The flooding which nearly wiped the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, La., off the map after Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Army Corps of Engineers failing to maintain a navigation channel through the city, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
District court judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr. wrote that the Corps’ negligence in failing to maintain the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet canal “was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness.
“For over 40 years, the Corps was aware that the Reach II levee protecting Chalmette and the Lower Ninth Ward was going to be compromised by the continued deterioration of the MRGO . . . The Corps had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions to alleviate this deterioration or rehabilitate this deterioration and failed to do so. Clearly, the expression ‘talk is cheap’ applies here.”
The ruling awarded the six plaintiffs in the case $750,000 in damages, and opens up the possibility of class-action lawsuits, plaintiffs’ attorneys said. Lead attorney Pierce O’Donnell said the government’s liability could come to “billions” of dollars.
“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 attorneys said in a statement. “The government has always had a moral obligation to rebuild New Orleans. This decision makes that obligation a matter of legal responsibility.”
“The judge’s ruling today validates the feelings and beliefs that many citizens have held for four years,” New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement. “Although the ruling is liberating for thousands impacted by the devastation and tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, it is my hope that justice will prevail to help families make their lives whole again.”
The government is expected to appeal the ruling.
Katrina struck New Orleans on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane. By the time it was over, 1,800 people had died and over 300,000 were displaced. The flooding caused by levee breaches destroyed large parts of the city and neighboring St. Bernard Parish.
View previous coverage of Hurricane Katrina here.
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Continually increasing the debt is one of the logical outcomes of Keynesianism, since more government spending is always their answer. It is claimed that government must not stop spending when the economy is so fragile. Government must act. Yet, when times are good, government also increases in size and scope, because we can afford it, it is claimed. There is never a good time to rein in government spending according to Keynesian economists and the proponents of big government.
Jersey Shore? Fuhgeddaboudit. Jersey City is the gem of reality TV. Shore is MTV. Jersey City is FBI. Like, how real is that? Killer videos of pols talking trash and passing cash have been unspooling in federal court in Newark at the trial of Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini. Beldini was busted last summer in an FBI sweep that corralled dozens of Jersey pols. It was one of the largest corruption roundups in Jersey's thick history of roundups.
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Marco
Nov 19, 2009
Congrats to the plaintiffs, but this is a little like ruling that too much unprotected sex leads to babies. Anyone who has spent a little time in New Orleans knows the levees were substandard and the Corps incompetent, its construction program a corrupt boondoggle designed to make a few friendly contractors rich. They also know that Katrina was a relatively minor storm, and that if the “big one” had hit the area, the resulting damage would have been truly catastrophic. Given the history, I don’t expect it, but let’s hope this ruling spurs (at long last) the Feds, the State of Louisiana and the City to adopt and fund a Dutch-type program of storm and flood control that really works.
Ray
Nov 19, 2009
I have yet to figure out why we are rebuilding New Orleans. Certainly anyone living in the 9th ward was or should have been if they were sober well aware of the danger and the principle of assumed risk should apply.
KBCraig
Nov 19, 2009
I seem to recall that the Corps had tried to make upgrades and improvements, but there were some funding…. “irregularities”. Most of the levee money went into politicians’ pockets.
Michael Hampton
Nov 19, 2009
I’m not rebuilding New Orleans. If you are, you could always stop.
Ray
Nov 19, 2009
Actually Michael you most certainly are rebuilding New Orleans, as am I. Billions of our tax money yes BILLIONS are going into doing this.
Ray
Nov 19, 2009
Marco:
I am a bit tired of hearing about the Dutch system in regards to New Orleans. The Dutch do have a successful system, but that system at the most has to fight a foot or so difference between sea level and the land. The vast majority only has to fight high tides, and a great deal of that which protects the highest value assets only has to fight the worst of storm surges.
New Orleans is almost all well below sea level so the system has to fight several feet in most cases double digits worth of feet of difference to sea level. And a great deal of value is in these areas where the land is well below sea level. This vastly different from the Dutch system and so the Dutch system can’t really be applied.
Jim
Nov 19, 2009
I dont think someone who builds a house BELOW SEA LEVEL should get compensation when their property is flooded.
And the article also stated: “The government has always had a moral obligation to rebuild New Orleans. This decision makes that obligation a matter of legal responsibility.”
Why does the government have an obligation to rebuild the city?
chrisbrown
Nov 20, 2009
Jim,
The article restates the Judge’s conclusion that the design and maintenance problems of Mr.Go were the main cause of the flooding. Poorly designed levees and inadequate flood plain provision (standard procedure in Europe)to divert storm surges led to the “natural disaster” that happened after Katrina.
