LA Gov. Blanco Lays Out Urgent State Needs

[Sean in New Orleans]

Governor Kathleen Blanco laid out the first of emergency, immediate needs for infrastucture improvements in SE Louisiana with more to come. Immediately the State of LA wants construction to begin on a new elevated 6 lane I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain connecting New Orleans East to Slidell. Construction is expected to begin immediately on completing I-49 from New Orleans to Lafayette, and I-10 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans will be widened from 4 to 6 lanes. Other immediate needs are to upgrade all levees to category 5 proof around Metro New Orleans, Houma, Plaquemines Parish (restore MS River levees), St. Bernard Parish, and the Atchafalaya Basin. Also, the interstate system will need to be repaved in Metro New Orleans. More to come. Heard her press conference on MSNBC about 2 hours ago. I think she placed the price tag of these just under $30 Billion and the state wants and needs construction to begin immediately on all of these projects.

[terstorm1012]

good plans, but I think LA really should send some engineers over to The Netherlands and take a look at their Deltawerken project.

Other than letting the Mississippi do what it wants by removing the Old River facility, they're really going to need to do something other than upgrading levees and so on if they want to keep that part of the state viable.