Thousands of Houston area residents and property owners landed a historic win against the U.S. government on Tuesday when a federal judge found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is liable for damage caused when it used homes and businesses to retain floodwater upstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs during Hurricane Harvey.
The judge ruled the government’s actions led to a violation of civilians’ rights, finding that officials intentionally stored rising floodwaters on private property. He determined — based on complicated data, testimony, evidence and an in-person tour of test properties — that people whose homes and businesses flooded should be permitted to seek compensation for what happened. The residents and business owners successfully made the case that the government knew for decades that the reservoirs would likely not retain floodwaters in a deluge and they did nothing to prevent it.
“We are extraordinarily pleased for the upstream flood victims and honored that the court found that the government was liable for the damage they suffered,” said Daniel Charest, one of the lead lawyers for the group of flood victims. “While we have a lot of work to do for damages this is a massive step toward making these victims whole.”
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Property owners may file suit for six years from the time of the flooding.
Charest said he encourages people in the upstream area who haven’t submitted a claim to do so.
“The window remains open for people the join the litigation and I encourage them to do so to bring justice to the flood victims,” he said.
According to the Trib, there’s a second lawsuit that is still in litigation; this may refer to it, I’m not 100% sure. Be that as it may, this could represent a lot of money to the affected homeowners, which would be a very big deal for them. There’s no indication at this time if this ruling will be appealed, but it’s hard to imagine otherwise.
What a load of sh**. No one made these homeowners buy property in/on an empty lake bed. Did none of them realize, when traveling to and from their homes…up and over a 30′ surrounding, water containment berm… that something may be amiss with the/their local topography ? Maybe they should be suing the Builder or Realtor who failed to disclose…
There are/were two lawsuits – one (referenced above) filed by the people who live(d) in the reservoirs, and another filed by the folks downstream of the reservoirs who flooded when the gates had to be kept open.