Feds to Foot Bill for Hurricane Cleanup
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.
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