U.N. panel: U.S. must protect blacks, poor in disasters

The United States must better protect poor people and African-Americans in natural disasters to avoid problems like those after Hurricane Katrina, a U.N. human rights panel said Friday.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee said poor and black Americans were "disadvantaged" after Katrina, and the United States should work harder to ensure that their rights "are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care."

The United States said federal and Louisiana state authorities were examining many of the issues raised by the committee.

from CNN

For Those Rebuilding in New Orleans, How High?

Be careful walking out the front door of Al Petrie's new home. It's a long way down. Fourteen steps above the sidewalk, about 10 feet over the street, the front stoop is perched high like a lookout post within a fortress of brick.

New Orleans native Al Petrie is trying to take no chances with his new home, right. Post-Katrina floodwaters reached near the top of the front door of his neighbor's home. "I'll be dry," he said.

The home is built far enough up, Petrie says proudly, that "when the next Katrina comes, I'll be dry."

from the Washington Post

California Levee Damage Needs Repair, U.S. Says

ast winter's severe storms and high water damaged three dozen stretches of California levees so severely that they need to be fixed before the next rainy season to prevent potential damage to homes and other development, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday.

"These levees are protecting urban areas where lives are at risk or where there may be a large economic impact," the corps said.

Emergency repairs to the damaged areas, totaling almost two miles, will cost about $50 million, the corps said. The agency will seek the money from Congress.

from the Los Angeles Times

Heat wave was state's deadliest

The number of deaths linked to California's record-breaking heat wave is up to 126, making the hot spell the state's deadliest in at least five decades, officials said Friday.

The latest figures from county medical examiners show 69 deaths that were definitely caused by the nearly two-week heat wave and 57 more that are presumed to have been the result of hot weather, said Roni Java, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Services.

"This is unprecedented," Java said. "We don't have any records of this kind of loss of life."


from the San Francisco Chronicle

Corps issues maps of rainfall's impact

If the kind of tropical rain produced by Hurricane Katrina were to occur this summer, and if flood gates were closed against a storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain, a vast area of New Orleans and East Jefferson could get anywhere from a few inches to several feet of water, according to computer-generated maps released Wednesday by the Army Corps of Engineers.

That would be enough to swamp some vehicles and invade homes in lower-lying areas, though corps officials have said history shows the chances are slim that a storm would produce enough surge this hurricane season to warrant closing flood gates at the 17th Street, London and Orleans Avenue canals. Based on storms from the past 46 years, the gates would have been closed only three times, and only one of those hurricanes -- Katrina -- produced heavy rain.

from the Times Picayune

Louisiana Governor Criticizes U.S. Evacuation Plan

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana sent a sometimes blistering letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff late Wednesday asking the federal government to honor its commitment to help evacuate and care for thousands of New Orleans area residents in the event that another major hurricane blows into the region this year.

“We have received no indication from you that staffing, logistics and security for additional shelters have been addressed,” she wrote in the 18-page letter, in one of many critiques of federal aid she said she had requested, but has still not been promised, in this case referring to a need for additional federally provided emergency shelter space.

from the NY Times

More frequent heat waves in store for California

Searing heat waves like the one blanketing the state this week cannot be directly attributed to global warming, but scientists say the sweltering hot spell is no surprise.

Like the intense hurricanes of 2005, there is no way for scientists to pin one season's weather anomalies onto a warming climate. But scientists say hurricanes and heat waves are now more likely to be more intense and frequent.

"I think you cannot attribute a single heat wave to global warming," said climate scientist Inez Fung, director of UC Berkeley's Center for Atmospheric Sciences. "But in the future there will be more of these heat waves because of global warming."

Scientists compare the situation to a pair of loaded dice. Even if the dice have been weighted to favor ones, there is no way to tell if any given pair of snake eyes is a result of the weight or just chance.

target="_blank"> from the San Jose Mercury News

In Mississippi, Katrina recovery gaining steam

Bill and Nanka Caraway, fresh from a two-week escape to Florida, are trying to readjust to their post-Hurricane Katrina lives here: Cramped inside a government trailer. Doing laundry in a little shed outside. Fretting over the still-vacant apartment building next door. Coping with the destruction that remains all around them.
"It was nice to be able to see something that's not totally devastated," says Bill Caraway, 68. "The pace of the recovery is disappointing, to tell you the truth."

