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Federal Judge Says Corps of Engineers Liable For Katrina Damage
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that a federal judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers — and thus the US government — is liable for a big chunk of the damage caused when hurricane Katrina pushed ashore on August 29, 2005 by failing to stop the natural widening of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet canal (aka Mr. Go) causing it to eventually bump up against the shore of Lake Borgne, on the city's east side. 'It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness,' wrote US District Court Judge Stanwood Duval. Judge Duval said he believed it was the failure to shore up the outlet that 'doomed the channel to grow to two to three times its design width' allowing waves on Lake Borgne to enter the Mr. Go and travel into the east side of the city, battering the levees to a degree to which they were not designed. 'One of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the US' was both predictable and preventable, testified veteran Louisiana geologist Sherwood Gagliano, a former Corps consultant."
Seriously; this look to government to protect one's self has gone too far.
This is why you need to listen to the guys with hard hats and pocket protectors.
They aren't the only necessary ingredients of a functional society; but engineers(in concert with scientists) are your best hope of pulling nature's teeth before it can bite you in the ass.
Pay no attention to the reports from residents that heard the levies being blown to protect the rich neighborhoods.
I've read in several disparate sources that the Corps repeatedly informed the powers-that-be in Louisiana and New Orleans that the levies were insufficient but were regularly ignored.
While Katarina was ongoing, there were plenty of independent news outlets running video footage of professionals warning what would happen. It made the Bush mantra of "No one could have predicted..." out to be just as much of a joke as the "No one could have predicted..." 9-11 version. (And then the Aug 6th PDB title was released.)
Those are just poor people who won't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like my grandfather did so I wouldn't have to.
Ticket status: Closed: asdesigned, wontfix.
Do any of you RTFA? Cheap levees had nothing to do with this portion of the ruling. They didn't maintain a large man-made canal. They let it expand and erode into the existing natural barrier. This applied to the St. Bernard and some lower 9th areas. This had nothing to do with the 17th street or other canals that were topped and then eroded. To the dimwit that said people that live below sea level, FYI the area is not below sea level. It is outside the levee and the MRGO and the corp's failure to maintain it as originally planned is what made this a problem. This would be similar to if a plane crashed into an area that was near a runway and then telling the people that they bear part of the responsibility.
At the beginning of the trial this summer, US District Court Judge Stanwood Duval asked, "You all know what this is about: ... What did the Corps know, when did it know it, and when should it have known?"
He answered in a 158-page ruling late Wednesday.
"It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness," he wrote.
He awarded 4 people (presumably New Orleans landowners) about $750,000 apiece for a lawsuit that's been going on since 2006. I don't know any more specifics about this case, but that seems like a small price to pay compared to the millions/billions that were spent immediately after the storm.
What I don't understand is why natural disasters should have been mitigated by technology. There are certain areas of the country that are susceptible to certain disasters. They wouldn't blame a construction firm when a tornado rips apart a building in the Midwest. They wouldn't blame the fire department when fires are engulfing a city. Why point extra blame towards the Corps of Engineers when a very powerful storm hits a susceptible city with the full force of its power? I don't buy the argument that we should be expected to spend the money up-front to guard against storms that big.
"Federal Judge Says Corps of Engineers Liable For Katrina Damage"
Patently untrue, the levees collapsed because they were built cheaply, in such a way that they couldn't withstand a catagory three Hurricane ...
I think you need to go back and read that page a little more clearly. He talks about Zionist movements and mentions several Zionist conspiracy theories. It's quite hard to take a site like that even a little bit serious.
What's with the bullshit redirect disguised as a Google page? If you're going to push a badly written, badly designed and blatantly agenda-pushing website on us at least have the balls to link directly to it.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
"by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent.
Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late"
In my opinion, it wasn't just myopia and shortsightedness, but nearsightedness as well!
