Over four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a federal judge has ruled in favor of four plaintiffs from the vicinity of the city’s Ninth Ward, finding that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for some of the damage incurred by the storm and awarding each plaintiff over $700,000.
After the past weeks’ disastrous floods, many in the rural Midwest are looking to the government not with gratitude but animosity. Folks in towns that requested levees back in 1993 were left, paradoxically, high and dry by the Army Corps of Engineers, which required small communities to pay more than $1 million for flood barriers.
In what officials are calling a “strategic pause,” work on New Orleans’ levees is at a standstill. The Army Corps of Engineers says it has been delayed by engineering, budget and local-government hurdles, but critics—including some inside the corps—say the agency is simply dragging its feet. (h/t: Crooks and Liars)