Still recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, La. sends Obama a message: Don't forget us
More than three years after Katrina and Rita, and with billions of federal
dollars already committed for recovery, Louisiana still has major requests -- and complaints -- pending on a wish list for the next president as rebuilding from the storms continues.
Louisiana's post-Katrina wish list for the next Congress and incoming Obama administration, lengthened by 2008 hurricanes Gustav and Ike, boiled down in a transition brief to one essential message:
Don't forget us.While progress has been made since Katrina and Rita lashed Louisiana in 2005, "our state still suffers an extreme housing crisis with affordable rental property hard to come by and billions of housing and infrastructure repairs yet to be completed," the Louisiana Recovery Authority said in the brief dated Dec. 8 and which the LRA provided a copy of last week.
The state's wish list for the Katrina and Rita aftermath include an extension of federal disaster housing assistance, including rental subsidies, set to expire March 1.
It also includes a call to push back by two years, to December 2012, a deadline to finish housing projects benefiting from tax credits due to the sour national
economy. And there's also a call for establishment of a "blight removal fund" to help speed cleanup of thousands of derelict properties that are seen as stalling reinvestment in some devastated communities.
Louisiana also may seek a congressional appropriation if it can't come to more favorable terms with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the level of Katrina damage to New Orleans' former public hospital for the poor, Charity. The state believes it's due $492 million; FEMA's offered $150 million.
Signs of Katrina's destruction remain in hard-hit communities of New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. Hopeful signs -- new, elevated houses, reopened businesses -- give way to eery desolation in vast stretches of the Lower 9th Ward.
Abandoned apartment complexes blight slow-to-return neighborhoods in eastern New Orleans. Some houses still bear brownish-yellow water lines and the tattoos left by searchers in Katrina's frantic aftermath.
But progress is being made: In New Orleans alone, officials claim hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure projects are planned, under way or now completed. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars are lined up for neighborhood rebuilding and
economic revitalization.
"The evidence of the recovery is going to get stronger and stronger as time goes on," said Mayor Ray Nagin.
But he also worries about "the people side of issues" -- affordable health care and improved mental health services in a community where he says many still grapple with post-Katrina trauma.
In his own letter Nov. 26 on the city's outstanding needs, directed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Nagin listed terminal improvements at the city's commercial airport; upgrades at the train and bus depot used as part of hurricane evacuation plans; and water and sewer system work among the "ready-to-go" infrastructure projects, independent of Katrina, that he believes merit consideration for inclusion in a stimulus package.
"In the next Congress, your continued support of our ready-to-go infrastructure, as well as other priority issues" -- including rebuilding the city's health care and criminal justice systems, devastated by Katrina, and reforming the federal act that governs disaster recovery -- "is critical," Nagin wrote.
President Bush's hurricane recovery chief, retired Maj. Gen. Doug O'Dell, said in a recent interview that he thinks the federal government has provided ample resources to Louisiana and Mississippi for recovery -- and that a key task now is putting that money to work.
Of the $4 billion for permanent infrastructure work that FEMA set aside for Louisiana, $1.2 billion has been paid to the local level by the state, which has an accounting system of its own for the dollars.
One reason is the huge volume of work due to Katrina. Another, according to the state, is continuing frustration in getting FEMA to agree to what costs it will cover so cities have a clearer idea of what they can put out to bid.
FEMA spokesman Bob Josephson said there's often too much focus on a final dollar figure instead of on the overall scope of what needs to be done. He said the goal remains to cover "all actual and eligible costs."
O'Dell, who began in the post earlier this year and whose office is to be phased out early next year, began sit-downs with local, state and federal officials several months ago. His goal: to break through logjams and speed major projects.
While he calls FEMA's $150 million offer for Charity firm and all that's allowable under the federal law governing disaster recovery, he believes there's a potential public-private solution to the Charity fight.
The state's hurricane recovery chief, Paul Rainwater, wants to take his case for the $492 million to the Obama administration or Congress.
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