FEMA Red Tape Slows Post-Katrina Progress

In New Orleans, Endless Paperwork And Bureaucracy Frustrates Those Working To Rebuild

(AP)  Nearly 2,000 pages spell out in excruciating detail something that is plain to Virgil Tiller but not the Federal Emergency Management Agency: His school was destroyed and needs to be rebuilt.

The pages are a piece-by-piece inventory of everything wrecked by Hurricane Katrina - from the roof right down to the bathroom fixtures - at Alfred Lawless High School in New Orleans' devastated Lower Ninth Ward.

But FEMA has yet to find the school is 51 percent destroyed - the clerical benchmark that must be reached before the agency will pay to completely rebuild something. And so, two years after Katrina, while the state and federal government haggle over the extent of the damage, the school lies empty, a ruin of toppled bricks, sagging roofs and missing window panes.

"The kids here were used to disappointment. Leaving this school like this is another form of disappointment, not just for them, but for the entire community," said Tiller, a 30-year-old former music teacher at what was the only public high school in the Lower Ninth. "How can anyone look at this and say it is not 51 percent destroyed?"

The answer to Tiller's question lies in "project worksheets," forms that are used to inventory damage to a facility down to the smallest pieces, and often go through multiple versions as they wend their way through the bureaucracy.

The PWs - which measure the rebuilding needs of thousands of Gulf Coast schools, roads, hospitals, firehouses and other public projects - are the red tape that politicians and policy makers bemoan when they speak of the slow rebuilding from Katrina.

"People look at Louisiana and say, `Where is all the rebuilding? How come all the money hasn't been spent?' And the money's been spent building mountains of paper," said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

About 20,000 project worksheet reports, commonly over 1,000 pages each, have been written since the storm. According to the LRA, 83 percent of the state's 13,200 general construction projects have been haggled over at least once, tying up $469 million in rebuilding funds.

Kopplin has looked at cases like Alfred Lawless and called for an overhaul, arguing that the system was ill-equipped to handle a disaster on Katrina's scale.

"There could be a catastrophic earthquake in California. There could be other unforeseen disasters, and terrorist attacks," he said. "And the focus should be on providing the money to get public services restored. But what we've got is a system where we have thousands of federal, state, local and contract employees exchanging paperwork before the first nail can be hammered."

Gil Jamieson, FEMA's No. 2 administrator for Gulf Coast recovery, does not agree. He maintains that while the project worksheet system was slowed by early problems, such as a high rate of turnover among the FEMA workers who fill them out, they ensure money is not overspent.

"The story could be written that the federal government is nitpicking," Jamieson said. "The other side is that we're trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar."

The worksheets are designed to comply with the federal Stafford Act, which has governed disaster rebuilding since 1988. That law says that federal money can be used only to replace what was damaged, not improve a facility, or even alter it cosmetically in many cases.

So for Alfred Lawless, reams of project worksheet pages take stock of items as minute as "five 4-foot two-tube fluorescent ceiling light fixtures, three vitreous wall hung urinals, four plastic laminate partition stalls with four wall hung vitreous toilets."

[reporter14]

A Picture is worth a thousand Words

www.poconocommunitynews.com

[mo005]

MCVet: We also watched as these so called people torn what was left to pieces, Stole giant tvs and things they couldn''t even use just to be stealing. and sat on their lazy ***''s waiting for free money and free food to come to them. That place is a toilet, and god almost flushed it. I myself think new orleans is a nasty filthy place( the french quareter). I also think its stupid to rebuild it, its an empty pond waiting to be refilled let it!.

[mcvet]

New Orleans is one of the most CORRUPT cities in the U.S. You bet they should document their damage and request for federal funds. These Federal handouts need to be accounted for.

Posted by mbcsmith at 10:40 AM : Sep 26, 2007
+ report abuse

Let me see if I understand you here. You Nazi''s are so simple minded the reality is usually so stupid it''s hard to believe. Because YOU think New Orleans is Corrupt they should have to PROVE what you need only a tape of News Cast from ANY TV Station to show? Man you really need to take off a couple of those Swastika''s and join the rest of us in the HUMAN Classification. This ENTIRE nation WATCHED as the levies broke!! Do you, in that small and insignificant little mind have any idea what that means? We also, saw that IMPOSTER you still call a President PROMISE a set amount of money to those folks... he was on NATION WIDE TV Swastika Breath!! God were does slime like this come from???? Sieg Heil Bush!!

[prinzowhales]

FEMA made the tragedy worse, cutting communications, hiring Blackwater scum, holding up supplies and now it is creating a ''paper chase'' for the poor folks whose lifes and property were ruined by the mal-feasance and mis-feasance of the Regime and its instruments. The money is going to everyone but the victims--like the money from Germany that was supposed to go to Holocaust victims but is re-routed into Zionist pockets somewhere along the way.

[prinzowhales]

The levies and their upkeep were the responsibility of the Washington Regime. It failed on all counts and is reponsible for every bit of damage resulting from the poorly engineered, Corps of Engineer boon-doggle. Whether New Orleans is corrupt or not--and it is no secret that it is, as is the Nation''s Bunghole on the Potomac--the responsibility for this tragedy lies with the Regime.

[afmca]

No freakin kiddin ... New Orleans is not made up of Bush''s kind of people. Why expend time and money to improve their lives? As it gets whiter; the green will begin to flow....

[getloud1]

Stop the War & Save Our Economy! Here is the Man:
" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8 "

Join The ReVoLuTiOn In Your City Today Take A Stand:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/cities/

[mbcsmith]

New Orleans is one of the most CORRUPT cities in the U.S. You bet they should document their damage and request for federal funds. These Federal handouts need to be accounted for.

[fiteit1]

It''s really very simple, just treat it like Iraq and the money will flow like the blood of our soldiers. The city will be rebuilt with the best American products. The government buildings will be palaces. And no paperwork because it wouldn''t be right for the American people to know how there money is spent.

Just declare war on New Orleans, god was the terrorist and used a weapon of mass destruction, we don''t have to look for him, just say we are. Bush would find the money if it was a war.

[likeitis5050]

So basically it''s set up to only go to those who don''t go away frustrated after 3 or 4 attempts to get help. Great way to steward money for people left devistated by disaster. Just what someone who has been wiped out and in shock needs...mountains of paper work and a photographic memory to save government workers the trouble of getting off their big a..ss..es to look see for themselves. It''s not about being a steward. It''s about hording money until enough time has elapsed to be able to move the money into another budget file to be spent on some pet project or cover an a..ss that over spent. And Congress is ready to give them how much money for rebuilding because NO still hasn''t recovered? Now we know why....and it''s a government agency holding things up so that another government decision can be made to hand over more money. It''s a game.