Katrina destroyed the home his family had owned since 1918, and 11 months later, they're waiting for a government check to help them rebuild. They're in the same situation as nearly everyone else on the coast: waiting, waiting, waiting.

from USA Today

Prior Flood Remedies Were Ignored

Fairfax County commissioned two major studies that recommended a floodwall or an earthen berm to protect the Huntington neighborhood that was inundated by waters from Cameron Run during heavy rains last month.

Officials said last week that they are not sure why the studies -- one completed in December 1977 and the other in April 1982 -- failed to trigger any action. It appears, however, that the flood protection measures were considered too costly.

from the Washington Post

Climate change seen hurting national parks

America's beauty spots of Yosemite National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area won't escape the consequences of global warming over the next decades, according to a report released Tuesday by a national environmental group and a Colorado climate coalition.

Rising waters of the Pacific Ocean, due to melting glaciers and other events caused by the warming atmosphere and oceans, could inundate and erode coastal parks. That includes 59 miles of Golden Gate National Recreation Area beaches such as Ocean, Baker, Muir and Stinson.

Records already show that the Western United States is warming twice as fast as the rest of the country. And based on widely accepted computer models, national parks in the West and Southwest face climate disruptions leading to prolonged drought, severe wildfires and melting snow, the report said.

from the San Francisco Chronicle

download the National Resource Defense Council's report

Cities Shed Middle Class, and Are Richer and Poorer for It

Middle-class city dwellers across the country are being squeezed. They are being squeezed out by the rich as much, or more so, as by the poor — a casualty of high housing costs and the thinning out of the country’s once broad economic middle. The percentage of middle-income neighborhoods in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington has dropped since 1970, according to a recent Brookings Institution report.

The percentage of higher-income neighborhoods in many places has gone up. In New York, the supply of apartments considered affordable to households with incomes like those earned by starting firefighters or police officers plunged by a whopping 205,000 in just three years, between 2002 and 2005.

from the NY Times

Climate Experts Warn of More Coastal Building

Ten climate experts who are sharply divided over whether global warming is intensifying hurricanes say that this question, a focus of Congressional hearings, news reports and the recent Al Gore documentary, is a distraction from “the main hurricane problem facing the United States.”

That problem, the experts said yesterday in a statement, is an ongoing “lemming-like march to the sea” in the form of unabated coastal development in vulnerable places, and in the lack of changes in government policies and corporate and individual behavior that are driving the trend.

Whatever the relationship between hurricanes and climate, experts say, hurricanes are hitting the coasts, and houses should not be built in their path.

from the New York Times

statement from the experts

All in Queens Have Power Now, Con Ed Says

Some awoke Tuesday to discover that they had hot water and air-conditioning for the first time in eight days. By the evening, only about 100 customers were still entirely without power, and their service was restored overnight, Con Ed said. But anger lingered over how long it had taken Con Ed to reconnect everyone.

Another Con Ed spokesman, Michael Clendenin, said on Tuesday that customers with restored service were getting full power, but some customers nonetheless complained that only some of their electrical outlets were working. They also said that crews in the street had warned them that electricity was being supplied at reduced voltage.

from the NY Times

Levee collapse in China threatens village

Heavy rain from Tropical Storm Kaemi caused a levee in southern China to collapse, threatening to inundate an area that's home to 20,000 villagers, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday. The storm, which weakened to a depression, killed at least eight people and left 18 others missing as it battered China's southeast and forced the evacuation of more than 640,000 residents. Heavy rain was forecast through Thursday.

from the AP via the Times Picayune

Dangerous heat waves

France is forecast to experience temperatures of up to 39 degrees Celsius, or 102.2 Fahrenheit, today in a heat wave that has killed 40 people this month, recalling the summer of 2003 in which 15,000 died.

France's National Institute for Public Health Surveillance raised its toll from yesterday's 30 as Meteo France weather service maintained a heat alert in more than half the country. The health watchdog said the extra deaths occurred over the past week and that it will publish a detailed report tomorrow.

from Bloomberg News

California's record-setting heat wave defied the predictions of forecasters and hopes of millions of Californians on Tuesday, maintaining its strength for an 11th straight day.