To the person who is tired of hearing about the Dutch system: The reason the Dutch built their massive flood defences was as a reaction to a terrrible flood that happened in the 50s. The lesson was also learned in the 60s in Hamburg after a flood that caused massive damage and loss of life. These are not just “high tides” but tidal surges that bring water two meters or more over the banks of the river channel and break dikes.
Instead of being “tired” you could inform yourself. Another place that has a history of deadly floods is London and the project in London to protect its citizens is the Thames barrior which not only closes the Thames but forces water into basins along the river. Are there any such provisions for New Orleans? Who gave zoning permission for all those houses built along the Lake and private marinas? New Orleans is not just a city but a metropolitan area and there are other adjacent developments that are built up around it preventing the water from flooding previously uninhabited areas.
In the days of Google earth ignorance about geography and land use is no longer excusable.
Chris Brown in Hamburg
Michael Hampton
Nov 20, 2009
Ignorance about geography seems to be quite common among Americans, I’ve noticed in my travels around it.
john franklin
Nov 20, 2009
Where was this lawsuit when New Orleans was in utter ruins, with FEMA twiddling their fat thumbs? I worry that, so late after the actual disaster, these supposed funds will be misused. This video highlights some other views from the media:
Ray
Nov 20, 2009
Jim:
You made my point, and that is why I am tired of hearing about it. The Dutch system was designed to protect against unusual events and to make otherwise usable land safe during those unusual events. The New Orleans system has to full time protect against “events” several times bigger than the unusual events that the Dutch system was invented to protect against. The unusual storm type events that can hit the New Orleans area are even several times worse than this.
It is a little like saying that the Dutch built a system which prevents fires from going through a house long enough for everyone to get to safety, so that means we should have the tax payers build a system that allows people to build in the middle of a blast furnace. These are two different things, and the fact that the Dutch built a successful system to meet their actually fairly limited requirements doesn’t mean we can build one to reliably protect New Orleans from what it does and can face.
To claim that the “Dutch did it so the federal government should do it to” is a red herring.
Ray
Nov 20, 2009
Actually sorry jim it looks like criss borwn wrote what I commented on.
Ray
Nov 20, 2009
Jim:
Yeah I have yet to see any reason we should be rebuilding New Orleans. In fact I think a good argument could be made that if we have a moral duty with regards to this issue it is not to allow New Orleans to be rebuilt at all.
Ray
Nov 21, 2009
John:
OK this was definitely not FEMA’s finest hour. But the fact of the mater is that while in many areas they failed they did not do so in New Orleans.
The federal government is not the primary responder in a disaster unless that disaster is a foreign invasion (or probably an attack by a foreign nation). Even the 9/11/01 attacks would have given the federal government primary authority and responsibility. Hurricanes do not give the federal government such responsibility. Instead it is the local authorities.
In the case of Louisiana which is where New Orleans is located parish administration is responsibility for the citizens of unincorporated areas and in incorporated areas such as New Orleans this is the responsibility of the city administration. This responsibility is to be able to care for their citizens and manage the recovery from any normal routinely occurring event. In the case of a routine event no Federal response is allowed. If a major non routine event occurs then it is still the local authorities’ responsibility. It is their responsibility to if possible evacuate if they can’t keep people safe. It is also their responsibility to declare a disaster and request federal aid. It is then their responsibility to provide survival level aid (Keep everyone sheltered fed and alive) for the first 72 hours after the declaration. Only in the case of war is this the responsibility of the feds. It is then the governor of each state’s responsibility to insure that the local authorities are capable of doing this. Only 72 hours after the federal declaration of a disaster which can only come after a local request for such a declaration is it the federal responsibility to provide survival aid and to assist with rebuilding.
As a matter of trivia any FEMA aid which has been and still is being provided in New Orleans is in fact illegal and a misappropriation of funds. Yeah I can’t imagine anyone making a point of this either??? But Nagin has steadfastly refused to declare a disaster and request the aid so the feds are actually forbidden by the Stanford Act as amended from declaring a disaster for New Orleans and providing aid.
We knew that Katrina was coming. It actually was a whole lot less of a problem and hit with much less force than was expected. But yet Nagin refused to order an evacuation. He was unable to and frankly to level that he was able to was unwilling to unless he could get political favors for doing so to save the people of his city. He should be serving life in Angola Prison for manslaughter for his handling of this disaster, and the Governor should have been convicted of dereliction of duty for allowing him to continue to show such a low respect for the lives of the citizens he was personally responsible for.
Ray
Nov 21, 2009
We forget that Katrina was supposed to possibility hit New Orleans and it was possible it would have been a force 4 storm at the time. In reality it was a force 3 storm and it missed. New Orleans got hit with the effects what would be a direct hit from a low force 2 or a high force 1 storm. So it could have been much worse.
