News from Central Gulf Focus: La./Miss (Ala contributors)

[Audrey2Katrina]

2 charities linked to Jefferson lose aid

Blanco budget vetoes eliminate $450,000

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Jan Moller
Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco used her line-item veto authority this week to eliminate $450,000 in the state budget targeted for a pair of controversial charities with close ties to embattled U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and former New Orleans City Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt.

Blanco cut $300,000 earmarked for Care Unlimited and $150,000 allocated to Orleans Metropolitan Housing, both of which have come under scrutiny in recent weeks after Gill Pratt steered taxpayer dollars and donated cars to the organizations just before leaving her post on the City Council. Gill Pratt now works for Care Unlimited.

The vetoes were among seven items totaling nearly $3 million zeroed out by Blanco from a record $26.7 billion state spending plan that includes nearly $8 billion for hurricane relief and millions of dollars in new spending for pay raises to teachers, college faculty, assistant district attorneys and other government workers.

"I am satisfied that this budget makes continued investments in the revitalization of our economies, schools and health care systems," Blanco said.


'Conflicting information'

The governor signed House Bill 1 by Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego, late Tuesday, just minutes before the deadline to sign bills from the recently concluded lawmaking session. But she waited until Wednesday after 6 p.m. -- nearly 24 hours later -- to announce the cuts.

Both Care Unlimited and Orleans Metropolitan Housing are charities that are supposed to finance minor home repairs. But in explaining the vetoes, Blanco said "there is conflicting information as to the exact nature of the services provided" by Care Unlimited.

She also said the group has failed to submit a sworn financial statement to the state legislative auditor in recent years. The organization's last financial report was filed in March 2003, covering the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2002.

Blanco said she vetoed the money for Orleans Metropolitan Housing because the group's financing comes almost entirely from the state. "The majority of the funding is expended on salaries and operating expenses, not the programmatic focus of the organization," Blanco said.

State records do not identify who requested the earmarks. But Care Unlimited's offices are in the same building at 3313 S. Saratoga St. where state Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, D-New Orleans, who is Bill Jefferson's daughter, keeps her legislative office. A call to that office was not returned.

Reached by phone late Wednesday, Gill Pratt refused comment before hanging up on a reporter.

'Spitting in the ocean'

The handful of line-item vetoes weren't enough to satisfy critics who had urged the governor to kill large chunks of the $33.1 million in legislative earmarks stuffed into the budget bill by lawmakers for pet projects in their districts.

"That's like spitting in the ocean to make the tide come in," said Treasurer John Kennedy, who last week sent Blanco a list of nearly $10 million worth of projects that he wanted her to eliminate from the budget.

In response to Kennedy and others who have criticized the legislative earmarks as pork-barrel spending that the state can ill afford after two devastating hurricanes, Blanco issued an executive order Wednesday that seeks to impose new accountability on groups that get government dollars.

Before the state will cut a check to a private group, recipients now will have to sign a cooperative endeavor agreement with the state listing all officers and directors, along with a detailed budget and performance measures. Groups that can't satisfy the new requirements won't get money, Blanco said.

"Let me be clear. My signature (on the budget) is no guarantee that the projects will be automatically funded," Blanco said.

The governor also defended her decision to leave most of the earmarks in the budget. Even though administration officials acknowledge that they don't know details about how much of that money will be used, Blanco said it will nonetheless go to a good cause.

"Do I believe that our money should be allocated to serve our children in after-school programs and our seniors in community centers? Absolutely," Blanco said.


Morrell request vetoed

But Kennedy said the governor missed a rare opportunity to hold the line on spending in a state that has the 11th-highest state and local tax burden in the United States. He said the time to scrutinize questionable projects is before they get into the budget, not after they have been put there by legislators.

Included among the legislative earmarks are nearly two dozen line items totaling $4.5 million for groups that previously were financed through the Governor's Office of Urban Affairs and Development. Critics of the urban fund had long derided it as a legislative slush fund because it was controlled by the governor's office and was sometimes used as a tool to wrangle votes from reluctant lawmakers.

Blanco used an executive order to freeze the urban fund, as well as a similar program for rural legislators, in the early aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The urban and rural funds were completely eliminated in this year's budget.

But 26 of the 85 organizations that received money through the urban fund in the two previous fiscal years were still in this year's budget before the governor's vetoes.

Blanco also zeroed out a $100,000 appropriation sought by former Rep. Arthur Morrell, D-New Orleans, for an after-school tutoring program. Blanco's veto message said the money for Forever Our Children was inappropriately placed in the Office of State Parks, which lacks the resources to monitor the program.

But Morrell, who resigned from the House in June to become clerk of Criminal District Court in Orleans Parish, said the program operated without problems for the 23 years he served in the Legislature, and he accused Blanco of turning her back on New Orleans.

"Maybe it was just (Blanco) reacting to something in the newspaper," Morrell said, referring to unflattering publicity that the earmarks have attracted. "That's the problem with this governor. She reacts rather than making decisions."

Other projects canceled by Blanco include $10,000 that Sen. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, had sought for the Northeast Louisiana Riding Club for bleachers.

Ellington said he was disappointed by Blanco's decision because the riding club is one of the few recreational activities available in his rural district. "I guess country folks just aren't supposed to have any place to go, and if they go, they're supposed to take their lawn chairs with them," Ellington said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Blanco vetoes phone video services bill

Backers said it would boost competition

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Jan Moller
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Citing concerns about property rights and a potential loss of revenue for local government, Gov. Kathleen Blanco vetoed legislation this week that would have allowed telephone companies to negotiate directly with the state to provide broadband video services and begin competing with cable television companies.

House Bill 699 by Rep. Billy Montgomery, D-Haughton, had drawn strong opposition from mayors, police jurors and other local officials who didn't want to give up the right to outline the terms and conditions under which companies can do business in their area.

In her veto message to House Clerk Butch Speer, Blanco said that "there remains significant doubt" about the impact of the bill, which would have allowed phone companies to negotiate a franchise agreement with the state attorney general's office.

Current law requires cable companies and other firms that provide video services to negotiate contracts with each municipality and pay a fee for the use of public rights of way.

Montgomery's bill would still have required phone companies to pay franchise fees, plus 15 cents per month for each customer -- fees that are typically passed on to subscribers.


Fear of revenue loss

Blanco's veto message echoed concerns raised by opponents that local governments could lose money under the bill.

"If the bill became effective and the result was significant revenue loss to local government, as many have reported, traditional vital services for our citizens would have to be cut or those citizens may be asked to pay increased taxes," Blanco wrote.

But supporters of the bill said local governments would likely gain revenue.

"I couldn't see how it would do anything except help the rural areas," said Sen. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, who handled Montgomery's bill in the Senate.

Supporters of the bill said its net effect would have been to lower the cost of premium TV services by encouraging greater competition between cable and phone companies.

"This bill had lower prices for the consumer (among its benefits), plus it was going to generate jobs," Mongtomery said.


Competition urged

He cited an announcement this week by Cox Communications that it was raising rates for some cable and high-speed Internet services as proof that more competition is needed.

But opponents of the bill, led by the Police Jury Association of Louisiana, said phone companies already have the right to compete against cable providers and that the bill would lead to an avalanche of litigation.

"We think we can have competition right now. The law allows for it," said Dan Garrett, general council of the police jury group.

