Posted on 06/17/2006 4:31:27 PM PDT by Ellesu
NEW ORLEANS, June 17 — Billions of federal dollars are about to start flowing into this city after President Bush on Thursday signed the emergency relief bill the region has long awaited. But, with the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, local officials have yet to come up with a redevelopment plan showing what kind of city will emerge from the storm's ruins.
No neighborhoods have been ruled out for rebuilding, no matter how damaged or dangerous. No decisions have been made on what kind of housing, if any, will replace the mold-ridden empty hulks that stretch endlessly in many areas. No one really knows exactly how the $10.4 billion in federal housing aid will be spent, and guidance for residents in vulnerable areas has been minimal.
A month into his second term, Mayor C. Ray Nagin has said little about his vision for a profoundly different city. In an interview on Friday, he said it would be six months before a "master planning document" was issued to address questions like which areas should be rebuilt, although he suggested that thousands of residents were making that decision on their own.
Caution should be the watchword, Mr. Nagin said, months after the apparent demise of a planning committee he set up. "New Orleans is a very historic city," he said. "We can't come out and just do something quickly."
But a close collaborator of Mr. Nagin acknowledged that the process has lagged. "Let's just admit something straight out: we're late," said David Voelker, a board member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Mr. Voelker, who is in charge of the state authority's efforts to coordinate with neighborhood planning, sounded uncertain even about the nature of the master plan.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What the heck is this supposed to mean?
Much of the city qualifies for membership on the directory of historic places, however, alot of New Orleans East would not fit that category, as some of the worst ghettoes were built in between the world wars.
Gee, imagine that.
Removal of flood-damaged cars could start Monday
NEW ORLEANS State officials say they hope to begin towing thousands of muck-caked, abandoned vehicles from the southeast Louisiana landscape on Monday.
The cars, trucks and vans were left behind after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state last year.
If it starts as planned, the operation culminates months of wrangling over contracts.
In its announcement about the towing, the state Department of Environmental Quality focused on the monumental nature of the task. Bruce Hammatt, the D-E-Q's project manager, says the task is unprecedented.
But there is much more to be done. For one thing, a precise inventory of automobiles and boats has not been done. Earlier this year, state police estimated the count at about 150 thousand.
Hammatt says the exact number of cars and boats remains uncertain, but the company hired to haul away the vehicles is expected to tow about 200 a day, which gives the task a 120- to 150-day window for completion.
http://www.klfy.com
Late evacuating. Late finding and using 250 school busses. This guy is dumber than steaming shi'ite. If I were the Feds, I'd tell Nagin that we lied when we said we'd give N.O. money.
"Get rid of the mold, get sanitation operational. Get the area cleaned up so rebuilding can take place."
Like that's how it was in N.O. before Katrina? Puh-lease.
I just keeping asking the question: why rebuild a major city that lies in a massive flood plane in a region that regularly receives the world's strongest stroms? It just seems stupid to me.
In addition to that, the reason there is no plan to rebuild here is the same reason there was no evacuation plan. Poor leadership and massive corruption. Two things that the Crescent City has always stood out for.
LOL, hey it wasn't AS moldy.
As P. J. O'Rourke would say, Ray Nagin desperately needs to be picked up by the ankles and shaken until his brains leak out his ears and some more useful organ enters his skull.
There's one other little factoid that's not being mentioned: what if NO, right now, goes ahead full blast with rebuilding, and they get whalloped by another hurricane?
What happens if the levees break again, and construction equipment, materials and partially-built structures go under water? Who pays for it? The Federal Government? Rinse and repeat?
Six months sounds about right; post hurricane season, with some confidence building if they don't get hit again, and/or the levees hold.
That town's not ready for rebuilding; they haven't even dug out all the vehicles or hooked up basic services in some parts of the city.
Let it wait -- and let the idiots in charge work on a disaster plan for the city -- DHS rated them lowest of all cities in meeting federal standards of preparedness in a report released yesterday. Rebuilding is not going to keep people from dying, but a serious emergency plan might.
If anybody wants to rebuild N.O. fine, have a bake sale. Don't even THINK of using Federal funds to do it.
NO PLAN = NO FUNDS.
Otherwise the historic curruption of NOLA will steal the taxpayers money.
The first thing Nagin and his staff do every morning is take a dumb-pill.
I can translate that into 'local New Orleans speak'.
It means saying the worst areas are unlivable and it is foolish to rebuild there- which I won't do, regardless of the facts.
It means saying 'no rebuilding the Ninth Ward' would cost votes and insure the city demographic changes to less 'chocolate'.
It means saying 'no rebuilding Lakeview- or making Lakeview 'mixed income'' would cost a huge part of the tax base.
It means we're gonna let people do whatever they want, take the money, invest it in doomed areas, and we're not gonna make anyone mad.
Except the American taxpayers- and once the money is here, Nagin doesn't really care what you think.
Three weeks later, a complete rebuilding plan was presented to Charles II. Its author? Christopher Wren.
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