Temperatures hit triple digits from Redding to San Bernardino, and the number of weather-related deaths rose to at least 41 in 11 counties. Cattle dropped dead in their fields, and thousands of utility customers endured a day without power, in some cases not the first.

from the San Francisco Chronicle

Two unions trying to attract evacuees into job training

Two unions that represent construction workers and health care employees said Tuesday that they are trying to attract hurricane evacuees back to the city for job training and, hopefully, long-term employment and residence in New Orleans.

The Laborers International Union of North America will train workers in such fields as demolition, mold remediation and basic construction. The Service Employees International Union plans to train and place workers as home health aids, followed by nursing positions.

The joint venture, known as the New Orleans Worker Resource Center, is designed to find good-paying jobs for people who want to return to the city permanently, said Tom Worded, SEIU executive vice president.

from the Times Picayune

New Orleans, Getting Less Power, May Pay More

To the list of daily aggravations in the new New Orleans, add one that augments the heat, spoils the food and drains the cash register: power failures.

The wind blows and a neighborhood’s power goes out. Or it rains and the power goes out somewhere else. Thunder crashes distantly and out goes the power.

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, the city still does not have a reliable electrical system. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of repairs are still needed on a system devastated by flooding, the local utility is in bankruptcy and less than half the system’s prestorm customers have returned. Of those who have, many have endured hot and sleepless nights with no air-conditioning.

from the NY Times

Strong Desire to Return Home, but Nowhere to Go

James and Delphine Lindsey, ages 79 and 70, are so strapped they have to make do with a diet of red beans and pig tails. They have family nearby to help, fellow evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, but if they lose their federal housing assistance, which they have been warned may happen any month now, things could get dire.

“We’re not going to be put out,” Ms. Lindsey insisted, looking around at her small one-bedroom apartment in Houston’s working-class Fifth Ward, a grocery cart parked in the corner beside her wheelchair. “We’re not going out on the street. No, no. We’ll just have to start the penny-pinching, that’s all.”

from the NY Times

U.S. Government Plans Overhaul in Disaster Aid

The Department of Homeland Security, responding to months of criticism and ridicule, is revamping several of its core disaster relief programs, enacting changes that will include sharply cutting emergency cash assistance for victims of major disasters, and more carefully controlling access to free hotel rooms.

Emergency debit cards worth $2,000 were handed out last year; such aid will be limited to $500.
Immediate emergency aid would not exceed $500 under the new rules, instead of the $2,000 per family previously allowed. And it would be handed out only after identities and addresses were checked. Such precautions were not taken consistently last year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an oversight auditors said led to fraud and abuse of up to $1.4 billion.

from the NY Times

Houston blacks won't trust government in hurricane, survey finds

Blacks living in Houston are far more likely to count on faith for protection this hurricane season than government agencies that most blacks see as dishonest and unprepared, according to a university study released today.

Eighty-three percent of blacks surveyed believe the city is only somewhat or poorly prepared to handle an ordeal such as Hurricane Katrina, the aftermath of which led Texas Southern University to conduct the telephone poll of 404 blacks in Houston.

from the Houston Chronicle

Water in New Orleans: City waits, and waits…

Members of the city water system's governing board say New Orleans will not recover from Hurricane Katrina if underground pipes are not quickly repaired, according to a recent KATC news report.

Low water pressure has caused businesses and government offices to shut down unexpectedly; one condominium project is faced with a $1,300 daily bill for fire watches because pressure is too weak to get water to sprinklers on upper floors, the report said.

According to the report, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has paid out about 9 percent of the estimated $447 million required to repair damage to the city's water, sewerage and draining systems.

from WaterTech online

Texas City's levees contain faults cited in New Orleans

The Texas City hurricane levee is supposed to protect 50,000 residents and $6 billion worth of property, including almost 5 percent of the nation's oil-refining capacity. If it failed and a storm surge swamped the Galveston Bay port city, it could knock out refineries and chemical plants for months and inundate thousands of houses.

from the Houston Chronicle

Rise in Sea Level, Loss of Wet Lands May Account for Unstable Ground in Mississippi Delta

While erosion and wetland loss have become huge problems along Louisiana's coast, the land 30 to 50 feet beneath much of the Mississippi Delta has been very stable for the past 8,000 years, with low to nonexistent subsidence rates. So say geoscientists from Tulane University and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, challenging the notion that subsidence, or sinking of the earth, bears much of the blame for Louisiana's coastal geology problems.