He said phone and cable companies already are going head-to-head in Ascension Parish, and said his group is prepared to help any phone company that wants to compete against cable providers.

"We've committed to assist anyone trying to get into the cable business in negotiating franchise agreements and even coming up with a model franchise agreement that various jurisdictions can sign off on," Garrett said.

New Orleans and unincorporated parts of Jefferson Parish would have been exempt from the bill, as would other municipalities with home-rule charters that predate the 1974 state Constitution.

But in St. Tammany, St. Bernard and other parishes, phone companies could have begun offering video services after coming to terms with the state, had the governor not vetoed the measure.

[Audrey2Katrina]

ROYAL WELCOME

The Saudi ambassador tours N.O. and discovers signs of optimism

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer

Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, toured the devastated neighborhoods of New Orleans on Wednesday, representing the oil-rich kingdom that has given more than $250 million to Hurricane Katrina efforts.


Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki, second from right, tours the Lower Ninth Ward with Gen. Hunt Downer.

Even in plain sight of 2,000 dying trees in City Park, FEMA trailer parks lining St. Claude Avenue and the vastly abandoned Lower 9th Ward, the prince said he found optimism and hope for recovery.

"It must have driven people to the end of their wits," Turki said after taking in the ruins of the Lower 9th Ward. "But to see how much people want to come back, that gives you all the hope you can aspire to as to the nature of human beings. The things I have seen are so admirable."

The Saudi people, who began donating in December by giving $2.88 million for clothing, household goods and furniture to the St. Vincent de Paul Council, continue to keep the New Orleans region on their charitable list, the prince said.

"I bring you the friendship of the Saudi people," he said. "The kingdom is here, making contributions in kind. It is an Arab custom to take those in need and give them shelter without asking questions of anything in return. From jazz to jambalaya, New Orleans has made important contributions to the global community, and now the global community is making contributions to New Orleans."

The Saudi kingdom has for the past 10 months contributed to relief efforts such as Habitat for Humanity, Second Harvest Food Bank, Louisiana State University Health Science Center and the American Red Cross.

Turki spoke earnestly of helping a poor, battered city recover and restore its place in the world.

"We especially want to see Charity Hospital restored," he said of the once integral health center washed away by the floodwaters of Aug. 29.

The prince spoke at a luncheon at the Plimsoll Club, 30 stories above the French Quarter, before taking an extensive tour that included City Park, Bayou St. John, the Lower 9th Ward and stretches of neighborhoods in between.

In an elegant speech at the white tablecloth luncheon, Prince Turki included quotations from Robert Kennedy and Herman Melville. He also tapped Bob Dylan, saying that in New Orleans, "the past does not pass away so quickly here."

The Quran teaches that it is good to be charitable in public, but that it is preferred to do good works in secret, he said.

"We are all human; we need warmth and shelter, food and clothing," Turki said.

"Little else matters without that which allows simply to live. . . . You can't simply erase the spirit of a community," Prince Turki told the group of business and political leaders. "You have picked yourselves up to rebuild your families and your lives. "

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, The Rev. Luke Vien of Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, attorney and former mayoral candidate Virginia Boulet and Charles Baquet, a former ambassador to Djibouti now at Xavier University, were among the local dignitaries receiving the Saudi ambassador.

One glaring omission from the guest list, however, was Mayor Ray Nagin. Spokesman Terry Davis said, "The prince's schedule team made previous arrangements" to meet the mayor, but he wouldn't say why Nagin did not attend the luncheon.

City Council members Shelley Midura, Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Cynthia Hedge Morrell each spoke to welcome the prince on behalf of the city, Midura beginning her remarks with a greeting in Arabic. Willard-Lewis later rode beside the prince in one of the minivans that carried a group of local leaders through the battered remnants of the Lower 9th Ward.

In a wheat-colored hat and sunglasses, the prince absorbed the sights of devastation with the respectful awe that other leaders have shown. It was his first visit to New Orleans.

The prince stopped to greet a woman and her two grandchildren, who left their temporary trailer to catch a glimpse of visiting royalty in the 1400 block of Caffin Avenue.

Turki, the youngest son of King Faisal, who attended a New Jersey preparatory school and Georgetown University, knelt to say hello to 4-year-old Kiante and her grandmother, Stephanie Andrews.

Later, after learning what the spray-painted rescue messages on vacant, gaping houses meant, and that the floodwaters rose to 18 feet in the Lower 9th Ward, the prince marveled at meeting Andrews and her family. Amid collapsed homes and debris piles, the woman greeted him with warmth.

"She was smiling," Turki said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Gulf drilling bill clears hurdle

Senate, House versions yet to be reconciled

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON -- Senate leaders Wednesday reached agreement on what they said was the last major issue on an offshore oil and gas drilling bill that promises Louisiana a guaranteed share of the royalty payments for new production off its shores.

The measure still must be reconciled with a House version that is more generous to Louisiana.

The Senate deal, which covers new offshore development in an area of the eastern Gulf known as Lease Area 181, would protect waters within 125 miles of the Florida coast. That protection was enough to draw support from a previous opponent of the deal, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who worried about environmental harm to beaches that could hurt the state's all-important tourism industry.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said he needs to see more details before he'll drop his threat to filibuster the bill. But he called the compromise "very promising" and some Senate leaders said Wednesday that with Martinez on board the Senate probably has the 60 votes to pass the measure with or without a Nelson filibuster.


Landrieu pleased

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a member of the Senate Energy Committee, said the proposal would give Louisiana about $200 million a year over the next 10 years, and about $650 million annually after 2017.

"This is a very proud and hopeful day for the Gulf Coast, America's only energy coast," Landrieu said at a news conference with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and other Senate leaders. "It's been a day that many of us have looked forward to for a very long time."

Landrieu and Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said the deal promises not only to provide Louisiana with the first long-term revenue sharing to finance coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects, but also moves the country closer to more energy independence and more stable energy costs.

"This deal will bring us royalty sharing for the first time ever," Vitter said. "We will finally get our fair share in Louisiana from the oil and gas activity that we produce in the Gulf of Mexico for the rest of the country."

Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, who helped write the House-passed bill that offers broader drilling provisions and significantly more revenue sharing for Louisiana and other producing states, said he's optimistic that a compromise can be worked out.

"I'm encouraged that the Senate version includes revenue sharing as well as additional opportunities for energy exploration," Jindal said. "We're not so far apart on the critical issues."

But Nelson said he's let the Senate leadership know that the House drilling provisions aren't acceptable to him and could cause the bill to fail if the House leadership refuses to substantially modify them.

The House bill would bar drilling within 100 miles of the Florida coast, compared to 125 miles in the Senate version.


Options for states

In addition, it would end, beyond 50 miles, the 25-year-old moratorium on drilling that has been in effect for most of the waters outside the central and western Gulf of Mexico. It would allow states to continue the moratoriums for up to five years with votes by their legislatures and approval of their governors. But environmental critics of the House bill said the process is cumbersome and would require reaffirmations of support for the moratoriums every five years.

By contrast, the Senate would extend the moratoriums, due to expire in 2012, for another 10 years through 2022.

The House version also would eventually give states 75 percent of bonuses, royalties and conservation fees for new drilling activity within 12 miles of their shores. By 2017, it would mean Louisiana could expect $2 billion a year in new revenue sharing funding, Jindal said.

