NEW ORLEANS -- Testimony in the lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers began with revelations from scientists that the Corps was warned about the dangers the channel would pose to metro area before it was dredged in the 1960s.
The lawsuit is seen as vindication for those who've been pleading for the Corps to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet for years. It's hope for those who lost everything in the storm to get help rebuilding, even four years after the storm.
Rocky and Carlo's home-style restaurant started baking bell peppers in the 1960s. Cook Nana Gioe was right there with them.
In 2005, the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina destroyed the restaurant.
"Lost all of my property. I've been having nice property. I rented ‘em. I make a living. Now I lost everything,” Gioe said about her home and her 15 rental properties.
The same goes for many Rocky and Carlo’s customers, especially those from St. Bernard Parish.
“Here we had to pay a serious price for MRGO. ‘Cause it devastated our parish probably worse than any place in the country,” said Bradley Cantrell, another St. Bernard Property owner, and a regular customer at Rocky and Carlo’s.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the MRGO right around the same time Rocky and Carlo's opened its doors.
“When I was probably around 15, I remember them digging MRGO because we used to go back and swim and fish and do that sort of thing. At the time, we really, as a kid, you don't know much about it,” Cantrell said.
But others knew a lot about it. A 1957 newspaper article asked, "Is St. Bernard Parish doomed?" before the navigation channel was even built.
Others, including St. Bernard Parish leaders and up-and-coming environmentalist Sherwood Gagliano quickly discovered the parish was in danger.
He said that in the 1970s, "We tried and tried and tried to get the message out that this was an environmental disaster."
Gagliano was one of the first to testify for the six plaintiffs in what could be a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers.
“They continued to dredge it, they did not really maintain the banks, and the cancer continued to spread and get worse,” Gagliano said about the environmental impact of the channel on the potential for catastrophic flooding.
“I heard about it being built. I knew about it. Every one was saying if a storm came a certain way, we'd get water,” said one of the named plaintiffs in the case, Lucille Franz.
She and her husband lived in a home on St. Claude Avenue in the Lower 9th Ward, on the border of St. Bernard Parish.
They saw the difference in flooding between Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina and the impacts of the MRGO first-hand in their Lower 9th Ward home. Lucille said flood waters were 10 feet higher after Hurricane Katrina.
The same goes for Rocky and Carlo's. The restaurant didn't flood after Betsy, but was destroyed by Katrina.
Now, St. Bernard and Lower 9th Ward residents are hopeful there may be relief in sight, not just because the Corps is building a storm surge barrier on the channel and closing it off, but financial relief from the lawsuit.
"I also signed up for that lawsuit a few years back so I'm hoping maybe we can benefit from it,” Cantrell said.
“I need money,” Gioe said about her rebuilding effort.
Plaintiffs' attorneys said 400,000 people signed up to be a part of the class action portion of the lawsuit.
Photos courtesy Historic New Orleans Collection
