Storms 411

Day 80 – 11/9/05, City Park desperately needs cash. Workers are scrounging for places to sleep. Officials have an answer to both shortages: Rent a tent site.

City Park officials are telling Katrina workers living under oak canopies in tents and campers while they clean up hurricane debris that they appreciate what they're doing for New Orleans -- but it's time to start paying rent.

Pink fliers announcing a plan to help "in the rebuilding and healing of the City Park" were distributed Saturday and Sunday to scores of squatters, mainly along the Marconi Avenue edge of the 150-year-old state park.

Monthly fees of $300 for tents and $350 for campers include use of portable toilets, lavatories and trash containers, the flier says. Showers will become available when utilities are up and running.

Katrina workers who do not pay rent by Friday will be "treated as trespassers," said camp site manager Ron Briggs. [Read more - NOLA]

Day 78 – 11/7/05, Chances for category-5 levees get boost from Congress

Congress bolstered the prospects for building up Louisiana's hurricane protection system to defend against Category 5 storms after a water and energy conference committee agreed on a major spending bill Monday.

The conference report includes a provision calling for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an analysis and design of a new, stronger storm protection system at full federal expense, said Adam Sharp, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans.

Conference reports usually are approved by both houses of Congress so they can send one uniform bill to the President. Because of her membership on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Landrieu was in Monday's water and energy conference committee. [Read more - WWLTV]

Day 73 – 11/2/05, Damaged housing projects to be rebuilt as mixed use, mixed income

Housing projects destroyed by Hurricane Katrina will be rebuilt as mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods, with $1.8 billion planned to begin work in Louisiana and Mississippi, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said Wednesday.

"Within the next two weeks, we will begin to see results," he said, without giving details.

The $1.8 billion is part of President Bush's request for $17.1 billion for long-term recovery along the Gulf of Mexico. "It will be the first of many" allocations, Jackson told reporters after meeting with four City Council members whose districts include housing projects. [Read more - WWL]

Day 67 – 10/27/05, Nagin: N.O. will be larger in five years

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin believes that the city will be larger and much safer in as little as five years.

Nagin made the proclamation in front of the City Council Thursday as he projected his budget for the upcoming year.

While anticipating a much smaller city initially, Nagin believes the opportunity to rebuild New Orleans will result in eventual growth.

“Katrina was a moment in time, it has lingering effects but we have the opportunity to rebuild New Orleans,” he said. “(It’s) something that no one else has had the opportunity to do."

However, Nagin realizes hard times will precede good times and he said next year’s budget will be approximately $155 million less than this year’s. He attributes the shortfalls to anticipated trouble collecting property taxes and a large decline in tourism, probably to 20 percent of its pre-Katrina level for next year.

And he anticipates that the cash they currently have can last them only through March, though he is optimistic that loans and federal grants will bridge the gap.

Nagin did add that the eventual growth of the city hangs on one crucial element – better levee protection.

"The rebuilding mission is dependent on many critical issues,” he said. “Levees top the list.”

Nagin said the levee system must eventually be strengthened to withstand category-5 storms, otherwise efforts to rebuild may be jeopardized.

Council members suggested that the city also become more diversified since tourism is expected to be only a fraction of what it once was for some time to come. [Link]

Day 67 – 10/27/05, Future of flooded homes muddled

Although more than 200 people packed into a New Orleans hotel room wanted Mayor Ray Nagin to address a sheaf of topics Wednesday, he knew one question was paramount: What is going to happen to my house?

Nagin opened his remarks with a complicated answer, leaving some in the audience as confused as ever. Federal officials monitoring the proceeding said portions of Nagin's speech were incorrect. Federal and City Hall officials even disagree on the number of houses facing demolition, with the fate of thousands of residences perhaps hanging in the balance.

But Nagin did deliver the gist, unpleasant as it was, of the matter: New Orleans homeowners will be forced to make hard and sometimes costly decisions based not only on layers of local and federal rules and regulations, but also on geography. [Link - NOLA]

Illegal workers allegedly hired for recovery work at naval base

Immigration agents detained a large number of illegal immigrants working for a Halliburton subcontractor hired to do Hurricane Katrina recovery work, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office said on Thursday.