The White House has called the House revenue sharing provisions too costly. The Senate version provides oil and gas producing Gulf states 37.5 percent of royalty revenue from new drilling beginning in 2017, plus 12.5 percent for a national conservation fund.

Landrieu said White House officials haven't signed on to the lower Senate figure, but expressed a willingness to negotiate the final numbers. Jindal said he's optimistic that when all is said and done President Bush wouldn't veto a bill that promises more energy independence. But he agreed some contentious negotiations are likely.

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that the Senate deal would open up 8 million acres to new drilling, with an estimated 1.25 billion barrels of oil and at least 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

"This is the best single energy arrangement we can make this year," he said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Schools could be short on teachers

Pressed district scraps 'rigorous' test process

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Steve Ritea
Staff writer

Facing a real possibility they won't be able to hire enough qualified teachers before opening 15 new public schools in New Orleans on Sept. 7, officials from the state-run Recovery School District said they are working on a contingency plan as they scramble to find 500 educators.

Time pressures forced the recovery district late last week to forgo a rigorous, nationally recognized process for selecting staff simply because it would have taken too long, said Robin Jarvis, superintendent of the recovery district.

Jarvis said teacher quality remains paramount to improving the city's long-broken public school system, but she acknowledged district officials' task could be difficult because some of the nearly 1,000 applications they've received so far are as old as nine months and many charter schools have likely already hired from that same pool.

"I don't think we have it solved yet," Jarvis said. "But we're going to do everything we can to maintain quality and the staffing ratios we set out to have."

Recovery schools, she has said, are aiming for a student-teacher ratio of 20-to-1 in elementary schools and 25-to-1 in high schools.


Screening plan dropped

Last week, Jarvis said the district was planning to use $250,000 in federal grants to hire the nonprofit group New Schools for New Orleans to screen teacher applicants. Working with The New Teacher Project, a national teacher training and recruiting organization, New Schools was planning to run candidates through the gamut of time-tested exercises designed to find top-quality staff before they were sent to interview with principals, the first of whom are being hired this week. Not one teacher has been hired for the 15 schools that are scheduled to open in September.

Jarvis said the state's process does not equate to lowering the bar, but she conceded that "some say (the process offered by New Schools) is more rigorous."

There are notable differences between the two methods.

In their initial application to New Schools, teachers are asked for written responses to several questions, including: "Knowing that many of your future classroom students are . . . unprepared to meet grade-level expectations, what will you do . . . to ensure" they succeed? The responses are checked for spelling, grammar and content, said Bruce Villineau, a recruiting expert for The New Teacher Project.

The state's initial application does not require a writing sample.

New Schools also demands that teachers must be certified or working toward their certification to be considered. Jarvis said the state is aiming for all of its teachers to be certified.

Applicants to New Schools whose applications pass muster are asked to show up for a group interview, where their ability to solve problems in the classroom is assessed, Villineau said. They are then required to take a 30-minute writing test on the spot, followed by one-on-one interviews.

The state's screening involves a multiple-choice test, also taken in person, on grammar and math skills. A writing sample is also part of the test.

Those who make the cut with either method are then interviewed by state officials and school principals.


Test called 'basic'

Maria Morantine, an 18-year teacher who survived New Schools' screening but was not hired by the recovery district when the state was staffing its first three schools in the spring, said there is no comparison between the two.

New Schools' selection process was "rigorous" and "thorough," she said, while the recovery district's multiple-choice questions involved "basic grammar and basic math that anyone would get at a third-grade level."

The writing sample was brief and simple, compared with New Schools' writing requirements, said Morantine, a certified teacher with a master's degree and 48 hours of coursework.

Jarvis said the state's test, with its largely multiple-choice format, can be quickly graded to speed the evaluation process. It will be given next week to applicants who respond to e-mails and calls going out this week. Interviews likely will begin the last week of the month.

Villineau said New Schools' process would have delayed that schedule by at least a week, possibly longer.

"We're in imperfect times, and we have to work in the constraints we're given, and time is one of those, as is the need for quality," said Sarah Usdin of New Schools.

Plagued by delays

Jarvis said hiring has been delayed because the state initially hoped to charter all of the schools under its control, which would have left the hiring up to the individual charter school principals. But it failed to receive enough strong charter applications. Delays were compounded by the wait for demographers to project the number of returning students, she said.

In November, the Legislature voted to place 107 of the city's 128 public schools into the state-run recovery district after years of watching many of them perform below the state average.

This past school year, 25 public schools served 12,500 students. By September, 57 schools with the capacity for as many as 34,000 students are expected to be open, although just 22,000 students are expected. Eighteen of those schools will be operated by the recovery district.

Meanwhile, Jarvis said, the recovery district will continue to actively recruit teachers, advertising with local and national media and possibly using direct mail to target local teachers who might have been laid off recently.

If there are too few teachers, one alternative could be to offer students certain courses over the Internet, Jarvis said. The recovery district might also consider using substitute teachers temporarily until it figures out how many students it needs to serve, she said.


Charters getting applicants

Charter schools around the city, meanwhile, report no problems finding teachers. Officials from the Treme Charter Schools Association, McDonogh No. 15 School for the Creative Arts, Algiers Charter Schools Association and Lusher, which is opening a new high school in the Fortier building, say they have had more than enough qualified applicants.

Each of those organizations runs no more than three schools, however, and needs considerably fewer teachers than the Recovery School District. Some of those schools also have a leg up, Usdin said, because they "already have faculty and networks of people from which to draw," whereas "the state is having to stand up new school communities."

A number of those charters, including McDonogh No. 15, also started hiring back in May, said Principal Gary Robichaux, an employee of the Knowledge is Power Program, which is running the school. Today, he said, his school is almost fully staffed.

He's already offered Morantine a job that she said she'll probably take. Although she's still in the pool of applicants for the 15 recovery district schools opening in September, Morantine said she simply can't wait any longer to learn where she's going to work.

"Teachers are getting nervous waiting," she said.


Better pay

The recovery district is still striving to make its schools attractive to teachers, however, particularly in terms of pay.

Annual teacher salaries in the recovery district-operated schools are, on average, anywhere from $250 to $5,000 higher than those offered by New Orleans public schools. But some charter schools are giving the recovery district schools a run for their money, such as in Algiers, where teachers with more than 10 years of experience can generally make more. All that suggests fierce competition in the years ahead for the city's best teachers.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Class-action suit seeks MR-GO's end

Residents sue corps, want dangers studied

Thursday, July 13, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Susan Finch

Eight residents of St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans' 9th Ward, including two public officials, filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday aimed at forcing closure of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet to stop it from funneling floodwaters into their homes and businesses, as it did during last year's Hurricane Katrina and 1965's Hurricane Betsy.

Filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under whose supervision the waterway was completed 40 years ago, the lawsuit seeks appointment of a panel of scientific experts to study the dangers posed by the channel and recommend ways to address them, including rebuilding now-destroyed wetlands that protected against storm surges before the waterway was built.

The suit also asks the court to select a special master to preside over the experts' work and monitor implementation of any remedial measures ordered by the court.


Through spokesman John Hall, the corps said it had not seen a copy of the lawsuit and therefore could not comment on it.

The suit charges that from the time Congress authorized the MR-GO in 1956, the corps has ignored federal and state laws requiring studies of the environmental effects of the channel since before it was dug.

