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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."
From what I remember the Corp has been begging since 1965 for money to make the changes. Every year state and federal funds went to things that were at that time deemed more important.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You, like most people, are overlooking a few facts here. New Orleans used to be well inland and above sea level. A long series of environmentally disastrous policies lowered the water table, removed natural barriers, concentrated storm surges, and generally guaranteed that NO was a disaster waiting to happen.
Unfortunately the government and Army Corps aren't legally liable for severe technical malpractice and rank stupidity. This suit slips through a loophole in the legal immunity the government gave the Corps.
New Orleans could be saved. And the cost of abandoning a major city is immense, far more than building better hurricane defenses. Building better hurricane walls will cost far more than restoring wetlands, allowing the water table to recover, and re-engineering the waterways. Of course, the best/cheapest solution is probably the one least likely to be selected by our broken political process.
And the cheapest solution of all (short-term) is to blame the victim and do nothing. It's worked really well so far.
These very factors are why the smart and able people evacuated, like my family. AND these reasons are why home owner's insurance policies are now being written with much more stringent base flood elevation requirements. The number of homes in the worst hit areas are being raise 4 to 12 feet is impressive, now some of these folks will actually have a chance of not having their homes destroyed if another levee failure happens.
The lessons learned in New Orleans after Katrina are the lessons that folks who have lived along the coast of Florida and elsewhere have known for a while. Hurricanes come and they blow shit over and make water rise up to crazy heights. So if you want your stuff to make it through you need to build your house up about the storm surge height and add some extra strapping to your roof and walls to keep them from blowing away.
Having grown up in Florida, lived in New Orleans for 3 years up to Katrina, and now being back in New Orleans again I have only modest levels of sympathy for the folks who lost everything, seeing as I lost a good deal myself. But I was properly insured, evacuated as advised and knew what to expect from 21 years of hurricanes in Florida. The anger needs to be directed at the incompetent local government that didn't take care of its own. Nagin waited too long to order the evacuation and, instead of using the city's fleets of public and school buses to get people out he had everyone go to the Superdome and people died en masse because of his and other local politician's incompetence. And yet he got re-elected because he and the idiot populi blamed the federal government rather than pointing the finger where it rightfully belonged.
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.
Also many experts (including the Army Corps of Engineers) were saying to replace the NO levees back in the 1960s. New data (1960 data) suggested that the levees could fail if a cat 3 or greater storm hit. new Orleans did not want it done, the construction would get in way of the partying (ie money coming in).
I saw that on the history channel. Why wasn't that footage brought in?
There have also been any number of stories published about the Army Corps of Engineers' analyses of the New Orleans levee system over the past decade. The Corps sent a good number of reports to Congress, predicting most of what actually happened during Katrina. This included pinpointing all the actual points of failure. They submitted proposals for maintenance and enhancements. Congress pretty much turned them all down.
So yes, the Army Corps of Engineering was "responsible", in the obvious sense that they understood the situation quite well, knew what had to be done, and didn't do it. They didn't do it because they were denied the funding.
The Dutch situation is an interesting comparison. A similar storm devastated Holland in 1953, breaching the dikes and flooding most of the area below sea level. Their response was a huge project to improve their system so it wouldn't happen again. An interesting aspect of this was that their engineers got together with Japanese engineers, because Japan is the country with the most people living below sea level, and they had a lot of useful experience with dikes and levees. The result was greatly improved technology in both countries. Japan's situation is even worse: Millions of people live below sea level in the Tokyo-Yokohama metro area, they're in a major earthquake zone, and they have frequent hurricanes (or typhoons if you prefer). If you're into natural disasters, the history of this area makes for some interesting reading.
The US government tends to take a different approach, more like "We're the most advanced society in the world, and we don't have anything to learn from the rest of you turkeys." Their attitude towards New Orleans has also been pretty clear, along the lines of what others have said here: "That's what you get for living in a flood zone." I.e., "Tough luck, suckers."
But the American population keeps voting for them, so what happened must be what most Americans want, right?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.