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/25/nation/na-levee25

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I agree that the people have a reason to be upset but I cannot believe that they didn't suspect that nothing was being done to protect them. Those dollars that the Corps of Engineers should have been using wound up as a slush fund for leaders of the various Parishes. I found an article that explains it somewhat. I got the total numbers wrong, it was only about 100 million, NOT a Billion.

http://articles.lati...tion/na-levee25

That is unfortunate but no surprise. Politicians often squander resources or use state funds for personal pursuits.

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