"You can't fix half the (flooding) problem, which is the levees, without fixing the other half, which is the MR-GO," said attorney Pierce O'Donnell of California, who joined members of 12 other law firms from Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and California to bring the case to court.

O'Donnell said the corps would be consulted on the remediation work, but in his view it can't be trusted to fix a problem it helped create.

O'Donnell also said he and his colleagues have reason to believe that the corps included closure of the MR-GO on a list of proposed projects sent to the White House, where mention of the project was removed. "The White House has nixed any closure of the MR-GO," he said.

U.S. Rep. Charles Melancon, D-La., said Wednesday that a corps report authorized by Congress on what hurricane-protection projects are needed for south Louisiana was "hijacked by the administration" and retooled to eliminate the MR-GO closure and four other projects. Melancon said he is trying to bring the situation to the attention of congressional appropriations officials.

Lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit to force closure of the MR-GO are St. Bernard Councilman Mark Madary and New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents the 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans.

Madary said the courts are the only avenue citizens have to close "this gruesome atrocity," because years of pleas and demands -- among them a dozen from the St. Bernard Council in the past two years -- have been ignored by Congress and the Bush administration.

To those who argue that the MR-GO is necessary to the area's economy, Madary said, "The economic loss should not outweigh any other interest. It's now time for the government to make the people safe in their homes," he said.

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are: Charles "Pete" Savoy and Gerald Nevle, longtime St. Bernard residents; Pam Nevle, former member of the St. Bernard Coastal Zone Advisory Board; Lower 9th Ward resident Pam Dashiell, head of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association; and Shawn and Nga Tran, who own a home and a restaurant in eastern New Orleans.

Dashiell described the suit as "a huge step toward conserving and respecting human life and commemorating those lives that were lost" during Katrina.

The class-action petition is being handled by the same group of lawyers that filed a federal court damage case in April on behalf of WDSU-TV anchorman Norman Robinson and others who blamed the MR-GO, which they branded a "hurricane highway," for the flooding that destroyed their property during Katrina.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Editorial Comment:

From this thread's compiler, based on above News




Good Luck to those good folks listed as "Plaintiffs"... and it would be Good Riddance to see the MRGO .... GONE!

[Audrey2Katrina]

St. Bernard suspends electrical inspection requirements to speed up rebuilding

TP/NOLA.com update 7/13/06

St. Bernard Parish Residents rebuilding single-family homes will no longer need to wait for a parish electrical inspection before putting up their new walls, under an executive order by Parish President Henry “Junior’’ Rodriguez allowing licensed electricians to certify their own work.

The parish said Rodriguez signed an executive order authorizing the temporary policy to speed up rebuilding efforts for a community where Katrina flooded all but five of the its more than 27,000 homes.

In a press release, Rodriguez said the Office of Rebuilding and Reconstruction will create procedures and forms allowing electricians whose licenses are recognized by the parish to certify their own work or work they have supervised. Rodriguez’ order suspended a provision requiring that parish inspectors certify the work before walls are installed.

The suspension applies only to construction on single-family residences, Rodriguez said. Electrical work for commercial structures, party wall residences, multi-family structures or any structure outside the hurricane protection levee system will still need to pass inspection.

“Parish government has been overwhelmed with requests for building permits, reviews and various inspections,” Rodriguez said, warning that without relief, rebuilding activity could be delayed.

Electricians will not be allowed to charge homeowners for certifying their own work and Rodriguez said the parish will spot check and audit some reviews to prevent abuse. He said electricians discovered making inaccurate or fraudulent certifications will lose their ability to work in the parish.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Twin spans' westbound side closing Sunday night

St. Tammany bureau TP/NOLA.com 7/13/06

The westbound side of the In terstate 10 bridge over the Lake Pontchartrain will be closed to traffic Sunday night, officials said.

The closure, which has been imposed periodically, is necessary to allow crews to do maintenance on the metal panels that were installed after the bridge was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina storm surge.

The closure will be from 8:30 p.m. Sunday to 4:30 a.m. Monday, said Bruce Pardue of the state highway department.

Motorists can reconnect with westbound I-10 by taking the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway at Mandeville or I-55 south at Hammond. Pardue cautioned motorists not to use the U.S. 11 bridge in the Slidell area because of anticipated long delays on the two-lane span.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Judge refuses to toss testimony about Katrina's winds

7/13/2006, 2:06 p.m. CT
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
The Associated Press

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A judge on Thursday refused to throw out an engineer's testimony that Hurricane Katrina's winds caused much of the damage to the home of Mississippi couple suing Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. for denying most of the couple's claim.

Nationwide attorney Dan Attridge argued that structural engineer Peter de la Mora — one of several expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in the groundbreaking Katrina insurance case — didn't use "reliable principles and methods" in assessing damage to the Pascagoula home of Paul and Julie Leonard.

"He just got the facts completely wrong," Attridge said.

U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr., who is hearing the case without a jury, rejected the motion to throw out de la Mora's testimony, although the judge said, "Granted, it's a bit confusing as to what expertise he used."

The couple's case is the first trial for the hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed by Gulf Coast homeowners challenging insurance companies over the wind-versus-water issue.

Plaintiffs' attorneys hope a ruling in the Leonards' favor would pressure insurance companies to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to people whose claims have been rejected.

Nationwide, which paid the Leonards about $1,600, concluded that nearly all the damage to the couple's home was from "storm surge" — wind-driven water from the Mississippi Sound — and therefore wasn't covered by their homeowner's policy.

Zach Scruggs, one of the Leonards' attorneys, said testimony from de la Mora and another witness for the plaintiffs, insurance adjuster Brian Persson, shows that wind was responsible for roughly half of the $130,000 in damage to the couple's house.

Nationwide attorneys "didn't even try to get into the principles and methods he used," Scruggs said. "They're just making these blanket accusations."

Attridge questioned de la Mora's qualifications and credibility, noting that this is the first time he has testified in a case involving hurricane damage.

"He's just making observations any good contractor could make," Attridge said.

De la Mora also has twice been reprimanded by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers for not following "generally accepted engineering practices," Attridge said.

De la Mora conceded during cross-examination that he changed his original report on the Leonards' home, removing dozens of entries for damage that he initially attributed to Katrina's wind.

"We've never claimed the house was totally destroyed by wind," Scruggs later said outside the courtroom.

Persson, an insurance adjuster who has worked for Allstate Insurance Co., was expected to be the last witness to testify for the Leonards before Nationwide begins presenting its case.

Scruggs, and his father, Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, represent about 3,000 policyholders on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The firm also has filed lawsuits against other insurers, including Allstate Insurance Co., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., State Farm Insurance Cos. and United Services Automobile Association.

The trial is expected to continue through the end of this week or early next week.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Habitat seeks more volunteers for hurricane recovery work

7/13/2006, 12:19 p.m. CT
By ELLIOTT MINOR
The Associated Press

AMERICUS, Ga. (AP) — Habitat for Humanity International is appealing for more volunteers to help build homes for families left homeless when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast last year.

The home-building charity is making the appeal because of ramped-up construction, not because of complaisance or a drop off of volunteers for the group, said Ken Meinert, a Canadian engineer who is heading Habitat's hurricane recovery program.

