Federal Court Holds Corps Responsible for Hurricane Flood Damage

The U.S. Court of federal claims held yesterday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is liable for the way it handled water during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The case focused on two dams built in the suburbs of Houston in the 1940s that caused adjacent properties to flood during the hurricane. Noting that the dams had been designed for much larger storms than those used to calculate the area that was purchased to accommodate flood waters at the time the dams were constructed, the court found that the Corps knew that extreme storms could overflow government-owned lands surrounding the reservoir and flood adjacent properties. Consequently, the Corps was aware of the potential damage its decision to build the dams without purchasing sufficient land in the vicinity could do and liable for a taking of private property without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Warnings in public forums and documents of the potential for flooding were not sufficient to relieve the Corps of liability.