Book: Flood of Lies by James A. Cobb, Jr.

The St. Rita's Nursing Home Tragedy

It WAS a tragedy. Thirty-five elderly residents died in a horrible way as a wall of water inundated the nursing home. It took only 20 minutes for the flood waters to rise nearly to the ceilings. The levees in St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans failed. Sal and Mabel Mangano, the owners of St. Rita's, were immediately vilified in most of the media for their actions, beginning with their decision not to evacuate. This is the Mangano's story, written by their lawyer.

The Mangano's made a decision to "shelter in place," not to evacuate.

"The home prospered and was an operational and financial success. It gained a reputation as the best home in the parish. There were only three others. During their twenty years of operation…they had never evacuated the facility...The complicated and gut-wrenching decision of whether or not to evacuate the elderly in the face of a storm, how to evacuate them, and to where, had suddenly become more than simply a healthcare policy decision."

Mr. Cobb is outspoken, never holding back his contempt for the Attorney General who forced this case to trial and for certain members of the news media who quickly went into feeding-frenzy mode, not bothering to wait for facts. He is an excitable, hard-drinking, passionate man. His own home was destroyed by Katrina, and in the aftermath of the hurricane, he and his family lived in hotels and small apartments and endured their own losses and trauma.

Cobb says he was inspired by Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's book, To Kill a Mockingbird. So this case came his way, and he saw a chance perhaps to rectify some of his guilt. He had spent his career "defending those who were, at law, entitled to a defense but were often unworthy of one. I had represented large corporations and insurance companies regularly accused of negligence and greed in causing some calamity that took a worker's life or left him crippled and unable to provide for his family. Occasionally, it was my calling in life to deprive widows and orphans of compensation for the deaths of their husbands and fathers…."

Honest, but no one MADE him do that kind of lawyering. Still, he admits it, and often half-apologizes for his sometimes less than stalwart character, which is disarming. I did wonder at times while reading the book what this man is REALLY like? He does not have an ego problem.

The story he tells is fascinating as he explains the legal process that governs the lives of the Manganos for two years. A criminal trial eventually takes place in "quaintly gorgeous St. Francisville, Louisiana…the courthouse on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River."

While the book is about Sal and Mabel, it is also about what happened when politics, television and lawyers collided as the levees failed after Katrina.