Judge: Corps’ negligence caused Katrina flooding

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Five residents and a business have won a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers over flood damages from Hurricane Katrina.

A federal judge in New Orleans has ruled that the Army Corps’ shoddy oversight of a navigation channel contributed to massive flooding of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. The channel in question is the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shipping channel dug in the 1960s as a short-cut between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

Judge Stanwood Duval awarded the plaintiffs about $170,000 each. But the decision could eventually make the government vulnerable to a much larger payout. More than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities now have a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.