A research team led by Tulane's Torbjörn Törnqvist suggests instead that compaction of the shallowest and most-recently formed delta sediments is the main cause of subsidence in that area.

from the National Science Foundation

from the Geological Society of America

The New Paradigm

Thousands of New Orleans kids will re-enter the public school system as registration begins for newly opened charter schools across town this summer. (A list of all the charter schools and their registration dates are available in a form that is easy to download at www.nolapublicschools.net). The opening of charter schools marks the latest phase in the massive realignment of the Orleans Parish Public Schools.

The realignment began when the state took over operational control of 112 out of 128 schools from the Orleans Parish School Board last November. State lawmakers, long tired of high costs and low performances in the Orleans district, transferred all public schools in New Orleans that were performing below the state average to a newly created "Recovery School District" under the aegis of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

In the wake of last November's legislative action, the educational landscape in New Orleans is hardly recognizable. In addition to the creation of a second governing authority, old schools have closed, new schools have opened, existing schools have switched buildings, and some kids have yet to return while others have relocated across the city. Amidst all those changes, the daunting task of enrolling kids, hiring teachers and repairing damaged buildings remains.

from Gambit Weekly

FEMA unveils hurricane response base

A string of 15 electronic red dots stretching on a map from Texas to Massachusetts was beamed on giant plasma screens Thursday at FEMA's shiny new operation's center.

Each dot represented a water-stocked tractor-trailer heading to the Northeast in case Tropical Storm Beryl turns toward the coast. Each vehicle was equipped with a transponder so Federal Emergency Management Agency officials in Washington could monitor its progress.

from the Times Picayune

Senate Backs New Controls for Projects by Engineers

The Senate voted Wednesday to put new controls on water projects of the Army Corps of Engineers, with proponents of the legislation repeatedly citing the experience of New Orleans, where corps-designed levees and waterways failed to protect the city from Hurricane Katrina. The legislation, an amendment to a measure authorizing new corps projects, calls for the creation of independent panels of scientific and economic experts with authority to weigh in on projects under consideration by the corps. A decision to ignore the panel’s advice could be used against the corps in legal proceedings.

from the NY Times

Many could ignore hurricane evacuation

One in four people in Southern coastal states said they would ignore government hurricane evacuation orders, according to a Harvard University survey done earlier this month.

The most common reasons respondents gave for not evacuating were confidence that their home is well-built, belief that roads would be too crowded and concern that evacuating would be dangerous.

"Public officials have to realize a substantial group of people are going to remain and be very dependent on rescue efforts after a storm hits," said Robert Blendon, the Harvard health policy professor who directed the survey.

from the AP via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Study issues storm warning for Tampa

Outside Robert Weisberg's office at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus, it was just another day in paradise, Tampa Bay style.

Kayakers glided over the sparkling waters. A light breeze nudged limp palm fronds. Masts on docked boats stood at attention.

Weisberg, though, was oblivious to St. Pete's sunny charms. Seated in front of his computer, the oceanographer was focused on the dark side of coastal living: the threat of a major hurricane.

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Indonesians Search for the Dead After Tsunami

At least 256 people were killed after a tsunami smashed into fishing villages and resorts on Indonesia's Java island, following a strong undersea earthquake, a Red Cross official said on Tuesday.

At least four non-Indonesians were among the dead, 122 people were missing and 28,000 people were displaced, officials said.

No warnings were reported ahead of the waves despite regional efforts to establish early warning systems after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000, including 170,000 in Indonesia.

But many residents and tourists recognized the signs and fled to higher ground as the sea receded before huge waves came crashing ashore.

from the NY Times

Neighbors happy to see flood project begin

Peering over the steep bank into Little Mill Creek, it's hard to believe the slow, lazy stream of sandy brown water has turned into a raging torrent time and time again.

"It may look sweet and docile," Elsmere resident Susan Timko said, "but we've had about six major floods and a tornado in the last couple of years."

Timko joined neighbor Maryellen Treglown under a leafy canopy beside the creek Monday morning to watch public officials break ground on a long-awaited project to curb flooding by widening and deepening the waterway.

from the Delaware News Journal

Repair of post-Katrina wetlands may hinge on oil

Louisiana is focusing its hopes for restoring coastal wetlands that could help protect it from another Hurricane Katrina on an unexpected savior: oil.

