HOUSTON — Nearly nine years after Hurricane Harvey inundated neighborhoods across west Houston, thousands of homeowners downstream of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs are closer to compensation after a federal judge ruled the U.S. government intentionally flooded their properties during the storm.
In a major decision issued in April, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Loren Smith found the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers knowingly released water from the Addicks and Barker dams into Buffalo Bayou during Harvey, causing catastrophic flooding in downstream communities including Nottingham Forest, Memorial, and other west Houston neighborhoods. The ruling also rejected the government’s longstanding argument that the dams were in imminent danger of failing during the storm.
The decision marks another significant development in years of litigation stemming from Harvey, which dumped historic rainfall across southeast Texas in August 2017. While previous court rulings focused on homes flooded upstream of the reservoirs, this case centered on homeowners downstream who say they were never warned their neighborhoods could be deliberately flooded as part of the Corps’ emergency operations plan…