When my parents bought a home, the elevation was not on the contract or even sale presentation. You could only see if you were going to search for special map with precise elevation lines. So how many people living there do REALLY realize they live on ground below sea level ? Well *NOW* maybe a lot. but how many did back then ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"What's with the bullshit redirect disguised as a Google page? If you're going to push a badly written, badly designed and blatantly agenda-pushing website on us at least have the balls to link directly to it"
I did a Google search and that's what came up. Down at the bottom it does refer to shootouts with Israeli contractors, so I guess its one of those black propaganda type of articles designed to dilute the veracity of facts by burying them under a tonn of bullshit. At first sight a well laid out piece. Make you wonder who would spend their time in constructing such a piece ????
But the veracity of my post still stands. Bush cut funds to the levee project - to pay for the Iraq war.
after the cows got killed by wolves.
Sounds like the farmer's fault, not the barn makers.
It's the people of New Orleans fault, not the President's, or Governor's or Army's fault.
People need to look in the mirror more.
What, if anything in that linked to article isn't true ?
who is responsible else how will the lawyers get paid?
So, the Corp is responsible. Big deal. Fix the problem. I do not see how this entitles anyone to sue the government for money. Whats next? Suing the government for permitting tobacco sales? Its not like the government doesn't know they are bad for you.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Those are just poor people who won't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like my grandfather did so I wouldn't have to
I wonder if your grandfather would feel so smug.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
He talks about Zionist movements and mentions several Zionist conspiracy theories. It's quite hard to take a site like that even a little bit serious.
They are not conspiracy theories, they are Christian Science theories.
How does an article about a legal ruling regarding negligence over a flood constitute "your rights online?!?"
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Fuck the poor, the weak and the helpless!
They've nobody and nothing to blame but themselves!
That's the spirit.
Silly ass-O.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Make you wonder who would spend their time in constructing such a piece ????
Someone with far too much time on their hands that might have been better spent doing an HTML or website design course...
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
They are partly correct: This catastrophes in the history was both predictable and preventable. They built a city right next to the ocean, bellow sea level, in a major hurricane zone, on a sinking delta, and in the flood plain of one of the world's largest rivers. It is quite easy to predict that any such city will be flooded, and being a major city it was a major disaster. And it was preventable: they could have built the city somewhere else, and limited the use of the delta area to only stuff that had to be there.
-WolvesOfTheNight
Me? I live 65 metres above sea level and my backyard drops two metres to a drainage ditch. The prospect of flooding does not alarm me. But some of the most agriculturally productive parts of our area (and the Fens, and the Netherlands) are potentially liable to flooding, and in 30 years some of them may be abandoned to the sea. This will result in large economic loss. The decision on when and what to abandon will have to be taken on ruthless economic grounds. The decision in the US seems to have been taken on the grounds that (a) isn't this war expensive? and (b) why are we paying to protect poor people who vote Democrat? People do have a right to expect better of the Governments that they elect and pay taxes to.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I've seen this spamming bot a lot here, are Slashdot staff getting a cut of that website's revenue? If so, I want in.
'This was not-so-widely reported during the Katrina situation, because people were too busy jumping on the "Katrina is Bush's Fault!" bandwagon. Funding was funneled away from the levees and put into other projects'
If Bush cut funding, how isn't this Bushs fault ?
'That isn't to say that the ACE isn't at fault either; some of the levees seem to have been poorly built, but I am not convinced this is due to malicious intent'
Yes, the construction was flimsey, because of lack of funds.
davecb5620@gmail.com
The same Army Core of Engineers recommended for years the levies be reinforced. There is no reason to think doing so would not have avoided the flooding problems. The people there failed to make the investment. Its the local government there that is responsible and nobody else.
What we have here is a professional organization said the situation was unsafe and recommended a fix. The customer did not elect to implement the fix. Then when things went wrong the customer is trying to blame that organization for not having recommended something else.
Its total crap.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
If this was such a major concern for the state of Louisiana......................why didn't they just use state money? This is a classic case of fingerpointing.
Yea, it sure looked like a real report..does that mean the stuff about the levies didn't happen?
Build your house on a fire ant hill, don't complain when you find fire ants in the house.
Build your house below sea level next to the ocean, don't complain when you find an ocean in your house.
