The storm is long gone, but the signs of the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina can still be seen across south Louisiana.
Wednesday marks one more month until the 10-year anniversary of Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast and left about 80% of New Orleans underwater. As USA Today reports, the federal government has spent tens of billions of dollars rebuilding communities along the Gulf, but the task is far from over.
Louisiana is still uncovering hurricane-related damage that will take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to repair.
“We have sinkholes occurring all over the city,” says Slidell Mayor Freddy Drennan. “When we dig them up to fix them, we are finding infrastructure problems underneath,” problems that are most likely related to Katrina.
Louisiana has thus far doled out around $10 billion in recovery money provided by the federal government for 24,000 reconstruction projects ranging from roads to public buildings and utilities that were damaged by Katrina and Rita, the massive storm that followed a month later, according to state reports. But another $2.5 billion in federal assistance remains set aside for public reconstruction that has not yet been spent, and thousands of projects remain open. And some projects are getting bigger as time passes.
Drennan says the Federal Emergency Management Agency has already agreed to pay about $10 million for Katrina-related repairs to the city’s sewer system, and millions more will probably be needed. He suggests this kind of ongoing recovery could take another 10 years. New Orleans is undergoing a similar process with its roads.
Louisiana has been criticized for the protracted pace of its recovery, particularly by the FEMA Inspector General’s office. In January 2012, the inspector general issued a report concluding that Louisiana had completed—or “closed,” in the government’s parlance—only 731 of nearly 13,000 Katrina-related reconstruction projects, while Mississippi had closed 80% of its 7,800 projects and Alabama had closed nearly every one of its 1,100 Katrina projects.
Part of the reason for this low close-out rate, the IG says, was because the federal government agreed to pay 100% of the repair costs for Katrina-related damage.
“Because the state does not pay the project costs, it has no incentive to seek cost-effective replacement or repair solutions, close completed projects, or begin reducing the disaster workforce as work is completed,” reads the report. “The 100% financing also led to applicants continuing to identify new damages 5 1/2 years after the event, and asking FEMA to cover eligible costs.”
But Mark Riley, the director of Louisiana’s recovery office, says this criticism is simply measuring the wrong outcome. “Closure” is a bureaucratic process requiring the filing of final paperwork and auditing billings for each project—a labor-intensive process that Louisiana did not make an early priority.
“Closeout is not a measure of recovery,” Riley says. “If you looked at how much of our physical infrastructure has actually been brought back to life, the number would be around 80%.”
