Best views, weather, etc. How to test them 👓 SC, Ala. sites look back Betty Ford honored
WASHINGTON
Mississippi

Louisiana still finding Katrina damage

Paul Singer
USA TODAY

The storm is long gone, but Hurricane Katrina is still a disaster in Louisiana.

This December 2005 photo shows the devastation caused in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward by the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina made landfall 10 years ago, killing more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast and leaving about 80% of New Orleans underwater. The federal government has spent tens of billions of dollars rebuilding communities along the Gulf, but the task is far from over. Louisiana is still uncovering hurricane-related damages that will take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to repair.

Louisiana has thus far doled out around $10 billion in recovery money provided by the federal government for 24,000 reconstruction projects ranging from roads to public buildings and utilities that were damaged by Katrina and Rita, the massive storm that followed a month later, according to state reports. But there remains another $2.5 billion in federal assistance set aside for public reconstruction that has not yet been spent, and thousands of projects remain open. And some projects are getting bigger as time passes.

"We have sink holes occurring all over the city," said Freddy Drennan, mayor of Slidell, La., a city of about 25,000 people across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. "When we dig them up to fix them, we are finding infrastructure problems underneath," problems that are most likely related to Katrina. Drennan notes that the hurricane blew over thousands of trees in the area; as those trees went down, their roots tugged on the underground pipes they had grown around, causing small leaks that could go undiscovered for years. Those leaks erode the soil over time, creating unstable caverns beneath the city's roads or other infrastructure.

Drennan said FEMA has already agreed to pay about $10 million for Katrina-related repairs to the city's sewer system, and millions more will probably be needed. "These issues are major to our city; they are very expensive and costly to fix," he said. The federal disaster relief program "was put in place to aid and assist cities like ours to get our city back to where it was before Katrina," Drennan said. "I'm not asking FEMA to come in an build us a perfect sewer system." He suggested this kind of ongoing recovery could take another 10 years.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

New Orleans is undergoing a similar process with its roads. Cedric Grant, director of the city's sewage and water board, said the city made millions of dollars worth of emergency repairs to roads after the storm, a process that lasted until about 2010. At that point, the city began looking at longer-term damage, a process that "so far has produced $600-$700 million of additional work that needs to be done" and that number "is increasing daily."

Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover a portion of New Orleans on Aug. 30, 2005.

Louisiana has been criticized for the protracted pace of its recovery, particularly by the FEMA Inspector General's office. In January 2012, the inspector general issued a report concluding that Louisiana had completed ("closed" in the government's parlance) only 731 of nearly 13,000 Katrina-related reconstruction projects, while Mississippi had closed 80% of its 7,800 projects and Alabama had closed nearly every one of its 1,100 Katrina projects.

Part of the reason for this low close-out rate, the IG said, was because the federal government agreed to pay 100% of the repair costs for Katrina-related damage. "Because the state does not pay the project costs, it has no incentive to seek cost-effective replacement or repair solutions, close completed projects, or begin reducing the disaster workforce as work is completed. The 100% financing also led to applicants continuing to identify new damages 5 1/2 years after the event, and asking FEMA to cover eligible costs."

But Mark Riley, the director of Louisiana's recovery office, says this criticism is simply measuring the wrong outcome. "Closure" is a bureaucratic process requiring the filing of final paperwork and auditing billings for each project — a labor-intensive process that Louisiana did not make an early priority.

"Closeout is not a measure of recovery," Riley said. "If you looked at how much of our physical infrastructure has actually been brought back to life, the number would be around 80%."

FEMA spokesman Rafael Lemaitre agreed. "Nearly 80% of the currently projected repair and replacement costs for Katrina under the Public Assistance program have been dispersed to applicants," he said. FEMA and the state have begun putting more resources toward project closeouts over the past two years.

Workers talk at the 17th Street Canal pumping station in New Orleans on May 20, 2015. As hurricane season approached, the Army Corps of Engineers was testing pumps and floodgates built around New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck 10 years ago to better protect this low-lying metropolis from flooding.

Mississippi's Gulf Coast communities were also devastated by Katrina, and that state is largely done with its recovery. The governor's office reports that the state has paid out $2.8 billion of $3.2 billion FEMA has set aside for public reconstruction projects, and most of the remainder is for a $300 million reconstruction of the Biloxi sewer, water and gas system, which was declared a total loss. Other that that project, which will take another two to three years, "we've pretty much completed everything else," said Robert Latham, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

But "it's really unfair to compare Louisiana and Mississippi," Latham said, because Mississippi was crushed by a hurricane that was gone in days while Louisiana was consumed by a resulting flood that inundated urban areas for weeks.

FEMA has set no timetable for completing the recovery in either state. "When it comes to the long-term recovery of communities affected by Katrina, FEMA will stay until we’ve completed our commitment to our state, local and tribal partners," said Elizabeth Zimmerman, director of the agency's recovery programs. "We’re going to remain focused on making sure that the Gulf Coast not only recovers from this catastrophic event, but also builds back safer and stronger than ever before."

That commitment is not lost on Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. "I cannot overstate the gratitude we in Louisiana feel toward our fellow Americans" who came to the aid of the state, he told USA TODAY. "Whenever there is a disaster elsewhere, people in Louisiana flock to give support out of a kind of sense of paying back that which other Americans paid forward."

Featured Weekly Ad