Category: Donald Resio

MRGO update

Just as I was about to add “no news from the Court” to the April 23rd SLABBED Daily, I noticed a MRGO story in the Times Picayune, Newsman Norman Robinson describes his own trauma.

After Katrina left his spacious home in eastern New Orleans a stinking shambles, TV news anchor Norman Robinson and his wife lived for two years in a 700-square-foot River Ridge apartment where, he testified in federal court Wednesday, he got drunk every night to cope with post-hurricane trauma.

“I ended up going to a psychologist because I wanted to commit suicide, and I ended up in a drunken stupor most of the time, ” Robinson said.

His testimony came during the third day of a trial in which he and four others hope to prove their case that the Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet created a speedway for Katrina storm surge that destroyed their property…

Sadly, there are countless numbers of Katrina survivors still trying to cope with the trauma as best they can with hurricane season 2009 now weeks away and, shortly thereafter, the fourth anniversary of the storm.

In yesterday’s second issues and Order post, I mentioned the difficulty of obtaining Dr. Risio’s report.  Since then I’ve found a report on the web – undated as was the one Judge Duval mentioned.  I’m posting it with reservation and no claim it is relevant to the case only because I think the more we know about wave modeling the better.

MRGO April 21: the issue and the Order (part 2) – Resio v Van Heerden

Igor van Heerden’s involvement  in the MRGO litigation was never in doubt.  However, what role he played wasn’t evident until yesterday when Judge Duval issued an Order and Reasons ruling on on the Plaintiffs’ Motion to Strike Supplemental Report of Defendant United States’ Expert Donald Resio and Preclude Derivative Testimony and the related Opposition filed by the USA.

Judge Duval summarized the issues in his Order and Reasons:

Before the Court is a Motion to Strike Supplemental Report of Defendant United States’ Expert Donald Resio and Preclude Derivative Testimony filed by Plaintiffs in the Robinson matter.

In essence, Plaintiffs contend that this “Supplemental Report on Waves and Overtopping Characteristics Along the MRGO” issued by Donald Resio was received by Plaintiffs on March 24, 2009, “long after” his February 9, 2009 deposition was taken. They maintain that they will be unduly prejudiced in the event he is allowed to testify to these findings:

(1) because the materials relied upon should have been produced more than a monthprior to his deposition under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, and the United States unduly delayed in its production of these materials, Plaintiffs arguing that the “the defendant fought production of these materials consistently. . . until Dr. Resio was educated at his deposition of the flaws in his analysis and a new approach was created” (Doc. 18514 at 8); and

Plaintiffs filed a detailed affidavit of Dr. Ivor Van Heerden in which he opines that it Continue reading “MRGO April 21: the issue and the Order (part 2) – Resio v Van Heerden”