Houston Chronicle by Gabrielle Banks May 17, 2019
A two-week trial revisiting the anguish that flood victims experienced during Hurricane Harvey came to a close Friday in a lawsuit brought by property owners upstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs seeking compensation from the Army Corps of Engineers for using their land to store floodwater during the historic deluge.
The matter will be decided by a Washington, D.C.-based jurist from the specialized U.S. Court of Federal Claims who borrowed one of the stately upper-floor courtrooms used by district court judges in downtown Houston. An array of witnesses included home and real estate owners, a renter now living in a tiny trailer, an airport owner and a vast array of experts in hydrology, federal flood insurance and mapmaking. U.S. Judge Charles F. Lettow also donned Wellington boots on a soggy afternoon last week to accompany a small busload of lawyers to dams, spillways, businesses and homes — in various states of disrepair — that took on water after Harvey.
The judge said he would review briefs from the lawyers and return to Houston on Sept. 13 to hear closing arguments in the case. Another large group of property owners, who were flooded downstream of the two dams, will be tried in a separate hearing later.
The consolidated upstream case in Houston involves 13 test properties inside federal reservoirs and upstream of the two World War II-era dams. These 13 locations will serve as stand-ins for more than 1,000 people who have sued the Corps under the Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause.†The residents and businesses claim that the government knowingly used their private property to detain water and that it therefore owes them “just compensation†for damage.
Testimony and evidence is now complete for the first phase of the trial. After hearing closings in September, the judge will determine if the Corps is liable for the flooding. If Lettow finds that it is, he will consider damages.
Multiple witnesses told the court over the trial that the dams and reservoirs were designed to prevent catastrophic flooding in Houston along Buffalo Bayou.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/HARVEY-TRIAL-WRAPUP-13855235.php