Oil and the environment are rarely seen mixing well but the debate over how to pay for natural barriers that slow monster storms has moved into the Gulf of Mexico, where oil rigs can pump up to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day.
As the United States opens more of the gulf to drilling, Louisiana wants a bigger percentage of the oil tax money that is split between states and the federal government. That, and more drilling, could let Louisiana pay what is estimated to be a $14 billion coastal restoration price tag.

from Reuters

A Yield of Dreams

In the weeks immediately following Hurricane Katrina, there was widespread speculation by the national media that south Louisiana's famed fishery might never be what it once was.

There were fears that pollution caused by the storm's fury might make the fish unsafe for consumption. And there also was the question of finding boats, marinas and launches to get to the fish.

Of course, the worries about pollution were debunked. And though the state's fishing infrastructure inches toward normalcy, those with the ability to fish have found the catch to be outstanding, perhaps better than it has been in decades.

from the Times Picayune

Levees won't protect cities from big storm

Richard Corbett knows how effective a good hurricane levee can be. The lifelong La Marque resident attributes the county’s 17-mile long surge protector for keeping his home dry during the last major storm. “After Alicia, we climbed to the top of the levee, and the water came up to the bottom end,” said Corbett, whose home is just blocks away. “I can guarantee you it kept the water away.”

However, that guarantee can only go so far.

“The levee system is designed to handle the storm surge of a high level 3 hurricane or maybe a low 4,” said Mike Fitzgerald, county engineer.

from the Galveston County Daily News

Feds Need LA Help for Hurricane Plans

The Bush administration said Monday it needs specific lists of Louisiana's shelters, immobile hospital patients and transportation pickup points before it can promise reliable evacuation help during a major hurricane.

In a letter to Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made clear what responsibilities the federal government will shoulder the next time a huge storm strikes.

from the AP via Forbes

Secretary Chertoff's letter to Governor Blanco

Putting New Orleans On the Green Line

Laura Bush couldn't have been more effective if she'd waved a magic wand, but it's hard to compete with Brad Pitt when trying to turn the nation's attention to "green" design.

At the White House on Monday, the first lady appealed to a gathering of National Design Award honorees, urging them to get involved in rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Their legacy, she suggested, would be determined by their efforts to improve the devastated region. She also put in a surprise plug for sustainable design, saying that Hurricane Katrina "gives us the chance to build 'green' buildings and to build energy-saving buildings" -- which made her sound like an early-warning siren for global warming.

from the Washington Post

Learning from Katrina

Joining hundreds of thousands of American teenagers in a springtime ritual, Kendall Collins marched across the stage, grabbed his diploma and walked into a new world, letting high school fade into history.

For the Algiers native and former senior at L.B. Landry High School, that May afternoon marked a second foray into unknown territory.

The first was not part of a ceremony, but a Coast Guard rescue. And what faded into history then was not homeroom, but home itself.

from the Times Picayune

Debris-Sorting an Important Part of Clean Up

Rebuilding New Orleans has a well-known side effect: piles of debris. While some of those piles strike an emotional chord for residents, environmental health professionals see them differently. For Tulane University graduate Caroline Whitehead, separating debris into piles according to type is a crucial environmental health issue. This summer, she became one of the 1,600 Environmental Protection Agency workers helping New Orleans residents clean up safely and effectively.

from Tulane Daily News

Holy Cross design contest advances

Three architects with New Orleans ties are among six finalists announced today in a national competition to design environmentally friendly housing for the Katrina-ravaged Holy Cross neighborhood.

They are Kenneth Gowland and Steve Dumez, both of whom live and work in New Orleans, and New Orleans native Drew Lang, who practices in his hometown and in New York City.

The competition is sponsored by Global Green USA, a nonprofit environmental organization.
from the Times Picayune

Scholarships aim to keep colleges full

As an incentive for Louisiana students to stay in state for college and to lure back those displaced by last year's hurricanes, the state is offering special scholarships aimed at replenishing its higher-education rosters.

As part of its "Return to Learn" program, the state Board of Regents is offering scholarships of up to $1,000 to these groups: students who were enrolled in a state college or university when they were dispersed by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita; displaced Louisiana residents who would like to enroll in college; or displaced state high school seniors who graduated this year.

