DALLAS - Three years into the country's largest-ever reconstruction effort following one of the most devastating storms in U.S. history, Louisiana was hit by two hurricanes in less than two weeks.
On Sept. 1, Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast with winds of 110 miles per hour. In contrast to Hurricane Katrina, whose storm surge overcame several levees in New Orleans and flooded much of the city in September 2005, most of the damage from Gustav was attributed to the high winds.
Less than two weeks later on Sept. 13, the even-stronger Hurricane Ike struck the Texas coast just west of Louisiana. Most of the damage occurred in Texas, but parishes in southwest Louisiana suffered extensive flooding and wind damage.
Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said the state immediately put into effect some of the lessons learned from Katrina.
"The governor sent me to New Orleans to assist Mayor Ray Nagin with the evacuation, and then when that was completed we deployed recovery staff around the country to collect information that would be valuable for the evacuees," he said. "Then once we got through Gustav, we deployed to southwest Louisiana for Hurricane Ike."
The two storms flooded some 12,000 homes in the state, with up to 300,000 homes suffering some damage. The floodwaters and high winds caused agricultural losses of $750 million and $1 billion in infrastructure damage, including $150 million in damages to public school facilities.
The federal government said early in November that it would reimburse states and local governments for 100% of expense in dealing by Hurricane Ike but only 90% for Hurricane Gustav. Under current law, the federal government caps its reimbursement at 75% unless the president decides otherwise.
Raising the federal reimbursement level was a good thing, according to Rainwater.
"Dropping the level of state and local cost share is helpful, but Louisiana still finds itself in a place where we must sort out the damages and repairs between two storms, complete the same amount of paperwork, and deal with the same level of red tape in programs," he said. "We now have different cost-share burdens for different storms, even though they were less than two weeks apart."
"Right now, crews are removing debris left in Louisiana's waterways after Katrina and Rita and moving past newer debris because it was left after Gustav or Ike," Rainwater added. "This is just the first example of what I fear will be many where duplicative processes cost us time and tax dollars that we cannot afford."
Louisiana was among the states that got an early Christmas present from the federal government when the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on the day after Thanksgiving that the state would get $438 million in federal funds for recovery from the two 2008 hurricanes.
The money is the first allocation of the state's share from a $6.1 billion pool of Community Development Block Grant funds Congress appropriated earlier this fall for states affected by disasters in 2008. Louisiana officials anticipate that HUD will allocate the remaining funds in January.
In contrast to the federal response after Katrina and then Hurricane Rita in 2005, Rainwater said, the national response to the 2008 hurricanes has been well thought-out and effective.
"This time around, the federal government got the method for administering aid right by using actual damages to determine how much money each impacted state will receive," he said. "These first allocations were based on housing damages and we will be working to make sure that the federal government continues to understand the effect that Gustav and Ike had on our state and the importance of addressing our many unmet recovery needs, particularly in the areas of agriculture and fisheries."
Rainwater said the federal assistance is justified because the state's cultural and natural resources benefit the entire nation.
"The benefits to restoring our communities stretch far beyond the borders of Louisiana," he said. "In addition to possessing a culture like no other, we are the second largest refiner of petroleum in the nation and we produce more than a quarter of the nation's seafood and significant amounts of cotton, sugar cane, and rice."
As he left Louisiana earlier this week to join other governors in a meeting with President-elect Barack Obama, Gov. Bobby Jindal said he would like to see more federal investment in coastal restoration projects and barrier island recovery efforts. He listed coastal hurricane protection, levee projects, and the restoration of a Charity Hospital medical complex in New Orleans as the state's top priorities.
"There are literally billions of dollars that can be pushed through the pipeline that have already been allocated by Congress that have yet to come to our communities, that have yet to come to our state," Jindal said.
Louisiana will set aside 25% of its total allocation for projects dealing with rental housing, agriculture and fisheries recovery, and hurricane protection. The bulk of the funds will be allocated to the parishes based on their level of damage, with parishes deciding how they will spend the funds.
Mayor Nagin said New Orleans would use any economic recovery funds it receives to repair heavily traveled streets throughout the city, upgrade the Union Passenger Terminal that played a key role in evacuating residents before Hurricane Gustav, and help finance improvements to the water and sewage systems.
Nagin said federal funds could also finance improvement projects at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to increase its efficiency and provide a more user-friendly passenger terminal.
Chris Bonura, a spokesman for the Port of New Orleans, said port officials hope to use stimulus funds for a $75 million project to expand a container terminal that has already been authorized by Congress.
Trustees of the Recovery School District in New Orleans - which was established by the state in 2003 to operate underperforming schools - and the Orleans Parish School District have adopted a $1.8 billion, six-phase rebuilding process that could take 30 years to complete.
The districts will finance the five-year first phase with $685 million of rebuilding grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but have not developed a financing plan for the next five phases expected to cost more than $1 billion. The work will consist of complete renovations or construction at 30 schools, including eight new high schools.
Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District, said the district could use $400 million of the recovery package to finance the $400 million second phase of the system's capital plan, which calls for renovating 40 schools.
The Louisiana Board of Education approved the rebuilding plan in early November.
Another big building project aimed at stimulating the state's economy is the replacement of old Charity Hospital in New Orleans, damaged beyond repair by Hurricane Katrina.
Two separate hospitals will be built on 70 acres in downtown New Orleans for a total cost of $2 billion. Louisiana State University will operate one as a teaching hospital for its students and those from other universities in New Orleans, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will operate a VA hospital in the complex.
The 200-bed VA hospital is fully funded by Congress, but the state expects to finance LSU's $1.2 billion Medical Center of New Orleans with up to $500 million of revenue bonds.
Much of the other funding is to come from a reimbursement from FEMA for damages to Charity Hospital, but the two sides are some $470 million apart on the damage estimate.
"We still have many hurdles standing between us and the medical complex that we desire, including coming to an agreement with FEMA about what level of reimbursement the state can expect for damage to the old Charity Hospital during Hurricane Katrina," Rainwater said.
The state claims damages of $492 million, but FEMA said the facility was outdated and badly damaged before the storms, and has offered $23 million.
However, at a news conference announcing the selection of the site for the hospital, a FEMA official said it was reconsidering its estimate.
"We have come to a point where we feel there is more money we can obligate for eligible repair work," said Jim Stark, the assistant administrator for FEMA's Gulf Coast Recovery Office.
