HOUSTON (AP) Residents seeking compensation after their Houston-area homes and businesses were flooded by two federally owned reservoirs during Hurricane Harvey say authorities knew for decades that such an inundation was inevitable but did nothing to prevent it, an attorney for the property owners said in court Monday.
The two-week trial will focus on claims by residents who lived and worked upstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. The lawsuits allege the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the dams, knew their capacity would exceed federal land and inundate homes and businesses on adjacent private property. The trial focuses on 13 properties as test cases to determine whether the federal government would be liable for damage to flooded homes.
People lost everything. People lost possessions, memories, said Daniel Charest, one of the attorneys for the residents and business owners, who are among hundreds of lawsuits filed in connection with flooding from the two reservoirs.
Charest said his clients are not questioning the actions of the Corps of Engineers, but they are due just compensation for the taking of their property. He said the Corps of Engineers knew for decades such flooding would happen.
But Harvey was a historically large rainfall event that was unprecedented, said William Shapiro, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing the Corps of Engineers.
Flooding in a storm of this size was inevitable, Shapiro said.
Harvey, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Aug. 25, 2017, killed 68 people and caused an estimated $125 billion in damage in Texas.
