A federal judge this week ruled that downstream homeowners suffered additional damage when federal engineers opened reservoir gates after Hurricane Harvey, inundating thousands of Houston houses with an extra deluge of floodwaters.
The 2017 hurricane devastated Houston when it dropped 35 inches of rain across the area over four days. It resulted in nearly 90 deaths across the region and billions of dollars in damages.
In a 48-page opinion issued in the United States Court of Federal Claims on Wednesday, Judge Loren Smith wrote that hundreds of homes upstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs sustained temporary and permanent damage because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to open reservoir gates three days after Hurricane Harvey hit the area.
The issue was whether the action to open the gates constituted a violation of a Fifth Amendment clause protecting private property from public use without compensation. Twelve properties sitting at different distances from the dams were used to test that theory and represent hundreds of other homeowners along Buffalo Bayou.
Smith concluded that the action caused more flooding to the properties than if the federal agency had never released impounded water from the dams.
The Department of Justice did not immediately return a request for comment.
The ruling on downstream homeowners comes a few months after a federal judge ruled that the U.S. government is liable for Hurricane Harvey’s flood damage to homes upstream of the dams. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the government knew, or should have known, that the construction of the dams would cause damage to private property.
RELATED: Appeals court rules in favor of upstream homeowners in Hurricane Harvey flooding case
A trial in the downstream case started in Houston in 2024, and closing arguments were heard in Washington, D.C., five months later. Several representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers testified, arguing that the U.S. government should be shielded from liability because the floodwaters posed an imminent danger to the integrity of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs.
That argument did not hold up because it was invoked before an actual emergency posed danger to the dams, according to the opinion, which cited an engineering report that showed no significant threat.
Richard Mithoff, an attorney representing more than 500 clients in the downstream case, told Houston Public Media that the judge’s ruling was the result of several days of testimony and thousands of pages of documents reviewed in the case.
“So there are a number of issues resolved here, all of which are summarized at the very end of the opinion,” Mithoff said Thursday. “But it’s an enormous victory. This opinion just came down late yesterday evening, so we haven’t heard directly from very many clients, but those we’ve heard from are extremely pleased that this phase is going in our favor.”
The case will now move to a damage phase to determine monetary compensation that may arise from the lawsuit.
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