They have had plenty of years to relocate the city inland to a safer area. They got what was coming to them. Anyone who bought property there had to know the risk. It was no secret that it was a flood zone. Same goes for people who decide to live next to a nuclear power plant, a volcano or an area notorious for tornados.The risk is obvious. Deciding to continue to live in these areas is the persons own fault. It is not like they are chained to their homes.There is no excuse, they could have walked away.
But they would be responsible, for living below cloud level.
We're already spending significant sums of taxpayer money to not only keep those anti-flood measures kept up, but also to continue preventing the Mississippi River from going through its natural course changes (Wikipedia).
I realize that there's a huge economic consideration in the whole mess of the river changing course, but shouldn't we be spending effort and money on finding a long term solution, rather than fighting a losing battle against a force of nature we can only hold back for so long and giving money to people who already received plenty of tax money and charity?
. . . this is Slashdot. George W. Bush is near-sacred around here.
You not only didn't RTFA, you didn't read any of the myriad news stories about it yesterday. Your link is firewalled here, it is goatse?
Free Martian Whores!
Now Corps would have a case against the city and the state and let it transfer the liability to the city.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
For decades New Orleans residents haven't given a damn about massive corruption in their city; it used to be the murder capital of the US. Funny how corruption results in stolen property (and general incompetence.) Funny how that becomes an issue when you have critical infrastructure.
You reap what you sow.
Please help metamoderate.
failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness
-1 Redundant
Too bad we can't moderate court judgments. But then someone else would M2 and who knows what that would lead to.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
What we have here is a professional organization said the situation was unsafe and recommended a fix. The customer did not elect to implement the fix. Then when things went wrong the customer is trying to blame that organization for not having recommended something else.
Its total crap.
Not total. The Corp's own study said they had problems:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/02/MNGK5J6CA61.DTL
. . . the day before the Federal Government did. See the second paragraph in this link.
Also, see this link for how they requested federal assistance and how the Feds botched it up.
insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness
60% of the population of the Netherlands live below sea level. Are they all stupid too?
YES YES YES YES YES YES
60% of the population of the Netherlands live below sea level. Are they all stupid too?
Arguably yes if they expect to be bailed out (pun intended) from a flood by those smart enough to live above sea level. If someone chooses to live with a known and avoidable danger that's that person's prerogative but their bad choice of dwelling location is their responsibility, not mine. Buy insurance and have a emergency plan or move somewhere safer. Katrina was a tragedy but the tragedy of it was that much of the worst damage was avoidable by the very people it affected. The problems were known ahead of time and ignored for years by the people and local governments who lived along the gulf coast. I don't really blame the federal government despite their incompetent response, I blame the people that made a conscious choice to live in harm's way and did little to nothing to protect themselves. Some didn't have a choice (children for instance) but many did and many chose to ignore the danger for many years.
I don't think the Corps of Engineers is blameless but I can make an analogy (yes another one) that this is rather like hiring a contractor to build your house. The contractor might have done a shit job but if you knew about it and did nothing for decades it no longer is the contractor's fault - it becomes your fault.
It also makes the entire state of Louisiana look stupid for not declaring an emergency
Only on Slashdot would a lie like this get modded up. I guess if something is convenient for your political agenda, who cares about pesky things like the truth?
any town on the MS river, CA for earthquakes, FL for hurricanes, the midwest for drought and tornadoes, the north for snow storms, etc. Are you trying to show how little you know about why New Orleans flooded? It was not Katrina, but the failure of the levees. And they failed because they were not maintained, and the reason they were nto maintianed is becasue Bush stole the money to pay for tax breaks for his rich friends.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Living below sea level is stupid. However, living below sea level behind a levee designed specifically to make that area habitable, which has been doing exactly that for years and years now is considerably less stupid.
The levees in question were known to be inadequate and yet nothing was done. So it goes straight back into the stupid column in my opinion. It's one thing if you know about the danger and do all you can to protect yourself. It's quite another if you just lackadaisically decide to get to it later or maybe never. There apparently were even plans that had been drawn up but were never implemented for various reasons. It seems pretty clear as well from the response that many if not most people living there had never seriously considered emergency and evacuation procedures or proper levels of insurance. If you can't get insurance, maybe that's a clue you shouldn't be living in that location?
