What’s been happening recently in regards to Katrina and the recovery effort?  It’s been a little while since my last post, so I thought I’d provide a few updates:

In November, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval made headlines  after finding the Army Corps of Engineers ultimately responsible for much of the devastating flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. According to Duval, the Corps failed to properly oversee the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a major channel that had undergone heavy environmental changes in the years before the storm.

While the symbolic value of this ruling cannot be underestimated, as well as the way in which it exposes the Corps to a variety of future claims, it is unclear what the broader effect will be on the Gulf region’s ongoing recovery effort. The New York Times suggests there may be room for appeal in some areas of the ruling, despite Duval’s meticulous handiwork. Others, however, are hopeful. Sandy Rosenthal, founder of levees.org writes in the Huffington Post that the ruling provides an opportunity for the government to revisit existing flood protection legislation, pointing out that a majority of Americans live in areas protected by levees.

Whatever the nature of the ruling’s ultimate effect, it has already drawn some much-needed attention back to the recovery effort and will hopefully continue to spur support.

The text of the ruling is online here.

Also, for those interested in an explanation of how a levee functions, here’s a detailed description from HowStuffWorks.

Coming soon: Housing in New Orleans–the recession begins to take it’s toll.