Louisiana nursing home case puts Katrina response on trial

[EV_Ares]

By Laura Parker, USA TODAY:

(I really do hope this trial gets good coverage from the national media & I would expect "Heck of a job Brownie" would be called in at some point to testify along with the Levy Committee, Corp of Engineers, etc.)
---------------------------------

When Sal and Mabel Mangano were arrested after 35 people drowned in their nursing home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they became vivid symbols of the inept preparation and response to the disaster. St. Rita's Nursing Home was a signature scene of the horror that followed Katrina, and the Manganos' decision not to evacuate the home as floodwaters rose in the New Orleans area outraged residents there.
Now, with the Manganos' criminal trial scheduled to begin Monday, the case has grown from a narrowly drawn inquiry about negligent homicide into a melodrama writ large about virtually everyone who had a hand in botching the official response to Katrina nearly two years ago.

The list of potential culprits in that scenario brims with prominent names. The Manganos' defense attorneys — seeking to deflect blame for the deaths at St. Rita's — will be allowed to call many of them as witnesses, starting with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

The trial will begin about two weeks before the Aug. 29 second anniversary of Katrina. Southeast Louisiana remains littered by debris, and the recovery effort is going slowly. Against that backdrop, the Manganos' attorneys plan to counter prosecutors' contention that the couple's negligence caused the deaths at St. Rita's.

The defense attorneys argue that the nursing home residents — strapped in their beds, wailing for help — died because of the catastrophic levee failure that turned a Category 3 hurricane, which St. Rita's had ridden out unscathed, into the nation's worst natural disaster

((((restof story @ link below))))


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-08-1Acover_N.htm

[BOSSHOG]

1. The last paragraph is what limbaugh trained trash ignore

The hospital and much of the damaged areas of New Orleans rode out Katrina virtually UNSCATHED.