Project Katrina

I was very happy to see this article from the Associated Press:

The government will keep covering the full cost of clearing the bulk of hurricane wreckage in the Gulf Coast for the rest of the year, the White House said Thursday.

A program that reimburses states and cities for all their bills was to expire Friday. That would have shifted 10 percent of the cost, or about $70 million, away from Washington.

Officials in Louisiana and Mississippi, where Hurricane Katrina destroyed tens of thousands of homes, have said their states are too strapped to pay even that much.

“It’s a huge help for all of us on the ground because the debris pile is unprecedented,” said Sen. David Vitter,
R-La. Without the assistance, said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., “debris would continue to pile up on the streets.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent $3.6 billion to remove 98.6 million cubic yards of debris from the region. That’s enough trash to pile 2 miles high across five football fields.

It is about time. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

A group of nationally recognized scientists met Tuesday in New Orleans
to discuss how to help federal and state officials in assuring the
quality of the design of the proposed $1.2 billion federal-state
coastal restoration program, including how to dovetail restoration
projects with plans to protect Louisiana’s coastal communities from
Category 5 hurricanes. The new Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem
Restoration Science Board will advise top Army Corps of Engineers
officials and the restoration program’s new Science & Technology
Program Office. The board was briefed Tuesday on efforts by federal and
state officials to reconsider several key pieces of the Louisiana
restoration plan in the light of wetlands losses caused by Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita last year, reports The Times-Picayune.

The New York Times is reporting (behind their firewall) up to $2 billion in fraud and waste represents nearly 11 percent of the $19 billion spent by FEMA on Katrina and Rita as of mid-June, or about 6 percent of total money that has been obligated. The government nornally estimates a fraud and waste of 1 to 3 percent.

Ok, I know we don’t live in a perfect world and there will also be sick people that find a way to work the system, but come on, $2 billion in fraud and waste. I guess I should have picked up on this earlier in my life, but our government is totally useless.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has scrapped their oh so wise plans to evict more than 3,000 familes suspected of being ineligible for post-Hurricane Katrina trailers. Many of the recipients said that the government’s mistaken judgement had left them facing homelessness. The eviction letters gave the recipients 60 days to appeal the decision—but 30 days to get out of their trailers. FEMA spokesman Eugene Brezany said the agency had stopped sending the eviction letters, and get this, FEMA is actually going to put some boots on the ground and meet individually with each family.

This is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time. USA Today reports:

In what may be the start of the city’s development boom, the AFL-CIO plans to invest $1 billion to develop 10,000 affordable homes and a new downtown hotel.

The investment, confirmed Monday by the AFL-CIO, is the labor coalition’s most ambitious funding project ever. It also is one of the largest yet for New Orleans and seeks to bring new housing to a city where Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 100,000 homes.

This is important on so many different levels I don’t even know where to begin. To a large extent New Orleans is a city build on travel and tourism. Of course every American city needs affordable housing, but New Orleans more then most. It takes thousand of lower income people to clean your hotel room, wash your dishes, and park your cars. If there isn’t affordable housing the city’s main tax revenue won’t return.