WDSU: Federal Judge Holds Army Corps Responsible for Katrina Damage

Court Awards Plaintiffs Nearly $720,000 In Compensation

WDSU.com

New Orleans - A federal judge has held the Army Corps of Engineers liable for some of the damage stemming from Hurricane Katrina.

The lawsuit involves WDSU anchor Norman Robinson, along with four other plaintiffs seeking damages from the federal government.

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a U.S. District Court judge has awarded nearly $720,000 in total compensation to four of the plaintiffs. Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. ruled against the claim by Norman and Monica Robinson.

Duval ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina. He ruled in favor of residents who alleged 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.

The wide-ranging ruling was released Wednesday night. It's more than 150 pages long, and attorneys spent much of the night analyzing it.

Click here to read the lawsuit in PDF format.

Many in the area have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a man-made disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

While still evaluating the 156-page opinion, the MRGO Litigation Group issued the following statement: "We are pleased with Judge Duval's ruling in this historic case. This decision is one step on the long road to recovery for the people of New Orleans. It has been proven in a court of law that the drowning of New Orleans was not a natural disaster, but a preventable man-made travesty. The government has always had a moral obligation to rebuild New Orleans. This decision makes that obligation a matter of legal responsibility."

Tanya Smith, one of the plaintiffs, said the case was not so much about compensation but making the corps accountable. She said Katrina's devastation "could possibly have been avoided if something had been done" by the corps to fix the MRGO, a shipping channel dug in the 1960s as a shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. The channel has since been closed.

Source: http://www.wdsu.com/news/21658334/detail.html