Rising From Ruins

More than four months after a string of deadly hurricanes ripped into the Gulf Coast, people are still coming to grips with the massive and daunting task of rebuilding thousands of communities along the coast. In some instances, we're seeing businesses preparing plans for entirely new communities (Shaw Homes for example outside New Orleans).

In other cases, we're seeing charitable groups proposing to purchase tracts of land to build new communities. Habitat for Humanity is one such charitable group that is tackling this huge task. Corporate donations are assisting in providing materials and support in this endeavor, but it will still take time to prepare sites, arrange materials, and build the structures.

Among the challenges for the builders, regardless of whether they're for-profit or not-for-profit, is finding sites that are suitable for construction that will not diminish the local communities fundamental nature. Further, sites need to be obtained that are away from flood zones and are on higher ground.

Meanwhile, critical services are still trying to recover themselves. Local fire and police departments found many of their facilities and equipment ruined by the storm surge along the coast. Some are still awaiting new equipment because of bureaucratic snafus or other problems. Without these critical services, localities are imperiled should there be fires or other calamities that require immediate attention and outstrip the ability of the localities to deal with them where they would have had no such problems before the hurricanes hit.

While FEMA aid to Mississippi has topped $1 billion, the practical effects of that aid are still spotty. FEMA aid went to clearing debris and temporary shelter, as well as reimbursement of local emergency response. Tens of thousands of people who were displaced also received some FEMA aid, but we're at the point where the federal government has to look at permanent solutions - not just aid. And FEMA gets mixed reviews:

"The government can spend a billion dollars a day in Iraq, but they can't take care of this?" he asked.

Hereford is grateful he is among the 450,000 people who have received financial assistance from the agency so far and to live in one of the 29,000 trailers provided to house hurricane victims in the state. Every little bit helps, Hereford said, but he is growing frustrated he is no closer to being able to rebuild his home.

However, Crystal Dedeaux, formerly of Gulfport and now living in Overland Park, Kan., said she's happy with her experience thus far.

"They've done everything for us they said they would do," Dedeaux said. "They're helping us start our lives over."

Dedeaux said she received a trailer shortly after the storm. When it proved to be too small, she said the agency helped her relocate to Kansas with her four children and provides rental assistance.

FEMA also started picking up the hotel tabs of hurricane evacuees after Katrina.

Eugene Brezany, a FEMA spokesman based in Jackson, said the agency is paying for about 2,400 hotel rooms in the state and close to 40,000 others.

Last month, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order forcing FEMA to extend its deadline for ending its hotel reimbursement program from Jan. 7 to Feb. 7.

Brezany said the agency is "working in recognition of that ruling." But Brezany said the agency expects the number of hotel dwellers to dip further next month as it fills more trailers.

Permanent solutions shouldn't come from the federal government alone. However, the federal government, working with state and local officials should ease the way for people to rebuild where the situation dictates or help those who shouldn't rebuild on their former sites find new suitable locations nearby. Areas where rebuilding might not be suitable include certain locations along the coast that were completely devastated by the storm surge, or will now be susceptible to further storm surge damage from even minor storms. Buffer zones along the coast may need to be developed and implemented so that coastal communities can escape the worst of the damage from storm surges, while retaining at least a portion of their former locations. Not only would this reduce the risk of loss of life due to storms going forward, but it would also reduce insurance and government payouts in the future as smarter and stronger building codes would make structures better able to withstand punishing storms.

Battling insurance companies is a continuing problem, where the companies repeatedly try to point to flood damage as the cause of the losses, which in some cases is really impossible to tell because nothing remains of the homes except the foundation. Wind damage may have been the proximate cause of the destruction, and permitted other storm forces to damage or destroy homes, but the companies know that such kinds of damage would result in paying out to the insured. Flood damage is largely excluded from most homeowner policies. Thus, many people find themselves battling insurance companies over how and why their homes were damaged or destroyed.

However, under a recently approved federal aid program, residents of the Gulf Coast can apply for grants of up to $150,000 to rebuild homes that were flooded outside federally designated flood zones.

The package includes $11.5 billion to assist homeowners, with grants capped at $150,000 for owner-occupied homes.