"Thank God that Habitat volunteers have a little longer memory than some of the general public," Meinert said. "We're getting some return volunteers. Some who went early are now returning with friends and family."

With the work pace increasing, it's important to keep volunteers in the pipeline, he said, noting that some who volunteer now may not get to work on the Gulf Coast until sometime in the fall.

"People who have been there are our best advocates," he said. "When you see the devastation along the Mississippi Coast and in the greater New Orleans area, it's just overwhelming. That stays with you a long time.

"There's so much today that looks not very much different than it did 10 months ago," he said.

Habitat isn't the only charity still in search more volunteers to help out with hurricane recovery efforts.

Red Cross officials have been working to increase their ranks of volunteers all along the Gulf Coast.

"With all of the spontaneous volunteers immediately following Katrina, chapters have been working very hard to integrate those volunteers into the ongoing chapter disaster programs, that's been a good source of recruitment," said Bob Howard, a spokesman for the Red Cross' hurricane recovery program.

In the initial surge of interest in helping with the recovery, Habitat had to turn some volunteers away because there was no place for them to stay, Meinert said. Most of the available housing was filled with disaster victims and emergency workers.

Now, there's a school at St. Bernard Parish, La., known as "Camp Hope," that can accommodate about 1,000 Habitat volunteers. Bunkhouses in the Gulfport, Miss., area can house another 300. Some Habitat volunteers also stay in air-conditioned tents.

Habitat has set a goal of building 1,000 homes for hurricane victims by next July.

"We're on a good path to that," Meinert said, noting that 117 homes have been completed and another 233 are under construction at 17 sites from Beaumont, Texas, to Mobile, Ala.

Following Katrina, Habitat compiled a database of about 31,000 people, groups and families willing to help in the recovery. Of those, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Habitat volunteers have come, some to work for Habitat for Humanity International and others, for the group's 17 affiliates in the area, Meinert said.

It's hard to know exactly how many actual Habitat volunteers were there because some of the volunteers may have been members of church groups, rather than Habitat affiliates, he said.

With the work intensifying, there are occasional spot shortages of workers. "We certainly have slowed projects because we may have had 10 volunteers when we needed 30," Meinert said.

At other times the work slows and Habitat volunteers assist other groups to stay productive, he said.

Fired Habitat co-founder Millard Fuller has formed a new housing ministry, the Fuller Center for Housing, which is building 60 homes in the Shreveport, La., area. Fuller was ousted last year by Habitat's board of directors because of comments the board considered divisive and disruptive, but he remains popular with Habitat's affiliates and assists them with their fundraising.

With 500,000 homes destroyed by the Gulf Coast hurricanes, there's certainly room for everybody, Meinert said.

"I'm very pleased with the work the Fuller Center is doing. You certainly need all the good housing groups that can exist," he said, also praising the similar efforts of groups such as the Salvation Army and Mennonite Disaster Service.

"I would encourage people to come, bring their families, their co-workers and their church groups and experience a week of rebuilding in partnership with families," he said. "It would definitely change their lives. They'd see the devastation and get a sense of how a community can come together and rebuild."

Added the Red Cross' Howard: "We're finding ... that housing continues to be the major issue for families in their long-term recovery. We're working with families to help them find housing and that's a huge need throughout the recovery area."

---

On the Net:

Habitat for Humanity: http://www.habitat.org

Fuller Center for Housing: http://www.fullercenter.org

American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org

[Audrey2Katrina]

Gulf Coast Network UPDATE:

GCN News/gulfcoastnews.com 7/13/06

FEMA officials are refusing to meet with Coast public officials if news media present... Billions of dollars for Katrina recovery will soon be hitting the ground, says Sen. Trent Lott. Money that will transform the Coast for the 21st century...Old Town Bay St. Louis is becoming a ghost town...A Senate bill would open oil and gas drilling 100 miles off the Coast...Dry conditions have triggered numerous wildfires on Coast...The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development has release the $3-Billion for the state's Homeowner Grant Program. The first notifications of homeowner closing meetings for the state's Homeowner Grant Program are being sent out this week by the Mississippi Development Authority. At scheduled closing meetings, homeowners will told when their checks will be provided to help them to rebuild their homes destroyed by Katrina's storm surge. The MDA is still asking for people to sign up for phase II of the program, which will include moderate income homeowners who suffered flooding even in the flood zones... FEMA reports that more than 101,900 people are housed in 37,745 FEMA-provided trailers...The Coast is on the cusp of recovery nearly 11 months after Hurricane Katrina. 7/13/06 11:10 AM

[Audrey2Katrina]

College student receives house arrest for DUI deaths of six friends

By ROBIN FITZGERALD 7/13/06
sunherald.com

GULFPORT - A college-age driver whose alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit in a crash that killed six friends was sentenced to house arrest this morning.

Chris Rutland, 21, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before a courtroom of friends and relatives of the victims, who were graduates of Mercy Cross High School in Biloxi. Allen Martel, the only surviving passenger, was among people who begged the judge for mercy.

Rutland's blood-alcohol concentration level was .19, according to prosecutor John Garguilo. State law considers .08 the level of legal intoxication for drivers 21 and older.

Rutland faced five to 25 years for each of the deaths from the early-morning crash that occurred in fog Jan. 12 on Mississippi 26 near Wiggins. Prosecutors agreed to consider one count only for the six deaths.

Circuit Court Judge Steve Simpson accepted the recommendation of the District Attorney's Office and the wishes of the victims' families, who stated Rutland will have to live with his "bad decision." Rutland admitted he drank beer several hours earlier at a nightclub in Bogalusa, La. The families were adamant in not wanting Rutland to go to prison.

Simpson imposed a five-year sentence but suspended four, ordering Rutland under house arrest for one year followed by five years of probation.

The sentence allows Rutland to continue studies at the University of Mississippi, where Rutland is a junior at the college in Oxford.

The Sun Herald looks at different aspects of the case in Friday's editions.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Hand grenade donated to thrift store causes quite a stir

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OCEAN SPRINGS - Maureen Carroll has received a lot of interesting and unique donations since she began managing America's Thrift Store in Ocean Springs, but she says a World War II-era hand grenade tops the list.

The grenade was discovered Tuesday in a box of items that had been donated to the store, Ocean Springs Police Chief Kerry Belk.

"It had been at the store for some time," Belk said.

The Biloxi Police Department bomb squad was called in to remove the grenade from the building and detonate the device in a safe area.

Carroll said the plug on the grenade was still intact. Carroll said she quickly realized "it was not a toy. I've seen toy grenades."

Carroll said she is uncertain who donated the grenade and why.

Belk said his department has reported the incident to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Drilling for dollars

Area is 100 miles southeast of Biloxi

By MAX FOLLMER sunherald.com 7/13/06
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU

(Sun Herald/Drew Tarter) A drilling rig looms in the background off Dauphin Island's eastern end as anglers try their luck from the jetty across from Fort Gaines. Senate bill would bring $150M from offshore drilling to Mississippi in a decade

WASHINGTON - Senate leaders announced a compromise Wednesday that could open up a vast swath of the Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil and gas drilling and generate a revenue windfall for Mississippi and other Gulf states.

The agreement sends to the Senate floor a bill that would allow new energy production in 8 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico. It includes a 1.6 million-acre plot known as Lease Area 181, which lies more than 100 miles southeast of Biloxi.

