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108 Comments
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -0/+48The corpse of engineers would have loved to get the job done but the money wasn't provided to do it. Don't blame the Corpse, it's the politicians fault and by extension the people of the areas fault for not providing the funding.
- carbonetc, on 05/04/2008, -2/+27I thought the Corps knew the levees were a disaster waiting to happen, and it was the people above them who made the decision not to listen?
- keraneuology, on 05/04/2008, -9/+34New Orleans, go suck a lemon. The taxpayers in general should not be forced to give you a windfall just because you were too stupid, lazy, willfully ignorant and apathetic to make sure that your own homes were protected. Did you ever consider voting in a mayor, a governor, state and federal representatives and senators who would take care of the problem beforehand? No, you didn't.
But, because you are absolutely set on proceeding with this lawsuit, I propose that it be allowed if and only if the monies to pay the inevitable settlement/judgments are funded entirely and completely with local tax increases. - adml_shake, on 05/04/2008, -1/+26I thought the Corps of Engineers told them years in advance that this levee wouldn't hold under a storm of Katrina's power. Or at least the state was told by someone, they knew about it and did nothing. Thats who I'd go after. Then use all the cash I got to help fund the work on getting it upgraded.
- Slackdragon, on 05/04/2008, -2/+21Hey kids! Become a civil engineer! It's fun, exciting, and only has a 60%-80% chance of criminal liability leveled against you.
- Amazetbm, on 05/04/2008, -1/+16Yep...they've been trying to get it improved since 1965.
- h3smith, on 05/04/2008, -4/+18Here is what will happen next week
"Congress passes a law giving The Corps of Engineers retroactive immunity from being sued"
Problem solved. - inactive, on 05/04/2008, -6/+19When when will the people of New Orleans stop playing the victim, looking for a handout, and knuckle down to the business of rebuilding their city?
- Murdats, on 05/04/2008, -0/+11wow, thats much better then a doctor.
- Hortnon, on 05/04/2008, -2/+12Do large storms of the scale of Katrina ever hit Northern Europe, though? No idea, but I don't think so...
- fr0mundacheese, on 05/04/2008, -1/+10Great!!! Now we can sue ourselves for even more free money that we'll have to borrow from China to payout. :/
Enough already - steveoco, on 05/04/2008, -1/+10Scapegoat?
- HayString, on 05/04/2008, -1/+10Yeah, lets go and sue the underbudgeted engineers, that'll teach 'em!
- BassMastr, on 05/04/2008, -1/+8The sun comes up daily but I will not provide a link... Just b/c you missed the facts doesn't mean it's someone else's responsilbity to educate you.
- jdepp, on 05/04/2008, -3/+9so wait, the plan is to sue the corps, so that they have to spend money in compensation rather than improving flood defenses? Go figure how that'll pan out in the long term.
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -3/+9I'm amazed that you're still looking for people to blame in the Katrina disaster. I thought that you had put to rest that *****.
- BassMastr, on 05/04/2008, -0/+5There's plenty of proof out there. I just think people react this way when it's a pretty well known fact.
- aladrin, on 05/04/2008, -0/+5Those who will, have. Those who haven't, never will. There will always be some greedy ***** looking for a handout.
- aserer511, on 05/04/2008, -0/+5this sets up a ***** precedent. not all maldesign is purposeful; not al failure can be foreseen
- Amazetbm, on 05/04/2008, -1/+6You're right. More like decades in advance. The Corps has been trying to get substantial improvements to the levee system since Hurricane Betsy hit and flooded New Orleans in 1965. Johnson and Houses approved improvements to it, after wards. But the system was designed to resist a resist a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane. They Corp wanted to make the system more resistant to category 5 hurricanes but the politic ans would listen.
- kelmaster1, on 05/04/2008, -1/+5because Europe spends a lot more money on their public projects than the US does; they have substantially more people per capita and can afford higher quality projects such as better roads, water treatment. The institutional knowledge is definitely there, it's just that people like you that look at it like: "oh we've spent millions of dollars isn't that enough". From my experience is that its at the contractor level that money is wasted. Our productivity in construction in the US is terrible. Safety regulations hamper our ability to do work quickly and cheaply (which I guess is for the best). Plus most workers are pretty lazy (including me :)), you know how much it costs to put a stupid stop sign in an intersection? It costs $8000 on average to install stop signs at an intersection. The technology is there but the money isn't
- zombies187, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4"too stupid, lazy, willfully ignorant and apathetic to make sure that your own homes were protected"
When did buying insurance become stupid lazy ignorant and apathetic? - Harabeck, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4Hurricanes form best over warm water, the currents near Europe keep the water very cold.
- quarck, on 05/04/2008, -2/+6Decide if you want to live in New Orleans? What if those people were BORN there? Would you leave your place of birth just because it's below sea level? Solidarity is a word which apparently some Redditors don't know how to spell and don't know how to handle. In God we trust, all others cash. Riiiiight.....
- kelmaster1, on 05/04/2008, -1/+5I hate how people blame the only system that was trying to prevent this disaster, now they're trying to sue the A.C.E since some people want compensation. What about the insurance companies screwing them? I bet if one year before the hurricane the A.C.E asked for funding for improvements to the system they would have been denied. If there is no present threat politicians don't want to look like their spending lots of money and taxpayers don't want to pay the extra $5.
I work at a Civil Engineering firm, people always want to blame the engineers for causing the disaster and not the ones funding it. Engineering is about working with the tight funds that are available. Politicians escape the blame because they are not the ones directly involved in design and feasibility. A project like this is not cheap, you're trying to hold out the weight of the ocean with man made levees and walls on ground composed of ***** silt, many of you would even know how difficult that is.
