Posted on 01/09/2008 11:14:37 AM PST by Wicket
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hurricane Katrina's victims have put a price tag on their suffering and it is staggering — including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion.
The total number — $3,014,170,389,176,410 — is the dollar figure so far sought from some 489,000 claims filed against the federal government over damage from the failure of levees and flood walls following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.
Of the total number of claims, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has received 247 for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion.
"That's the mother of all high numbers," said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge-based economist.
For the sake of perspective: A mere $1 quadrillion would dwarf the U.S. gross domestic product, which Scott said was $13.2 trillion in 2007. A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.
Some residents may have grossly exaggerated their claims to send a message to the corps, which has accepted blame for poorly designing the failed levees.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.google.com ...
The lawyers would get a third. This is just another way of getting “reparations”, since, in their world view, Bush, the great White devil, made the levees break and flood NO, and then abandoned the people because he is a racist.
Do ya think they might ask Senator/Presidential Hopeful Shyster Edwards to represent them? Sounds like it’s right up his alley.
Here’s a breakdown on how the government money is being spent in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/katrina/
Also please note that the Army Corps had admitted culpability in the failure of the levees.
http://www.nola.com/frontpage/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1144306231230500.xml
Congratulate me. I don’t live on a hurricane coast; I don’t live on a hurricane delta; I don’t live in swamp lowlands subject to flood; I don’t live on an active earthquake fault; I don’t live below a levee or dam; I don’t live in a mobile home in the midwest; I don’t live anywhere in Oklahoma nor do I travel anywhere near there; I don’t live in Johnstown, PA or on or near a river that floods; and I don’t rely on the Federal or State government to bail me out of natural disasters. I pay my insurance bills and I don not expect other Americans to rebuild my home, my shore second home (I don’t own one) after a fire, flood, earthquake, or tornado.
maybe we can just offer them a free trip to Chicago to see Oprah and call it even....
For $3 quadrillion, I could buy the entire state of Louisiana, raze it, and rebuild it bionically. I could make it better than it was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster.
Damn shame the CoE wasn’t clairvoyant. Guess that entitles the local welfare class to untold riches.
“In Nevada we just had a smiliar situation happen... a canal broke and put 1,500 people out of their homes... totally destroyed Fernley Nevada... no one has blamed the government and demanded they get rich quick off it.”
Maybe their blaming the government because the government has acknowledged their blame. Please see post #16.
Wasn’t the state given money over time to fix those levies?
Typical liberals spent it on handouts to the very brain trusts who now demand quadrillions. Well, they already got the value for the buck.
Cases dismissed!
Our court system with lawyer contingency fees has become a "lotto-like" system for many to try to get rich quick off of legal technicalities and sympathetic juries.
This country is in serious need of major tort reform laws.
Someone in Louisiana is not keeping the pimp hand strong. A lot of people seem to need pimp-slappin’.
I’m in Houston - I could be there in three hours. Four, max.
Road trip, anyone?
Ping to my favorite graphic!
Tell them to go collect from God.
“Damn shame the CoE wasn’t clairvoyant. Guess that entitles the local welfare class to untold riches.”
Being clarvoyant has nothing to do with it. The Corps designed and built the levees. They had been warned since 1986 that separations in the floodwall could occur.
“Experts from the National Science Foundation, the external review panel for the corps, said potential problems have been known for some time. They cited a 1986 corps study that warned of just such separations in the floodwalls.
But Strock told the panel that the corps was unaware of the potential hazard before Aug. 29, when Hurricane Katrina drove a massive surge of water against New Orleans’ storm-protection system. He said the corps is evaluating all the levees to see whether they, too, could fail in the same way.
“There may be other elements in the system designed that way that may have to be addressed,” Strock said.
http://www.nola.com/frontpage/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1144306231230500.xml
Be careful. In Lib-speak, all that means you owe somebody something, whether it's from taking advantage of the poor and less fortunate to get there, or because you have what they don't.
"including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion."
He was going to ask for $4 quadrillion, but figured that would be excessive
Is this the same guy that lost a pair pf pants in Washington, DC.?
Road trip, anyone?
I heard from a Harris County prosecutor about a year ago that fully HALF of all his violent-crime prosecutions involved Katrina refugees. Maybe the lawsuits are aimed in the wrong direction.
MM (in TX)
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