"This is one of the best things that Congress has done this year," said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. "Some of this money is going to now be available to help protect, restore and revitalize a state that really needs help."

Cochran joined Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and other Gulf Coast lawmakers in announcing the deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas would share 37.5 percent of federal revenues generated by the leases. The federal government would keep 50 percent of the money, with 12.5 percent set aside for states in the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Over the next decade, Mississippi would receive $150 million from the lease sales, according to Cochran's office. Beginning in 2017, the state could take in more than $250 million per year. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate energy committee, said the area in question contains 1.25 billion barrels of oil and more than 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

"The leases are ready to go now," Domenici said.

Lawmakers touted the deal as a way to combat skyrocketing gas prices and mitigate the nation's reliance on imported energy.

"We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," said Lott. "We need to think about ways to help people control their cost of living. This is a step in the right direction."

The agreement curbs energy exploration in the eastern Gulf outside of the 8 million-acre plot. Florida's two senators had held up the offshore-development proposals over concerns that new energy exploration would harm the Sunshine State's coastline and tourism industry.

Senators agreed Wednesday to create a 125-mile buffer zone off Florida's coast. With most Gulf senators signed on to the agreement, it could land on the Senate floor as early as next week.

Conservation groups expressed concern over the deal's environmental impact on the Gulf Coast, especially the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

"Our biggest concern, and the thing that Sen. Cochran agreed to, was that he would protect Gulf Islands National Seashore from drilling," said Louie Miller of the Mississippi Sierra Club. "We certainly want to make sure that was included within any language or any bill that comes to the Senate floor."

If the new agreement clears the Senate, it would have to be reconciled with a less-restrictive offshore drilling bill the House of Representatives approved earlier that would lift a 25-year ban on drilling within 50 miles of almost all of America's coastlines. Each of Mississippi's four congressmen supported the House measure.

"This is bribing the states to allow drilling in shallow waters," Miller said. "Either we're going to follow the Florida model (of development) and protect the Coast or we're going to follow the Dauphin Island model and destroy the Coast."

Miller said the Alabama model was not a good choice for Mississippi.

"There is no tourism industry to speak of," Miller said. "You can't buy a hamburger on Dauphin Island."

The Sierra Club national spokeswoman expressed doubts the measure would solve the nation's energy woes.

"We have serious concerns that the end product of all this offshore drilling wheeling and dealing will be something that is very hard to support and will really not do anything to address our energy needs," said Annie Strickler.

[Audrey2Katrina]

19-year-old held in deaths of 5 teens

He shot driver first to prevent others' escape, cops say


Suspect Michael Anderson is booked for the possible killing of five teenagers in Central City

Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
From staff reports

A 19-year-old man who police think fatally shot five teens as they drove through a Central City neighborhood was arrested Thursday afternoon a block from the shooting scene, police said.

Detectives had identified Michael Anderson as a suspect in the case for weeks, police Superintendent Warren Riley said. But the witnesses were "very concerned" about what they had seen, and it was difficult for them to come forward, Riley said.

The case had shocked not only New Orleans residents but people watching the city's efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina: five teens driving through a Central City neighborhood before dawn, all fatally shot. The scene was shocking: the driver, who Riley said apparently was shot first to prevent others from escaping, and two others were found in the vehicle. The bodies of the two others were found outside the vehicle, having jumped out to flee the hail of more than 20 .40-caliber bullets.

Four of the teens were already dead by the time police and medical technicians arrived. The fifth died later at the hospital.

The victims, all from New Orleans, were Arsenio Hunter, 16, Markee Hunter, 19, Warren Simeon, 17, Iraum Taylor and Reggie Dantzler, 19.

Witnesses from the early stages of the investigation told friends that only one gunman was responsible for the carnage. But not until they came forward to police -- and ballistics backed their stories by showing the casings had been ejected from the same .40-caliber pistol -- did police get a warrant for the arrest Thursday morning.

Detectives haven't found the gun; they have searched Anderson's mother's home in the 2000 block of Josephine Street, just down the street from the corner of Josephine and Danneel where the multiple shootings took place, police said.

Riley confirmed that Anderson has lived in and frequented the neighborhood. "I'm not sure exactly where he lives right now, but he's been seen in that area quite a bit recently."

Anderson has a prior conviction for possession of crack cocaine and arrests for possession of heroin apparently still pending, according to the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office Web site.

He was acquitted by a jury in 2004 for attempted first-degree murder of a police officer.

Although acknowledging detectives had not established a firm motive for the killings, Riley said one possibility is a drug-related incident that happened weeks earlier; authorities are also investigating an argument from earlier that night.

Commenting on how a lone gunman could have shot five people, Riley said, "Well, they were in the car, and I can tell you that the driver was the first person that was shot, basically keeping them from escaping." Two jumped out but didn't get far, police said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Fact-finding senators feel stiffed by FEMA

Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By James Varney

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency spends billions of taxpayer dollars picking up garbage or maintaining travel trailers, as it has since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crushed the Gulf Coast last year, following the money would seem to be an easy process.

Particularly for a U.S. senator.

But with FEMA there appears to be no such thing as an easy answer. The agency is quick with news releases announcing a ribbon-cutting or an appearance by one of its top officials. It publishes pages of statistics online. Yet senatorial aides -- even those who deal with the agency on a regular basis -- say FEMA often can't furnish a straightforward reply.

"The responses we receive from FEMA generally tend to be woefully inadequate," said Adam Sharp, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. "We get very little, and what we do get is not fully addressed, and that is a frustration."

According to other Washington officials, FEMA's inability to provide answers is consistent, regardless of whether the questions come verbally or in writing. For example, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., asked FEMA a series of questions in writing on Jan. 27 about the agency's inclusion of "service disabled veterans" in its contracting. On March 23 he asked for a "prompt response" to questions about FEMA's rebidding of $3.2 billion in travel trailer contracts. Kerry's staff said he hasn't heard a word from FEMA on either request.

The inability to get answers crosses party lines.

On debris removal, for example, FEMA subcontracted the job to the Army Corps of Engineers, and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., got stiffed when he tried to break down the spending that corps officials pegged at at least $2 billion. Coburn asked for specifics at an April 10 congressional hearing he chaired at the Louisiana Supreme Court building in the French Quarter.

When FEMA and corps officials said they couldn't give him an answer, Coburn could barely contain his anger and accused them of being more concerned with helping their business partners than with keeping the public informed.

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker conceded that the agency can be slow with a response. But any characterization of it as a recalcitrant federal body is false, he said.

"We acknowledge there is a backlog on correspondence," he said. "But FEMA officials have participated in more than 70 hearings and briefings on the Hill this year, and since January we have gotten almost 1,000 'questions for the record' from congresspeople."

He characterized the efforts of FEMA staff to provide answers and cope with the crush of information requests as "tireless."

"There is a backup, but people need to take a step back and look at what is being done proactively to keep Congress informed of every jot and jiggle that goes on at FEMA," Walker said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Rebuilding obstacles detailed to council

Consultants convey neighborhood pitfalls

Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Coleman Warner
Staff writer

The state's $7.5 billion Road Home grant program is critical to rebuilding New Orleans' flood-ravaged neighborhoods, but other initiatives will be needed to overcome a mix of obstacles that are being uncovered by planning meetings, consultants told the City Council Thursday.

