Gulf Hits Snags in Rebuilding Public Works

[rodeodance]

Source: nytimes



March 31, 2007
Gulf Hits Snags in Rebuilding Public Works
By LESLIE EATON

MERAUX, La., March 30 — Even before Hurricane Katrina ruined it, the St. Bernard Parish Fire Station No. 6 was not much to look at, just a cinderblock and sheet-metal cube whose contents included a fire truck, a kitchen and a paint-by-numbers rendering of the Last Supper.

Nineteen months after the storm sent nine feet of water through it, the fire station remains unusable. One wall is missing; the ceiling has fallen in; a uniform still on its hanger lies crumpled amid the dried mud and tumbled furniture.

None of St. Bernard Parish’s 10 fire houses have been rebuilt, even though local officials estimate that 26,000 people have returned to the area, just east of New Orleans. In fact, across southern Louisiana and Mississippi, many school buildings remain closed, public water systems leak, roads crumble and libraries molder. Local governments cannot afford to fix them, and billions of dollars in recovery assistance promised by the federal government have only started to trickle to the region.

Local and state government officials have blamed a federal law for the failure to invest in these public works. They associate the problem with the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988, the federal law that finances the rebuilding of local government infrastructure. It imposes requirements for receiving money that many towns and parishes here say they cannot meet.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/us/31fema.html?th&emc=th

[texpatriot2004]

1. None of the firehouses have been rebuilt in that Parish? nm

[youngdem]

2. Yes. They are still using FEMA trailers.

They sit in the trailers outside the stations, and the trucks sit in the driveways of the former stations.

Not all stations are even open.

Several police substations and many hospitals are also not yet reopened. One of our trauma centers is still in a tent.

The airport in Lake Charles is still a tent.

And the Army Corps is still debating which levees they are going to repair and which communities are going to be effectively left to the sea.

The Gulf Coast is today where it should have been six months after the storm, not approaching two years.

[uppityperson]

3. How about power/water?

I know that theoretically power is everywhere, reality check though. Are places actually able to be hooked up? Are they hooked up? Thanks.

[pitohui]

4. you have to be able to be hooked up to get FEMA trailers

that said, i think you would have to be extremely desperate and out of choices to return to st. bernard parish, it is simply not a long-term place to live until such time as something is done about MR-GO

otherwise you rebuild again, only to get hit again, and again, and again, because MR-GO forces the storm surge into the parish

the majority of former residents have re-located elsewhere, i believe the majority now reside in st. tammany parish

the figures i've seen say that 75% of the population of st. bernard has left, since EVERY home in that parish was destroyed, i am not surprised that so many people are unwilling to return while MR-GO remains operational -- and apparently there are political or business reasons why they won't shut down the damn thing

also, the federal law clearly didn't anticipate a disaster the size of katrina, to require a town to put in part of the money to fund a project when EVERY home and building in that town has been destroyed, is outrageous -- this might have seemed fair when the writers of the law were thinking about a small earthquake that affects part of a town or a tornado that affects part of a town -- not a disaster that utterly destroyed dozens of towns

[youngdem]

7. Yeah. You can get power and water in most places

You have to have utilities in order to get a FEMA trailer. The only exception is if you have no sewer, they will still set you up, and will give you a beautiful gray water tank for your waste.

[texpatriot2004]

8. That is disgraceful and adds insult to injury. As if this Admin.'s

failed response wasn't horrible enough, almost two years later to have things still in such a state is criminal.

[intheflow]

5. K&R n/t

[daleo]

At this rate, Baghdad will be rebuilt before New Orleans

The situation is shameful in New Orleans. Baghdad too.

[daleo]

6. At this rate, Baghdad will be rebuilt before New Orleans

The situation is shameful in New Orleans. Baghdad too.