FEMA Red Tape Slows Post-Katrina Progress

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

(AP) 
All the damaged items accounted for at the school add up to $28 million in federal funding that the school district can count on toward rebuilding, Jamieson said. All but two of the buildings on campus have reached the 51 percent benchmark, he said.

A 51 percent determination would mean an extra $2 million in FEMA aid - money the cash-strapped district is not willing to surrender.

Paul Pastorek, state superintendent of education, said he will appeal FEMA's findings - a Kafkaesque bureaucratic process that will leave Alfred Lawless untouched for at least four more months.

While the agencies wage their paper battle, parents who desperately want a high school reopened in the Lower Ninth have been forced to wait more than two years, and could be waiting longer still before construction begins.

"It's just ridiculous. There's already been so much time wasted," said Patricia Jones, executive director of the Lower Ninth Ward's Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association. "If you bring a school back, the people will come back. If you can get a quality education in your neighborhood, the houses will be filled."

In a frustrating cycle, the empty neighborhood could further reduce funding for the rebuilding of Alfred Lawless. If not enough residents return to the section of the Lower Ninth that it serves, the district may move the school to a more populated area.

Under the Stafford Act, that move could automatically cost the district 25 percent of the funding for the school, because it would no longer be a true replacement of what stood before.

Kopplin believes a solution to the problem can be found in the federal government's approach to reconstructing its own buildings damaged by Katrina.

In 2005, Congress committed $550 million to replace a Katrina-damaged veterans hospital in New Orleans, arriving at the projected cost through an estimate of what it would take to build a facility of the desired size, instead of counting each item damaged in the storm. Design bids were awarded last month.

By contrast, another hospital next door, the state's Charity Hospital, has so far received only $28 million for restoration through the project worksheet process, though projections are that it will cost $226 million to re-establish the facility. Its future remains in doubt.

Tiller, who lost his house in the Lower Ninth, now commutes 90 minutes from Baton Rouge to teach music at St. Augustine High, a Catholic school in New Orleans. But he still wanders back to Alfred Lawless, where he took his first teaching job, and has established a band program with a few students who had never picked up an instrument.

"How can you say this school is not completely destroyed?" he said. "It was a strong school, and a good school. It had a family-type atmosphere, everybody came from the same neighborhood. And for two years there's been nothing here."

[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.