The owners of a nursing home where 35 patients died amid flash flooding during Hurricane Katrina are set to stand trial on Monday on negligent homicide charges.

A torrent of water poured through ruptured levees, filling the one-story St. Rita’s Nursing Home almost to the ceiling in about 20 minutes after the storm roared ashore on August 29, 2005.

Salvador and Mabel Mangano are the only individuals charged with the responsibility of deaths from the storm. More than 1,400 deaths were blamed on Katrina. Prosecutors charge the Manganos’ decision not to evacuate St. Rita’s residents before the storm was a criminal act. The Manganos face 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the elderly or infirm.

The combined maximum sentence for each defendant would be 415 years in prison. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks.

The defense contends that because of government negligence, including faulty levees that broke during Katrina, the Manganos could not have known about the potential for flooding.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued the day before Katrina hit as meteorologists predicted a 21-foot storm surge would hit St. Bernard. Of five nursing homes in the parish, only St. Rita’s was not evacuated.

Speaking before a judge imposed a gag order, defense attorney Jim Cobb said state law did not require nursing homes to comply with mandatory evacuation orders. A report by the Louisiana Nursing Home Association, a trade group, showed 36 of 57 nursing homes in the New Orleans area were not evacuated.

The Manganos said the area had never flooded in the 20 years St. Rita’s was in operation, and Cobb said that was the basis for their decision to ride out the storm.

“We’re talking frail people, people with special needs, people who would be at risk during an evacuation,” Cobb said. “The Manganos thought they were saving lives by sheltering in place.”

The couple, in their 60s, were so certain St. Rita’s was safe that they invited relatives, staffers and others to shelter there. About 30 people, including the Mangano’s children, accepted the offer, the Manganos say.

No one other than patients died at St. Rita’s.

The Manganos and staff rescued about 28 patients, floating some out windows to safety. It was 10 days before the victims’ bodies could be removed.

Among the witnesses subpoenaed by the defense are Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, head of the Army Corps of Engineers, which was responsible for the levees. Strock has since retired.

The defense wants Strock to repeat his statement at a news conference in June 2006 that defective levee design was the corps’ fault and caused most of the flooding. The federal government is fighting his subpoena.

The defense says Blanco and other public officials failed to organize an effective evacuation and help transport “at risk” people to high ground as required by state law.

At least 34 people died at Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans after the hurricane, but three women arrested by the attorney general’s office will not stand trial. A grand jury refused to indict Dr. Anna Pou, and charges against nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry were dropped.

Twenty-two people died at Lafon Nursing Home in New Orleans. Residents were moved to the second floor as flooding began, but the home lost electricity. Rescuers did not reach Lafon until September 1. A spokesman for District Attorney Eddie Jordan said the case remains under investigation.

Their nursing home was in St. Bernard Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, but the trial was moved to St. Francisville, about 100 miles to the northwest. Prosecutors, defense lawyers and state District Judge Jerome Winsberg agreed that assembling a six-member jury would be difficult in St. Bernard because its population has been slow to return since Katrina struck.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/08/13/katrina.nursing.home.ap/