(
AP) NEW ORLEANS – Federal officials are still waiting for a list of streets damaged by Hurricane Katrina that qualify for federal assistance.
New Orleans has until July 31 to send the list to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Frustration among federal officials has risen since Mayor Ray Nagin, in his May 30 State of the City address, criticized FEMA. He said the city’s post-Katrina streets are in poor shape and “crumbled under the weight of tons of floodwaters. Shockingly, FEMA has de-obligated or rejected our request for these critical repairs.”
FEMA officials said they’ve been prepared in recent months to begin project assessments and to start the federal reimbursement process for street damage caused by Katrina. But they say they can’t do their assessments without direction on where damage occurred.
FEMA set up a special street assessment team in January. “What’s their excuse from January ‘07 till today?” asked agency spokesman Robert Josephson. (more…)
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A plan with no money
The feds should just give up on that fool and send down their own evaluation team and designate the streets themselves.
A half dozen people (with a clue that is) should be able to roll through the worst areas in a few weeks.
If Nagin wants to tweak the results later, fine, but waiting on this dope is almost as dumb as he is.
I remember reading this one article, in regards to post-Katrina progress, where it had an accompanying picture. One side was a set of railroad tracks, the other a street. The railroad was given to private business to fix. The road was given to government to fix. Can you guess which one got fixed?