I'm just waiting for Miami to get hit by a major hurricane. If you think New Orleans was a mess wait till South Florida gets trashed.
Does "individual responsibility" require near-Cartesian levels of doubt in every possible piece of infrastructure?
Why not? I have car insurance, home insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance, liability insurance, medical insurance as well as plans to deal with most of the reasonably foreseeable events connected with bad stuff that could happen in my life. You should too and I think that is entirely reasonable. We have infrastructure to help but it has limits. One good sized flu pandemic or natural disaster and it's not hard for our emergency infrastructure to get overwhelmed. At that point you are on your own so you damn well better prepare.
Ya, Cause GWB told the Louisiana government how to spend the federal money sent to them. Oh, and what about Mr. Clinton? Did he stand up for 8 years demanding the NO levees be reinforced to handle a Cat5? It's not the president's responsibility to tell states how to spend money. It's congress critters that do that.
He said "insouciance".
MRGO is only one reason the city flooded. MRGO should have never been built in the first place. BUT the reason New Orleans failed is because the levees were not maintained. Levees age, they erode, the sink under their own weight. They are made of dirt and are not monoliths. The sad truth is that Bush destroyed New Orleans. In a nutshell, he stole the money slated to fix the levees in three years' budgets, in spite of warnings of the catastrophe if the levees gave way. There was (still is) a program that was created to rebuilds the levees (SELA), and Bush defunded it. Work on the levees slowed or stopped, and the weakened levees broke. FACTS:: February 2001 Bush's first budget proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year. Bush proposed half of what his own officials said was necessary for the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)--a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage. Bush did this to offset the tax break he gave to the top 1% of rich Americans. The first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law-a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities. February 2002 Bush provided just $5 million for maintaining and upgrading critical hurricane protection levees in New Orleans--one fifth of what government experts and Republican elected officials in Louisiana told the administration was needed. Bush knew SELA needed $80 million to keep working, but the he only proposed providing a quarter of that. February 2004 The SELA project sought $100 million to repair the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain levees, but Bush offered only $16.5 million. The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain--but the White House cut that to $3.9 million. Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain & the Industrial Canal, which were supposed to be filled by 2004, were not filled because of budget shortfalls. Repair work on the levees, including the ones that failed, was stopped due to lack of funds.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
hat's the irony, actually. Normally, the same people who are big on "personal responsibility" are also big on "accountability". Why would they be opposed to the Army Corps of Engineers being "accountable" for fucking up?
Ohh the ACoE should be accountable but they aren't the folks primarily responsible. Responsibility should fall primarily on the people who lived near those levees without ever taking action to make damn sure they were strong enough and properly designed. The ACoE might have done a bad job but since the people who lived there KNEW about the problems and still did nothing for DECADES, the blame falls mostly on them. If someone does a bad job building my house and I don't complain about it for years after the fact that becomes my fault once enough time has passed.
One can legitimately assert that this bit of engineering shouldn't have been their job; but it has been for some decades now and they've never been absolved of it. Why would anybody not want them to be accountable for doing their job properly?
Of course they should but money and resources and attention has to be allocated to the problem. The ACoE doesn't control that. Local, State and sometimes Federal governments control that. Those institutions are answerable to the people who chose to live in harms way and those people did not consider it sufficiently important to be bothered. They knowingly took the risk and so they should bear the bulk of the consequences. The ACoE is responsible to some degree but they are the least culpable party involved in my opinion.
New Orleans is heavily Catholic and God could have steered Katrina away. As God's representative on earth, we should sue Pope Benedict.
Mmm. I think if you check the New Orleans flood map, you'll find that the hardest hit districts were the ones with the lowest social mobility. If you're born there, and can't afford to move anywhere else, then should you be damned for your "decision" to be poor?
Very, very few people in the US are so poor they cannot move elsewhere. Yes it's harder for those without means but it's not remotely impossible. I grew up in a family that was poor as church mice when I was little. We could have moved if we felt the need. Saying you can't move because you are poor is demonstrably untrue most of the time. Nobody promises you it will be easy but it most definitely is possible.
Perhaps the State has no responsibility to act for the benefit of its citizens, but if not, then what is its purpose?
