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City-parish sets stage to ask for billions in federal relief

In a meeting with House Speaker Tom DeLay, Mayor Kip Holden said the city-parish may need $10 billion in federal help with the potential influx of hundreds of thousands of new residents to Baton Rouge. City-parish Chief Administrative Officer Walter Monsour said this morning that DeLay's response was "it might be doable." The mayor is expected to make a case for billions in federal help today to President Bush, who is slated to be in town.
Monsour told DeLay that the city-parish could double in size permanently from the migration of people from the New Orleans area. Because of that, Monsour said he told Delay the parish would need more roads, a better sewer system, maybe a second bridge, a loop around the city, more police officers, more schools. DeLay, R-Texas, asked the city-parish to provide a request report to the federal government.

Monsour said he would like to proceed by hiring the best urban planner in the country to come up with a blueprint for the growth of Baton Rouge. That design would be the basis to make an official pitch to the federal government.

LSU medical school relocating to Pennington
LSU's medical school is temporarily relocating to Baton Rouge. The school is slated to begin operating Sept. 19 with 350 students in Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Pennington Spokesman Glen Duncan says freshmen and sophomore medical students will take their classes at the conference center, which had previously been shut down to make room for research facilities. Pennington also has plans to make offices and cubicles available for faculty and staff of the School of Medicine. Duncan said up to 15 medical scientists and their technical staff also will set up in Pennington, which is known worldwide for nutrition research. Pennington is not the only education institution expanding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some local private schools are planning night classes to accommodate students from New Orleans.

A geopolitical expert argues that New Orleans must be rebuilt
Intelligence expert George Friedman counters the people who question whether New Orleans should be rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina drowned the city. Friedman, who formed global intelligence firm Stratfor.com after founding the LSU Center for Geopolitical Studies in 1994, says the Crescent City has to be rebuilt for the sake of America's economy. Writes Friedman, "New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating." Read his column on the Stratfor.com site. (More)

Hurricane roundup: New Orleans not under siege; cell service being restored
-- Lt. General Russel Honore, who is overseeing the military effort in New Orleans, estimates about 10,000 people remain in the city. He says the city is not under siege, as has been reported.

-- Wireless carriers are returning service to the New Orleans area. Verizon Wireless said crews are working to restore service to New Orleans, Mandeville, Hammond, Covington and other cities. Cell phone service has been restored to the New Orleans airport, which is being used for evacuations.

-- The Murphy Oil complex in Meraux is leaking oil into a surrounding neighborhood. The leak was spotted in a flyover by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

-- Traffic was jammed in Jefferson Parish as residents returned to check on their homes and businesses. People started lining up in their cars in the night to get a head start into the parish. The parish permitted cars in at 6 a.m.

-- ExxonMobil, which was worried about supplies to its refinery in Baton Rouge, now is increasing production here. Energy experts fear an energy crisis will take an economic toll this winter because of production and refining disruptions combined with an expected harsh winter. ExxonMobil expects an increase in supply of oil from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, a critical facility that is used to offload oil from supertankers. The port in Venice was not damaged in the storm. ExxonMobil also says the U.S. Department of Energy has approved a request to borrow 6 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (From releases, news reports)

Poll results: Bush did lousy job
BusinessReport.com and Daily Report readers are taking it out on George Bush and Kathleen Blanco. In our online poll, a majority of 1,053 respondents said the president provided lousy leadership following Hurricane Katrina. Sixty-seven percent said Bush provided ineffective leadership. Forty-five percent said the governor provided ineffective leadership. Only 12% said both did well.

In a separate online poll on our site, 61% of 1,078 respondents said New Orleans would return as a vibrant city; the remaining did not.

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