We have the technology to build bridges and buildings that could last for a thousand years, it's just that no politician wants to have a huge expenditure on their record, so we build things cheaply and it is good when a project is under budget; bottom line is you get what you pay for. - inactive, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4lmao. Please go to google and type "define:sarcasm"
- MtheoryX, on 05/04/2008, -2/+6Corpse? For real?
- kelmaster1, on 05/04/2008, -0/+4Seriously? are we as a society that stupid to sue the A.C.E? I'm a CE major and this is the most ridiculous thing I've read this week. People always feel like someone should take the blame, not Bush or the insurance companies which screwed the residents, but the organization that was trying to prevent the disaster, the only one trying to prevent the disaster.
I bet if the A.C.E proposed that they needed funding for an improved system (which I bet someone did), I bet it would have been denied over funding and no one would want to pay the extra taxes (which would probably be like an extra $20 per person, max.). People are so goddamn fickle, with this logic it would be better to sue the people who decided to put New Orleans there in the first place. - aladrin, on 05/04/2008, -2/+5Greedy litigious ***** are -always- looking for a way to make a quick buck at the expense of everyone else. I'm amazing that you're amazed.
- robthom, on 05/05/2008, -0/+3Cha-ching. I see 22" gold plated dubs in someones future.
- ChildeRoland420, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3The president doesn't set the budget, you're argument is therefore erroneous.
- noahhoward, on 05/04/2008, -2/+5Wouldn't that change everything that New Orleans is though?
- SuprRoboWolf, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3sue the engineers! the public is sooo smart! wtf was this judge thinking? if we designed every levee to handle the 100 year, 200 year, or PMP storm we would be broke as hell... it's just too expensive... suing the very people who make it their profession to protect and provide for our infrastructure is pointless. take that money and let them build the ***** they wish they could! or else you might just want to go and buy a kayak and wait for round two!
- ggnictee, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3Ok I am not arguing on behalf of either side but just want to get the legal theories out because there seem to be misconceptions.
The engineers themselves are not being blamed. The ACE is unimaginably awesome: everyone knows this. I know members of the core and they can build anything, with anything, anywhere. No one thinks they did a "bad job" here.
The Gov. is being sued for making the decision to build the canal there, now the organization that did the work is the ACE but it's the people in charge who will pay: not the engineers. And if they did something wrong (which the judge didn't say they did; he only said that the canal wasn't a levee and so didn't fall under that immunity rule) and it should go to trial to see if anything was done wrong. So it could still go either way.
Living below sea level may be found to have contributed to the damage and it's entirely possible that the residents will be found contributorily negligent. However, this is not (in almost every court) a bar to recovery. it just lessens it.
So there you are: nothing controversial going on here, really. Just people who think other people (in this case the US Gov.) did something that hurt them. So their suing for damages. This is the definition of tort law. They still have prove that the canal hurt them, that the Gov. should have known it would, that the Gov. had a duty not to, that the Gov. negligently built the canal and that this particular injury was foreseeable. Most tort cases end badly for the plaintiff. - quarck, on 05/04/2008, -3/+6What's the purpose of ChefGroovy being on earth? Starting to be a big pr*ck.
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3Umm--wtf are you talking about? Katrina did major damage to houses hundreds of miles inland (my girlfriend's mother's house was hit in Middle-Mississippi and caused thousands worth of damage).
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -1/+3The ball isn't in my hands anymore. It's up to you to ignore the response or provide contrary information. It won't take you but a few minutes poking around with google to see the reports from the corps regarding the subject and the lack of funding to do something about it. Folks down there pretty much just stuck their heads in the sand, "a cat 4 will never come".
- dafunkmonster, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2Everyone forgets that the Mayor of New Orleans declined to allow the city to be a recipient of special natural disaster preparation funds offered by the Clinton administration.
Sympathy* mine = NULL; - zombies187, on 05/06/2008, -0/+2The rest of Louisiana didn't bitch and riot when their homes.
The rest of Louisiana wasn't shot at for trying to escape. Also, there has been a lot of bitching, and I'm sure it has made it to the news. - inactive, on 05/05/2008, -0/+2Why not just sue god? He did this at the end of the day....
- aladrin, on 05/04/2008, -1/+3The judge said they could be sued, not that the plaintiff would win. Facts like those will be brought to court and get it thrown out, merely wasting taxpayers' money. -sigh-
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -0/+2yeah but in this case.... well i watched probably 10 years ago a show on tv that claimed the flooding of new orleans was going to happen if there was a big enough storm. everyone knew about it. and then katrina comes along- not big enough to do what they knew could happen - and everything goes to *****. the government neglected new orleans before katrina, during katrina, and after the storm was gone.
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -4/+6This is the nature and attitude of many citizens of New Orleans
"It is someone else's fault, give us money"
The rest of Louisiana didn't bitch and riot when their homes were destroyed in the hurricane. Remember just 2-3 months ago welfare leeches rioted when the city wanted to tear down an aging and rotting apartment complex and move them somewhere more habitable for human life.
They never missed a chance to get a disability check but vote in a mayor who would get the job done and protect the city? Neh too much work. - inactive, on 05/04/2008, -3/+5Can I sue the victims of Katrina for not using their money properly? When I did relief work, all they did was buy leather jackets and TV's then went back into their shanty towns to wait for free apartments.
- nusuni, on 05/04/2008, -0/+2I'm sure suing them will help. /sarcasm
- zombies187, on 05/04/2008, -1/+3Haha. But seriously...education would help you sound less stupid.
- newbis, on 05/04/2008, -0/+2He's being sarcastic. Digg him up.
- Slackdragon, on 05/04/2008, -0/+2Than.
Or, then... you could need a doctor secondarily. - zombies187, on 05/04/2008, -0/+1The Spanish?
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