Of course its job it to act for the benefit of the citizens but ONLY for those things the citizens can't do themselves. There is hardly an able bodied or able minded adult person in this country who could not pick up and move to another location within the US if they set their mind to it. They don't need the government's help to do that in most cases.
There are some projects that can only be undertaken by large resources: the reclamation of the Netherlands and the East Anglian Fens from the sea being successful examples.
True enough but it is also true that just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done. Some of the development of Southern Louisiana was simply a bad idea. They build because they could, not because they should and they did a shoddy job of it in the process. In my opinion the cities of Las Vegas and Phoenix are more examples of abominable use of resources that should be better put to use elsewhere. They're just a bad idea run amok.
Now, what about all the people who have roots in the area from before the hydrological works started?
I don't frankly care where your family is from. Nobody living today was alive before the development of New Orleans began. Obviously some development is more recent but people chose to live with that. Building below sea level when you have a choice not to do so is pretty obviously stupid to me. If the reclaimed land is needed for economic purposes fine but there is no excuse for people living there just because they can.
And what of the people who moved into the area on the basis of misrepresentation that the system was safe?
There was no misrepresentation here. The levee system was known to be inadequate to the expected demands that indeed were eventually placed on it.
The federal government runs the trains-amtrak- and shut them down well before they could have evacuated a lot more people. The federal government are the ones who denied out of NOLA private parties in huge numbers who convoyed down with boats to help evacuate the access they needed to get in there and do their volunteer work. Stopped them cold at a roadblock and told them to turn around, go back, while people where clinging to rooftops, etc. The federal government used helos and other transport to ship in those disgusting blackwater mercenaries instead of using those helos to evac people. And they were warned repeatedly over the years that the levees and dams were inadequate for larger than a level 3 hurricane. Completely ignored it.
As to where people live, there are natural hazards EVERYWHERE. You are going to force people out of earthquake country, or tornado country, etc, or how about wildfires, icestorms, etc?
And so on, the feds have a huge hand in this disaster.
Umm , Yeah, I'll go there , give you my card number and let you drain my bank account while I receive absolutely nothing.
This guy is a fraud.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Why all that straw?
Army Engineers are paid by the army, not by the Louisiana state.
And nobody says they had to withstand a Cat 5. All "Cat 3+" statements until you brought that little piece of hay out.
And didn't shrub rejoice in the fact that he'd been reelected strongly and was one of the longest serving presidents? And in all that time, he didn't demand it be upgraded either.
Ok this shows how little people know about the Army's responsibility here. First off they are charged with making sure a waterway is "Navigable" not that your house is not going to be swamped. The waterway was navigable before the storm, during the storm and after the storm. Had the water been completely drained off into another geological feature and not been "navigable" after the storm they would have been at fault. This Ruling is pure bullshit, it's designed to force insurance companies to cough up the dough for these ppl's houses. If someone can be found to be at fault then they have to pay and then can sue that party for the damages. What better party to sue for damages than the one with the most money, the federal government. Lesson learned if you live in hole and it rains, expect to be flooded or drowned. To expect ANY structure made by men to withstand and act of god is total stupidity. It is amazing to me that most ppl cannot make the abundantly clear connection between our way of life and the natural world. Do you think that our economy coming apart at the same time the ecology is breaking down is a mere coincidence? Do you ppl really think your separate from the natural world? This storm was a clear sign that our entire system here in the US is completely broken and needs to be torn all the way down and rebuilt from scratch. The trillions the federal government has spent in bailouts is a clear sign that our leaders have lost all touch with reality and is a sure sign that the American ppl are doomed to repeat tragedies like this. The status quo has changed the reason why is because grandpa is dead and the upcoming generation doesn't even know how to be conservative with resources. Katrina was a baby storm ppl, the next one might flood the Mississippi from the coast to the Missouri. No amount of money can stop the “storms” coming in this world; what is happening is a complete and utter change in our way of life.
They probably didn't even know they were below sea level.
I don't buy that bit of excuse making for a second. If they didn't know they damn well should have known. It's not as if it was a secret.