The workers — numbering possibly more than 100 — were involved in setting up a tent city at a Navy base just outside New Orleans when they were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Wednesday, according to Landrieu's office.

Landrieu's office claimed that the alleged illegal workers were employed by BE&K. The Birmingham, Ala.-based subcontractor acknowledged that immigration officials descended on its work site, but said none of its employees were detained. Susan Wasley, a BE&K spokeswoman, said that about 136 workers from a different company on the project were detained. She would not name the other company. [Read more - WWL]

Day 58 – 10/18/05, Wastewater treatment facility opens ahead of schedule

Wastewater in New Orleans is being treated again after early estimations put the timetable at almost a year. But after 49 days of pumping raw waste into the Mississippi River, Sewerage and Water Board officials call it a major victory.

The only facility that treats wastewater in the city was overcome by water in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The big blue buildings tucked in the back of the Lower Ninth Ward got up to 20 feet of flooding, ruining pipes and pumps, and the city's ability to process its own waste; so raw sewage went right into the river. On Sunday that sewage began coming back here first for a first round of treatment.

“All the valves to the river have been closed, and we will begin pumping water to be treated—very basic treatment, very basic treatment. It's not full, primary treatment. It's basic; and this water will be discharged as normally to the Mississippi River,” said Marcia St. Martin of the Sewerage and Water Board. [Read more - WWLTV]

Day 53 – 10/13/05, Jesse Jackson: Few on bus were from New Orleans

Reverend Jesse Jackson now acknowledges that at least 150 of the 200 people he bused into New Orleans were not local evacuees and that most were not even from southeast Louisiana.

Jackson had condemned government leaders for failing to use local, displaced workers to fill the rebuilding jobs, so he organized a bus pickup of people in Chicago, Memphis, St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi to try to recruit locals to return.

The group arrived at a Metairie Piccadilly to a triumphant welcome and job applications. Most of those interviewed by Eyewitness News said they were not returning locals. [Read more - WWL]

Day 52 – 10/12/05, Hurricane Debris Removal Is a Priority Collaborative Effort

AUSTIN, Texas -- Federal, state and local efforts are still underway to remove what Hurricane Rita left behind after it hammered Southeast Texas – an estimated five million cubic yards of fallen trees, limbs and trash from damaged buildings, said officials of the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Texas Governor’s Division of Emergency Management (GDEM).

"Our early targeting of debris removal is to make highways and roads safe for travel and to remove debris from public property if it constitutes a health or safety hazard," said Federal Coordinating Officer Tom Davies of FEMA.

FEMA debris specialists who assess debris removal needs and oversee and monitor removal operations have been deployed to stricken Texas counties. The actual removal, storage and disposal of debris are performed by local governments or in some cases by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE). FEMA is providing direct federal assistance through a mission assignment to USACE for debris removal on public property as a quick response measure in heavily damaged areas.

Reimbursement for debris removal costs is covered under FEMA’s Public Assistance program. The GDEM administers the program. FEMA will reimburse local governments 100 percent of the costs of debris removal, pickup and disposal occurring during the first 34 days after the hurricane. For debris removal after that period, FEMA pays 75 percent of the costs. The remaining 25 percent comes from local funds. [Read more - FEMA]

Day 39 – 9/29/05, 140,000 Homes and Businesses Uninhabitable after Katrina

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- At least 140,000 south Louisiana homes and businesses are uninhabitable because of floods and winds from Hurricane Katrina, the state's top environmental official said Thursday.

The buildings make up a large chunk of the 22 million tons of debris the storm left behind, said Mike McDaniel, chief of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. The number of buildings that should be condemned and bulldozed could be as high as 160,000, McDaniel said.

The figures are the result of the agency's first overall damage assessment of the parishes affected by the storm. [Read more - WWLTV]

Again, help the Red Cross help others. Give generously. Thanks!