Flood-elevation advisories may force the raising of many homes to heights that, because of added stairs, are unfeasible for elderly owners, a planning team led by Paul Lambert and Shelia Danzey told a council housing committee. It may not be economically viable to repair small, older houses, such as the cottages once popular in Gentilly and Lakeview, because most buyers these days want larger homes. And a $150,000 cap on grants through the Road Home program won't be enough to restore homes with 3,500 square feet of living space or more, meaning the repair of many of the city's larger homes could be in jeopardy, consultants said.

Such findings are among "major challenges" the city faces as it carries out neighborhood recovery planning, Lambert said.

Complex concerns raised

The interim report by the consultants, who have been meeting with residents across the city for months, gave the council insight into some of their broad findings as the team prepares for the release of recovery plans for 49 neighborhoods by early September.

The plans will be incorporated into a larger planning effort run by a Greater New Orleans Foundation panel and financed mostly by a $3.5 million Rockefeller Foundation grant.

Though neighborhood meetings that have attracted up to 400 people have revealed a fierce determination to rebuild, they also have highlighted complex issues that demand more work by policy-makers, Lambert and Danzey said. Council members applauded the planning work but also were sobered at the new concerns raised.

"Moving forward, Katrina is going to redefine a lot of things," said Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, who has been involved in a flurry of Gentilly planning workshops.

City officials also must grapple with the now vastly accelerated loss of population in parts of town that were losing residents even before Katrina, the advisors said. Those neighborhoods include the Lower 9th Ward, Central City, the 7th Ward, the Desire area, Hollygrove, Milan, St. Roch and the St. Bernard area, the advisors said. Special attention also will have to be given to a few neighborhoods, such as Edgewood Heights near the junction of Interstate 610 and Franklin Avenue, that have been isolated by industrial development or other barriers, they said.

Positive proposals pitched

But the consultants didn't dwell on just the problems. They also suggested a few solutions, including:

-- Opening housing assistance centers across New Orleans where neighborhood residents can obtain free advice on financial, construction and insurance issues.

-- Developing a "lot next door" program that would give people living next to an abandoned home or lot the first crack at buying the property, with the parcel to be sold on the open market if no neighbor expresses interest in four to six weeks.

-- Giving elderly homeowners the option of selling or swapping their property in exchange for a unit in a taller residential complex that has an elevator.

-- Using the redevelopment of vacant public housing complexes as a catalyst for positive change in the neighborhood, but only after the complexes' displaced residents secure places to live in other public housing developments or through homeownership programs.

The council advisers said their work is based on these assumptions: that levees will be repaired and that owners and investors will trust the flood protection system; that recent federal building-elevation advisories, including one that requires many homes to be at least three feet off the ground, are enforced; and that the Road Home program offers adequate financial help for most middle- and moderate-income homeowners who want to stay in the city.

The first assumption was blasted during the hearing by Christophor Faust, an environmental engineer working in the Holy Cross neighborhood. It is wrong to assume that a Katrina-like flood event won't occur again, he said.

"I don't know a single learned individual in the field that agrees" that flooding won't recur, he said.

Basic services crucial

Others at the City Hall meeting said planning ideas will have little effect if agencies don't do a better job of providing basic public services such as trash and debris pickup.

The consultants used planning work in the Lower 9th Ward, led by one of their associates, Harvard University architect David Lee, to illustrate the kinds of ideas at play in the process. Lee said that among the ideas embraced by local residents is giving a "conservation and historic preservation focus" to the Holy Cross section near the Mississippi River, where flooding was least prevalent, and an "area of transition" tag to an area between St. Claude and North Claiborne avenues, where a mix of repair and infill construction is hoped for.

Dozens of blocks on the north side of Claiborne would see "potential new development patterns," with the possibility of more green space and fewer homes, Lee said.

Council President Oliver Thomas, who grew up in the Lower 9th Ward, elicited Lee's support for repairing the vast damage Katrina caused to the neighborhood's underground water system and other infrastructure. Thomas bristled at the notion of people writing off the area "because there's nobody there."

Private investment will follow public improvements, Lee agreed.

"Everyone deserves to have a viable network of infrastructure," he said.

[Audrey2Katrina]

New, improved I-10 bridge gets off ground

3-lane spans to replace twins Katrina destroyed

Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Jenny Hurwitz
St. Tammany bureau

Just steps away from the patched Interstate 10 twin spans that Hurricane Katrina's storm surge ruptured in August, Gov. Kathleen Blanco gathered with state and local officials Thursday to mark the onset of construction for a replacement bridge, signaling an impressive federal investment in regional recovery and touching off the costliest public transportation undertaking in state history.

The project will provide a new 5 1/2 -mile bridge connecting Slidell and eastern New Orleans at a cost of $803 million. Blanco called it the first in a long line of ventures that she hopes will bolster the region's economic viability and restore its battered infrastructure.

"This new bridge is a sure sign we're looking to make big improvements as we head down the road to recovery," she said, standing beneath a white tent pitched on the Slidell shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

The bridge, paid for entirely by federal dollars, will stand just 300 feet east of the existing spans.

Designed to better withstand great blows from hurricanes, the bridge will be built in two phases during the next five years. Officials expect the westbound portion to open first, in 2009. Boh Brothers won the contract for the first phase, expected to cost $379 million.

Towering above the existing spans, which stand eight to 10 feet above water depending on the tide, the new bridge will rise 30 feet in the air, enabling it to endure a higher storm surge.

Workers are expanding the bridge to three lanes in each direction, allowing a 50 percent increase in volume, officials said, while an 80-foot high-rise section near Slidell will allow marine traffic to pass.

State-of-the-art span

Designed to last at least a century, the bridge will be the first in Louisiana built entirely from high-performance concrete, a stronger, denser material that is more resistant to saltwater corrosion, officials said.

And it will come wired with an electrical power system, which will allow use of video cameras and message boards to help control traffic, they said.

"Indeed, we will be building a bridge to last into the 22nd century," said state Department of Transportation Secretary Johnny Bradberry.

While transportation officials tout its various improvements and capabilities, the bridge symbolizes much more than a feat of engineering and technology.

Transportation officials stressed that wider spans will send a message that commerce is being restored and once-shuttered channels are not only reopening but improving.

"It builds confidence in people, that they can come back and rebuild," said John Smith, president of the Slidell Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "And it's not just state and local government putting money into the area. I think it reflects confidence nationally that this is a vital area that needs to rebuild."

Symbol of the storm

In the days after Katrina, the fractured bridge became a nationally recognized symbol of the region's precarious position, illustrating the destructive power of the lake's storm surge, which knocked out more than half the segments that make up both spans and forced a complete closure of the bridge for about six weeks.

Realizing the importance of restoring the route, which links the New Orleans metro area with the north shore and beyond, transportation officials called in engineers who had worked on the I-10 Escambia Bay Bridge near Pensacola, Fla., which sustained almost identical damage in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan.

As a temporary fix, engineers patched the damaged concrete segments using a technique they copied from Escambia Bay.

"Having done the same thing before, we knew what to expect, what types of repairs to make," said project manager John Horn, who worked on both projects.

Work on the $242 million Escambia Bay Bridge is moving ahead, with completion of the eastbound section expected by the end of this year, said Tommie Speights, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation.

But Speights acknowledged that despite any similarities between the two, the sheer length of the Louisiana twin spans -- which run more than twice as long as the 2.5-mile bridge across Escambia Bay -- will likely prove a greater challenge.