What is your town's elevation? Hell, Cahokia IL is smack in the middle of the midwest and it's only 400 feet above sea level.
About 630ft in my case. If I get flooded animals will be lining up in twos.
And a lot of people, especially the poor, don't have much of a choice where they live.
Only the children and the handicapped. I've been poor myself but even poor people can move in the US. It isn't as easy as for those with means but its entirely possible. Even poor people in the US aren't generally so poor they can't relocate. It might be hard but most definitely have a choice.
But the disaster in N.O. was caused by the Corps of Engineer's incompetence.
Since the Corps of Engineers has had plans for DECADES to fix the problems and was never given the funds to make it happen, exactly how is that the ACoE's fault? Yes they bear some responsibility but the majority of the fault lies with the people who lived there and chose not to take responsibility themselves. If you live near a danger and do not constantly prod your government to mitigate that danger then the fault lies mostly with you. If the government won't fix it then move elsewhere. It's not that complicated.
It's scary; I have friends in the St Louis area. I just saw in the paper yesterday that the levees in Alton, IL are in bad shape. I hope the one in Caholia is good, I have friends there. When the hundred year flood hit in the nineties, the Mississippi was at the top of the levee there.
I lived in St Louis for several years. The people that live in the Mississippi and Missouri flood plain are pretty well aware of the dangers. If you live near a big river like that it is basically impossible to contain the biggest floods. There have been 3 very large floods in the last hundred years in the Saint Louis area and you can be sure that there will be another in the next 50-100 years. I have friends with property right on the Mississippi. They are insured as much as possible and they have evacuation procedures in place for their property. They are as prepared as they can be. Only a moron would assume that fellow citizens should subsidize your risk taking activities.
As a culture, we've decided to feel guilty about the Katrina disaster. Many of the people of New Orleans belive the disaster was man made, AND that the people of New Orleans have little to no responsibility for it. Because we feel guilty, we hang our head in shame and nod, then give them money, afirming their belief. One day we'll be providing special programs for the decendants of the victims of Katrina.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
It isn't that they built something that they knew wasn't up to the task of handling a category 3 storm. (Because at least in that case you'd have some info.) They built the levees that they thought were good enough to handle a category 3 storm and only found out they were wrong when one hit New Orleans.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
News at 11.
It's not about the design, it's about the maintenance.
Maintenance that was done in the Clinton era but not in the Bush one when the Iraq war needed funding to ensure Haliburton had some pork to nosh on.
"It's been 4hours, 11 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
Shitty fuckbugger. How slow are they expecting cowboys to be???
If they want to open the floodgates against the Corp of Engineers, I'd suggest following the Mississippi river northwards from the delta and into its many feeder rivers. Nothing to do with hurricanes in this case, but almost as bad. There are plenty of places throughout the midwest and Ohio valley that flood about every five to ten years like clockwork. Yet apparently the Corp of Engineers had no qualms in letting people build houses in these locations. Anyone with a pittiance of common sense would think this land would be restricted to easements or set aside under wetland status. But noooo... Anyhow I'm sure there's a past history involving the Corp and real estate developer money going to certain people higer up that caused this problem. And insurance companies and stupid people that don't move after redoing drywall and furnishings and flushing money away on a regular basis with the natural flooding cycle aren't really helping either.
Just saying this as a cynical midwestern person, maybe somebody would make note.
While they are said to be liable, who will pay the restitution? Not the engineers that is for sure, they work for the government and has sovereign immunity which means you never have to say you are sorry. You tax paying people will be coerced to pay this...
Is there anyone out there who cares more about the truth than conservative politics?
Anyone?
In this case it would be like me contracting you to inspect my roof and recommend repairs, then blaming you for leaks even though I threw your recommendations in the garbage.
Believe it or not the EPA tried to put a stop to cigarettes.
That's right, the fracking E P A !
Regulating cigarette smoke as a Class A carcinogen.
I commend them for their cleverness, but corruption doth reach even into our own judiciary, which slapped the EPA down in a hurry.
The background of Judge Stanwood Duval may explain his decision.
