News of the ruling that poor Corps maintenance of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet led to flooding following Hurricane Katrina rode the airwaves across the nation Sunday. We've scoured the Internet for a few of the stories that tell us more about the landmark case.
CNN: New Orleans mayor hails Katrina ruling
Mayor Ray Nagin said the ruling was "huge" for the city of New Orleans during an interview on CNN Thursday, saying it was a "pleasant surprise."
"What this does, particularly for the people in the Lower 9th Ward -- many of them did not get enough money from the Road Home program, which were the federal grants -- many businesses did not get enough help," Nagin said. "Hopefully this ruling will open up the floodgates, if you will, for those people that receive proper compensation."
Nagin said he first saw the ruling as a longshot, and he still expects a lengthy appeal process.
"I think this is going to take some time. I'm sure the federal government will appeal, because if this is allowed to stand -- and I think you will see a multitude of lawsuits, the city of New Orleans included -- and I think it will create a lot of liability for the federal government," Nagin said. "But it also may ensure justice at the end of the day."
NYT: Ruling on Katrina Flooding Favors Homeowners
Campbell Robertson with the New York Times has an article that takes a look at what might have been for residents had Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr allowed the ruling to extend even further. Had it considered the construction of the canal rather than just the maintenance of it, the liability may have extended past the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish.
Nevertheless, as Robertson points out, "tens of thousands" of other residents could join class-action lawsuits and get even more than the $750,000 already doled out after Duval's ruling.
“The implications are billions of dollars of liability for the government,” said Pierce O’Donnell, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Robertson cites figures that say nearly 500,000 Katrina-related claims have been filed against the government, and they could result in damages of as much as $500 billion.
For more on how the ruling will affect other flood victims, watch Scott Satchfield's story from Thursday.
MCNBC: Katrina negligence ruling could cost feds
Michael Grunwald, a journalist for Time Magazine, was on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC talking about the ruling, pulling few punches in the process:
"What's interesting about this ruling is that the Corps has immunity. Just because they messed up a levee and killed 1,000 people, you know, they're allowed to do that under federal law. You can't be sued for them building bad levees," Grunwald said. "But they sort of got around it in this case by saying, well actually, this wasn't just the levees that failed, but this navigation project actually made things worse.
"They're not allowed to kill people with a navigation project, only with shoddy levees," Grunwald said.
Grunwald said the judge essentially agreed that the shipping canal -- which Grunwald said didn't do much shipping, anyway -- did carry a lot of salt water that led to erosion and ultimately carried the storm surge into the city.
For more of MSNBC's coverage, click here.
National Review: Don't Just Blame the Corps
While acknowledging that the ruling establishes the Corps' culpability for the flooding following Hurricane Katrina, Stephen Spruiell with the National Review says that others need to bear the burden as well. He said that the warning signs were there for years and years, though it was allowed to stay about due to special interest groups and lobbyists representing large companies that preferred keeping the MRGO open.
"The Corps, like most government agencies, hates to give up anything in its portfolio, and the Louisana congressional delegation likes to bring home the bacon, so MRGO stayed open in spite of the risks," Spruiell writes.
Spruiell said Congress and the Port of New Orleans are among those also responsible. He said the Corps was "captured" by special-interest groups and Congress used it as a pump for pork spending.
"This might be the only time in history that pork kept an artery unclogged, when it would have been better to plug it up," Spruiell writes.
Shearer: Where Accountability Failed, Liability Follows
Blogger and actor Harry Shearer knocked the mainstream media for, according to him, skimming over the ruling and focusing more on Palin coverage. He said even the ones who did cover it managed to screw it up.
"Maddow (who at least covered it): ruling 'suggests that Hurricane Katrina was in part a man-made disaster.' The ruling didn't suggest Corps culpability; it declared it.," Shearer writes. "As for "in part", that's an interesting phrase, because federal law didn't allow the judge to consider the Corps' culpability (admitted, nine months later, by the Corps' own commander) for the failures along the flood-control structures."
Shearer also knocks All Things Considered host Robert Siegel for undermining "independent forensic engineering investigations of the disaster."
"The co-author of one of those reports called what happened to New Orleans 'the greatest man-made engineering disaster since Chernobyl,'" Shearer writes. "Google is your friend, npr."
With a trial as big as this, we're obviously missing some links. Let us know if you find any other national media sites commenting on the ruling.
