Government officials and special-interest groups are jockeying to assess and grade recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast as the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches.
Donald Powell, federal coordinator of Gulf Coast rebuilding, briefed President Bush and other officials yesterday at the White House and earlier met with reporters on how $110 billion are being spent.
About 100 million cubic yards of debris have been removed from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana since the storm struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. A small percentage of debris remains in Mississippi, however more than one-third of the debris in New Orleans has yet to be hauled away. In Texas, where Hurricane Rita struck in September, all of the debris has been removed.
“The devastation is overwhelming,” said Mr. Powell, who added that $15 billion in flood insurance has been issued to victims of the storms in addition to federal aid. “It’s the largest displacement since the great Dust Bowl.”
The good news is that the oil and gas companies and refineries are back to pre-Katrina production.
Congress directed $5.7 billion to fix the failed levee system that left 80 percent of New Orleans under water for two months. Mr. Powell says breaches in 220 miles of the levee system have been repaired.
In a meeting with reporters at a luncheon hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Mr. Powell says he spends two-thirds of his time in the Gulf and the other third in Washington.
“I don’t like being [in Washington]; it’s not productive,” he says.
Meanwhile, analysts gathered by the Center for American Progress met yesterday to discuss failures at all government levels, and today, the Mississippi chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will release its report on housing, the economy and that private-sector response.
A review panel of engineers will meet Friday in New Orleans to discuss lessons learned and the levee system.
Next week, a coalition of black leaders led by nationally syndicated TV and radio host and columnist Armstrong Williams will hold an event highlighting the displacement of local workers by illegal aliens.
Mr. Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, was appointed by Mr. Bush nine months ago to lead the recovery efforts, which he calls “the defining moment in my life.”
Mr. Powell says he would move his family, even his grandchildren to New Orleans.
“I would also make sure we had a clear understanding of the evacuation plan, and I would be prudent in how I rebuilt my home.”
New Orleans has been flooded before and will be flooded in the future, he says. “I’m not saying it’s a way of life, but New Orleans needs to rebuild responsibly.”
Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who once pledged to rebuild New Orleans as a “chocolate” city, told the National Association of Black Journalists on Friday in Indianapolis that billions of dollars of federal aid are going to contractors.
“Very little of those dollars have gotten to the local governments or to the people themselves,” Mr. Nagin said.
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