For all those who feel it necessary to spout Randian edicts about the folly of parasites ignoring the engineering superman, please ensure that you have read the entire document: Investigation of the Performance of the New Orleans Flood Protection Systems in Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005 (July 31, 2006)(pdf), the one led by UC Berkley
-(random quote): A large number of engineering errors and poor judgements contributed to these three catastrophic design failures, as detailed in Chapter 8. In addition, a number of these same problems appear to be somewhat pervasive, and call into question the integrity and reliability of other sections of the flood protection system that did not fail during this event. Indeed, additional levee and floodwall sections appear to have been potentially heading towards failure when they were “saved” by the occurrence of the three large breaches (which rapidly drew down the canal water levels and thus reduced the loading on nearby levee and floodwall sections.)
The Corps may very well have used poor judgment that led to the disaster in New Orleans. But the law suit will not stand. In essence the Corps of Engineers is an extension of government and the publics control of funding through taxes limits both the quality and number of projects that the Corps can undertake. After the decades of budget cutting, which were a part of numerous republican presidential platforms, the failure of a project here and there could be easily foreseen. In essence the people of the United States are suing themselves. Yet the people were the ones who wanted all of the tax relief that led to this type of catastrophe. Higher courts will dump this law suit and claim sovereignty as an excuse.
The nature of this problem persists in that current policies are to simply build levies that will stand up to class III storms in New Orleans. It is a fact that class IV and class V storms will certainly hit New Orleans. Massive death and destruction will occur due to this ongoing policy.
The levee that broke was known to be defective by all parties involved and was the subject of a 1993 lawsuit against the now bankrupt Pittman Construction. It was not just known, but part of the public record, that this levee was defective more than 12 years prior to Katrina. The COE may bear some portion of liablity but changes and upgrades have been ignored by the city, state, and citizens. Local levee boards spent their funding on parks and casinos. I might add that nearly all of those levee boards have now been disbanded. All parties involved bear a portion of responsibilty and the COE owns the smallest portion. Let's put the city and state on trial for what they knew and when they knew it.
we need to turn to the wisdom of Milli Vanilli.
Blame it on the rain. It was falling. Falling.
In other stunning news, Nashville is a city still waiting to die.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's not a federal problem. Period. Why should my tax money be taken to pay for levees in a rich tourist town?
The GWB problem was purely about the incompetence at FEMA.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Yes, the Corps of Engineers is liable for Katrina damage but so is the city and others. The city is responsible for allowing construction and builders are responsible for building on land that's at sea level if not below it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The Army Corps of Engineers failed in their responsibilities.
Can you get it through your head the Corp of Engineers asked congress for the money but congress refused? It's one thing to blame the military when the military is in control, and it's something else when instead of having the power they have to beg for money.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Why should my tax money be taken to pay for levees in a rich tourist town?
I used to think the same way but the Mississippi River is interstate and is or can be a major national distribution link. So, I hold the federal government responsible to keep the river navigable. State and most especially local government is responsible for allowing construction though.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I thought it was legally impossible to win a case or even to sue Army Core of Engineers. I saw it in the HBO documentary on Katrina - "When the Levees Broke".
Well thank heavens we got THAT out of the way. Everything will be alright now that we know who's to BLAME. Maybe if we'd spent whatever it cost to come to this decision to help people out who were affected...
This city was murdered by its own politicians, the City Hall Gang, the "Laughing Murderers of City Hall".When the plans for those shallow, worthless floodwalls along the drainage canals were first proposed by the Corps of Engineers, the veteran engineers of the Sewage & Water Board, who knew the soil conditions, objected.Then mayor "Slimy Sidney" Barthelemy PURGED them, replacing them with flunkies.These stooges later dredged the canals in such a way as to deliberately weaken the floodwalls further.Even the Corps got nervous now, and wanted to build gates at the mouths of the canals which could be closed to prevent flooding. It was the Sewage & Water Board(IE. The City Hall Gang) that REFUSED to allow this to be done. Why pass up the graft from a federal project. Because the politicians knew that far richer pickings would come their way if the city was flooded by the next hurricane, GRAFT from the BILLIONS in Federal "disaster relief",which has in fact virtually all gone into the pockets of the POLITICIANS, not their VICTIMS.