Had it hit directly with a force of a force 4 storm there basically would have been nobody alive. The 9th ward would have been basically a flat mud bog. Even the very small part of New Orleans which is above sea level would have been demolished. The Super Dome with all of the people in it would have been completely obliterated. There would have been almost nobody left alive. Out of the entire population you might have had less than 1000 survivors. And everyone including Negin knew this. But yet he didn’t order an evacuation. Heck he basically didn’t even really allow an evacuation.
Katrina did also wipe out about 85 miles of coastline, and so the coast is now 85 closer to New Orleans. It also eliminated and flattened a lot of the growth between New Orleans and the Gulf. A direct hit from a category 3 storm would have the same effect as a category 4 storm at the time of Katrina. That is a category 3 storm would totally flatten the city if it was a direct hit.
There is in reality no engineering solution we could apply which would change this. New Orleans is next to to the sea and is below sea level. The term for land that is next to the sea and below sea level is sea floor. The Dutch system that everyone says we just need to implement here would not be capable of protecting a location so badly located as New Orleans. And that is today. The shore is also eroding away. It is doing so in part because of the ecology movement in the US. In a way this is a good thing, but it does mean that some time in the next 100 years the shore of the Gulf of Mexico is expected to reach the edge of New Orleans. Within a few decades of that New Orleans will become an island in the Gulf. Islands which are below sea level or not a functional concept.
It is time we realized this and said “we can’t have this, and we won’t spend another dime on supporting it.”
Michael Hampton
Nov 21, 2009
What is this about Ray Nagin not ordering an evacuation? He did.
Ray
Nov 22, 2009
Yeah he order them on Sunday, when the full force of the event was due on Monday and the storm was already effecting transportation. At this point evacuation was not actually possible. Even then he made it voluntarily mandatory, and not really mandatory. Essentially he ordered the evacuation in the middle of the storm not before it. It was a little like a bank robber shooting several people and then putting the safety on his gun and saying that he didn’t mean it.
Bob
Nov 22, 2009
New Orleans is sinkin’ man and I don’t wanna swim.
Or pay for it.
We’ve got stupid cities all over the place, like desert cities and cities in the far North. They’re all places that will die if humans stop spending resources to battle nature.
Don’t live in one of those cities and everything will be fine.
Ray
Nov 22, 2009
Bob:
Many of those cities actually support themselves in one way or other. New Orleans wants everyone else to support them. Then again that is also the mind set of the majority of the people there.
Bob
Nov 23, 2009
In history, New Orleans was a very central and important port city.
Anchorage is basically the same, for the resources of Alaska.
Las Vegas is partytown.
No matter what the city, when the cost to keep it there exceeds the revenue it generates, it will die.
New Orleans started as a port for the whole Mississippi valley. It’s old and well established, but it must be that it is becoming cheaper and more efficient to ship out of other coastal cities. If that was not the case, there would be a lot more effort to rebuild New Orleans and no one would be questioning that effort.
Something that big doesn’t die quick. It has too much history. But as the threat from the ocean gets bigger and bigger, more and more businesses will pull out, less and less money will be spent on the dikes and levies and more and more of the city will be destroyed. Eventually it will be gone.
Don’t expect governments to make the right decisions ahead of time. That never happens. Governments always go with the flow. Things take time. Hundreds of years. Sometimes longer. The earth is littered with the ruins of big cities where nobody lives anymore.
New Orleans is on the way out. All the bickering isn’t important.
Anonymous
Jan 18, 2010
Just want one question answered…WHY didnt Nagin take those 1200 bus’s and help evacuate those ppl? He had plenty of time to get them out. Its not like when a tornado hits out of the blue with little warning. It was at least 3 days if not more that they knew it was going to be a big one. Yet the bus’s just sat there how crazy is that? When asked why they were not used he made the statement…there was no one to drive them…WHAT??…any 16 yr old could have taken a bus and saved half of hose ppl from being stuck in that situation. How stupid is he? I think he wanted to get rid of them. After all they were the poorer ones of his city probably thought it was a good way to reduce payments on the welfare budget. Who knows why he didnt think of them before it hit. Then cried help us…when it was HIM who should have helped his ppl. in the first place. Pathetic that all those ppl had to die that way.
Ray
Jan 18, 2010
I think that the reason that Nagin didn’t order the evacuation when he should ahve and make it truly manditory was that he wanted full control of the people of the city. As soon as he evacuated the city and sent people out of the city, he would have lost full control over them. I think he was a bit like Jim Jones and his not wanting to lose control of his followers.