$77 Billion Lawsuit :
The city of New Orleans has filed $77 billion dollars lawsuit against Army Corps of Engineers for flooding the city after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 on this last Thursday. Thursday was the last day for filing the lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers under the Federal Tort Act.
The Army Corps of Engineers has six months to accept, reject, or settle claims from the city. The Army Corps of Engineers has designed the levee system to protect low-lying city of New Orleans. Unfortunately, however, the steel and concrete levees failed and eroded in may areas after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. As a result, almost eighty percent of the city was flood with water up to twenty feet deep.
The federal law regulates that the claimants must ask for a fixed amount of damages. Seventy seven billion dollars comes from $170,000 for each citizen in the New Orleans city’s population of 455,000.
About $25.3 billion dollars of the damage from Katrina across Louisiana is insured by the Insurance Information Institute. The state of New Orleans will also received $6.3 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. About fifty three billon of one hundred and ten billion from Congress appropriated for reconstruction work has been spent.
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