The state will deduct any money paid on private insurance claims or by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"It's great. I still think the insurance companies should be taking care of it,'' Waveland resident Paul Phillips said. "But wherever it comes from, we won't be complaining.''

Phillips spent Christmas in a FEMA trailer on his property after he lost his home to Katrina's record storm surge. He and wife Polly dropped their flood insurance in the late 1990s after they were told it was unnecessary.

Under the plan, the state will use the money to offer $150,000 grants to people whose houses flooded but were outside federally designated flood zones. Recipients must rebuild according to stricter building codes and new flood maps, and they must carry flood insurance on the rebuilt structures.

State officials say the program will take several weeks to implement.

Gov. Haley Barbour pushed Congress for it and said it will be an "enormous organizational and administrative task.''

He warned that it will take several weeks for the state to receive federal guidelines on how to spend the money, and could take months after that to launch the program.

"This is the equivalent of establishing a financial institution from scratch that has the ability to accept and review between 50,000 and 75,000 applications in a matter of weeks,'' Barbour said.

People are also using the holiday vacation to volunteer along the Gulf Coast and helping with the rebuilding.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee also notes the four-month anniversary of Katrina making landfall on the Gulf Coast.

UPDATE:
The NYT tries to put out a more flattering picture of Gov. Blanco four months after Katrina came ashore and devastated much of Southern Louisiana, including New Orleans. And the comparisons to Rudy Giuliani don't help. In the aftermath of 9/11, Rudy was a calming presence and commanded attention and leadership - both in how he responded to questions on the death toll to how he focused on the tasks at hand. None of those characteristics are present in Blanco, who at turns feuded with Mayor Whiplash Nagin, President Bush, and even her own staff (who had to give advice on what to wear). Her frazzled demeanor and inability to make command decisions continues to plague the hurricane response and recovery.

The question now is whether Ms. Blanco can regain enough political traction to lead her state out of its trauma. A post-hurricane poll showed that only 19 percent of voters would definitely support her for re-election in 2007. The depopulation of New Orleans, her party's base, has emboldened Republicans. And some Democrats question whether she has a vision for reconstruction, beyond the laundry list of needs she ticks off in news releases.

There's good reason that her support has dwindled. In the first comprehensive plan for Louisiana recovery provided to Congress, the Governor and state representatives in Congress put forth a laundry list of projects so crammed with pork that it threatened to kill any remaining support for Blanco. When key infrastructure improvements were overlooked in favor of pet projects, you know that the dysfunctional state government is still getting it wrong.

And moves to consolidate the levee boards to eliminate graft and corruption that diverted monies away from levee maintenance and construction have been deferred into the new year because of continuing questions over how the boards should be consolidated. Leadership is still wanting in Louisiana and it starts with the top.

Still, Ms. Blanco has come under fire for not throwing her weight behind legislation proposed by State Senator Walter J. Boasso, a Republican from Arabi, that would consolidate levee boards in the New Orleans area. The boards, which oversee levee maintenance, are considered corrupt and inefficient, and many experts believe they must be revamped or combined before the levee system can be improved.

Angered by inaction on Senator Boasso's bill, a grass-roots organization in New Orleans gathered 45,000 signatures demanding a special session to enact levee consolidation. And the New Orleans Business Council took out full-page newspaper advertisements advocating the bill's passage.

Many political analysts viewed Ms. Blanco's failure to support Senator Boasso's bill as evidence of her plodding, cautious approach to government.

"There really is this growing sense that there is this absolutely terrible lack of leadership in the state that is hurting us at every turn," said Elliott B. Stonecipher, a nonpartisan pollster from Shreveport.

UPDATE:
It would seem that Congress has hewed closer to Don Surber's idea of issuing a $100,000 grant to the hurricane victims instead of creating a massive new bureaucracy. In the long run, it might save the government billions. The plan Congress has approved would provide grants up to $150,000 to rebuild, and the details remain to be worked out, but this is clearly designed to help speed and spur reconstruction along the devastated Gulf Coast.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; hurricane rita; relief; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour; hurricane rita; hurricane wilma.