Still, transportation officials are optimistic that they will be able to stay on schedule with the massive project.

"The truth is, when you look at it, it's fairly simple," Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Lambert said of the bridge's design. "It's by far the most expensive, but it's nowhere near the most complicated."

Delays for drivers

Completed in 1965, the twin spans serve an average of 55,000 vehicles per day, transportation officials said.

For commuters, the past few months have proved trying at times, particularly in the early months, when only one span was accessible. And frequent delays have become the norm, as maintenance workers turn up to secure the patches bracing the damaged segments.

"It wasn't too great after the hurricane, I can tell you that," said commuter Chris Koch, 32, who has been driving over the spans, from Pearl River to New Orleans, for 10 years. "I can tell you stories about being out there for hours, eating my MREs in the car."

But Smith, who uses the spans at least once a week, said he can live with increased traffic problems with a better bridge on the horizon.

"You get used to certain things," he said. "You can be patient if you know there's an ultimate end to it."

[Audrey2Katrina]

Corps works quickly to fell trees

Few will be spared on East Jeff lakefront

Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Sheila Grissett
East Jefferson bureau

Working at lightning speed, contractors Thursday cut about 75 percent of the trees targeted for removal along the East Jefferson lakefront by an Army Corps of Engineers plan designed to reduce the possibility of levee failures during future hurricanes.

The Army Corps of Engineers says the trees must be removed to reduce the possibility of levee failures. But the news that 360 trees were to be cut in Metairie and Kenner, followed by the removal of 20 to 30 live oaks and pines on the New Orleans lakefront, has angered community leaders and elected officials who said the corps failed to explain their plan before cutting began early Tuesday.

Federal engineers, however, said Thursday that levee district executives in both parishes knew and understood the scope of the work and the rationale for getting the job done as quickly as possible.

"We live in a new era now, and we're not going to back off doing what has to be done," corps spokesman John Hall said of regulations that prohibit trees within the levee system. "This is not a new doctrine.

"We're taking responsibility for what happened during Katrina, where the corps was responsible for the levee design," Hall said. "It was our responsibility then, and it's our responsibility now to be certain that these things never happen again."

Corps engineers and other experts investigating levee failures during Hurricane Katrina believe that the uprooting of some large trees on the London Avenue and 17th Street canals contributed to the failure of their floodwalls.

Because of that, federal engineers said they would remove any trees where they pose a risk -- including those planted by the corps or the levee districts to beautify and shade the lakefront.

For years, the corps has allowed levee districts to plant trees on the lakefront. According to Colleen Landry, who chaired the first committee to build a linear park on the lakefront, corps officials encouraged the group to plant trees and shrubs "to hold the soil."

The corps will soon award a contract for cutting trees in Orleans. But the only trees scheduled for removal are those in the toes or slopes of the levee south of Lakeshore Drive between the Seabrook Bridge and 17th Street Canal.

In Kenner, only five trees are being removed from the land side of the West Return Canal floodwall -- which are among 130 planted by the corps. Only three trees are to be removed on the slope of the 17th Street Canal in Bucktown.

The majority of trees being cut in East Jefferson are growing in the wave run-up berm, which is designed to slow waves before they reach the earthen levee. The berm is measured from the crown of the levee north toward the lake and is 130 feet wide. There is no berm on the New Orleans lakefront.

Trees aren't being cut at the Kenner and Bonnabel boat launches, officials said, because the area has been built up so much that there is considerable land outside the berm. But along the rest of the lakefront, with rare exception, the berm occupies almost all the land between the water and the big earthen levee itself.

One of those exceptions was a scant few trees on the perimeter of Bea's Park, an oasis of trees, gardens, birdhouses, benches and other amenities built and maintained since 1988 by Tolmas Avenue residents Bea and Ed Bajorek.

"We were able to spare a few trees, maybe three to six of them, close to the water along the perimeter of the park, because they were outside the berm," said Steve Finnegan, a corps landscape architect acting as assistant manager of the removal project. "But unfortunately, all the trees in the heart of her park . . . maybe 40 or 50 of them, had to be cut."

The Bajoreks, now in their 80s, chose not to go out and watch the trees fall, but they said they will rebuild the park -- sans trees. It will be the seventh rebuilding, thanks to storm damage over the years, but the first time they've had to do it without trees.

"I'm not really happy about what they're doing, but if it has to be done for safety, then I just have to accept it," Bea Bajorek said.

Her husband wasn't quite as accepting. He, like Jefferson Parish Council Chairman John Young, thinks the corps didn't need to denude the lakefront. And if it were necessary, he'd like to hear the engineers explain it.

"You can understand why trees with roots in the levee could really compromise it if they go over, but I just can't understand why they would cut down trees 100 feet away," said Bajorek.

Young said he didn't learn about the tree-cutting until he read a newspaper story. Awash in citizen complaints, he asked the corps Thursday afternoon to suspend cutting until agency representatives could address a public meeting to explain their thinking and their rationale -- something he said should have been done before the chainsaws were cranked up.

"We all want better protection from hurricanes, and if trees legitimately need to be removed, we'll support that," he said of the cutting project that was announced by the corps Friday night. The cutting started early the following Tuesday morning.

"But I'm hearing the same thing from our citizens that I'm thinking myself. This looks like a knee-jerk reaction . . . in the mode of overkill. The public needs a better explanation. We need for the corps to show us their science so that we can understand it."

A corps official told Young late Thursday afternoon that his request would be taken under advisement, but by that point, it was a moot issue. Most of the trees were gone.

Contacted by The Times-Picayune Thursday for a second opinion on the corps initiative, Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation consulting engineer John Lopez said he could only talk of engineering principles because he wasn't consulted and hasn't seen the corps plan.

"I can't say whether all the trees the corps is removing need to be removed because I've not seen the plans. . . . I don't know where the outermost edge of the berm is," Lopez said.

"But in theory, trees on the levee or the berm can be an issue . . . that if uprooted, can lead to disastrous consequences," he said, agreeing with corps engineers who said trees toppled in the berm can create holes that will continue to erode so long as waves are washing over them. In addition, uprooted trees can be tossed by storm surge to batter the levee.

During Katrina, East Jefferson Levee District officials said some 30 or so trees on the lakefront were broken or uprooted, but there is no evidence that any landed on the levee and the levee was not undermined by the tree failures.

"And that's why I have a hard time swallowing that all the trees are being cut because of lessons learned during Katrina," Young said. "What we also learned during Katrina is that the East Jefferson system functioned well."

Corps officials said they haven't yet made decisions on tree-cutting along the Mississippi River levee or on private property along New Orleans' three big outfall canals.

They said there may never be a need to remove trees from the back yards of homes along the canals if they no longer function as outfall canals, a decision that hasn't yet been made.

But engineers stressed that no trees would be removed from private property without multiple public meetings.

Finnegan and project manager Michael Stout said the corps also will work with the East Jefferson Levee District and others to look for creative ways of adding greenscape to the lakefront without repeating the mistakes of the past.

"Frankly, I imagined that someone was thinking it was a worthwhile risk (to plant trees) for aesthetics," said Lopez, a former corps coastal specialist who now serves as the foundation's coastal wetlands restoration consultant. "But since Katrina, that thinking has changed."