The amount of each scholarship will depend on financial need, and students must apply for the money before enrolling for the 2006 fall semester.

from the Times Picayune

Harboring doubts

These days Norman Bordes wears a day-glo nylon vest to work, where he blends in with other inspectors overseeing the removal of storm debris from New Orleans. But something about the uniform is wrong -- strident -- as if he has put on the other team's jersey.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Bordes never expected to make a living anywhere but on Lake Pontchartrain. Like his brother, Peter, and their father before them, he harvested shrimp, crabs and black drum, unloading his catch at the Bucktown piers at the mouth of the 17th Street Canal.

Today he wears that nylon vest because he made the mistake of sheltering his boat behind the locks at Bayou Bienvenue as Katrina gathered strength at sea. When he returned, he found his boat wedged like a caterpillar tent in the trees.

from the Times Picayune

Replica of New Orleans: A Study in Urban Cloning

New Orleans is supposed to be 130 miles east of this Cajun country capital on the Vermillion River, but there in the distance, rising from the swampland, is something that looks very familiar.

The quaint row houses of the French Quarter are off Interstate 10, past the strip malls. There are Garden District-style mansions in a neighborhood named the Garden District, and blocks full of Creole cottages, lush courtyards and lacy ironwork. There is even a street called Elysian Fields.

It is not the Crescent City, however, but rather River Ranch, a commercial development here that is a virtual re-creation of much of historic residential New Orleans, meticulous in detail and substantial in size, with a growing population of more than a thousand on about 300 acres.

from the NY Times

Storm Aid Changes Coming

People displaced by future hurricanes will probably not get the $2,000 federal handout that went to Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees last year, a top official in the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Sunday.

The elimination of that post-hurricane financial aid is one of many changes in the agency's tactics this year, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Harvey Johnson, who was named FEMA deputy director in April, said in an interview.

from the Washington Post

Mentally Disabled Faced Bias Post-Katrina

Mentally ill hurricane evacuees were often discriminated against during relief efforts last year, to the point of being banished from shelters or institutionalized against their will, a government report says.

The National Council on Disability said Friday it was common practice after hurricanes Katrina and Rita to segregate people with psychiatric problems. The council called the segregation hurtful and illegal.

from the AP via Forbes

New Orleans Endures the `New Normal'

They are signature scenes of the city: tourists on Bourbon Street, diners savoring breakfast at Brennan's, revelers dancing at Tipitina's, crowds at the street fairs and music festivals.
Almost 11 months after Hurricane Katrina struck, these scenes suggest the city is "back."
But most New Orleanians are stuck in a different scene, one set against a backdrop of moldy sheet rock, plywood, broken tiles and twisted metal littering median strips for miles at a stretch, and in which every park or defunct strip mall has become a trailer city.

Much attention has been paid to the storm's death toll and massive property destruction, but what is remarkable today is how much everyday life in this city has changed.

from the Los Angeles Times

Senate Votes to Replace FEMA With a New Federal Agency

The Senate voted 87 to 11 Tuesday night to create a new federal entity to replace the much-criticized Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Senate’s action came in the form of an amendment to the domestic security budget bill. The new agency, called the Emergency Management Authority, would remain in the Homeland Security Department into which FEMA, which once had cabinet status, was merged in 2003. But in times of major disasters, the new agency would report directly to the president.

from the NY Times

Environmental groups are wary of corps report

Several environmental groups on Tuesday charged that the Army Corps of Engineers interim report on efforts to protect New Orleans and south Louisiana from Category 5 hurricanes could result in an environment-damaging, nearly continuous hurricane levee across the state's coast.

Tim Searchinger, an attorney and water resources expert with Environmental Defense, said there's little chance of congressional approval of a "great wall of Louisiana" because its cost would be prohibitive.

But he said that by focusing on the wall, which could be 60 feet high in some places, the corps is wasting money and time that would be better spent on development and construction of more focused protection of the state's coastal population centers and on wetland and barrier island restoration projects that would also protect coastal areas from hurricane storm surges.

from the Times Picayune

Corps Outlines Plan to Protect Louisiana

The Army Corps of Engineers has outlined a preliminary plan to protect Louisiana from hurricanes and their storm surges that is likely to cost tens of billions of dollars.

The report, which the Corps delivered to Capitol Hill late Monday, did not include specific recommendations on how to proceed but envisions a patchwork of levees and natural barriers aimed at withstanding a range of storms.

In November, Congress instructed the Corps to write an "analysis and design" report within six months on how to protect Louisiana against storms as intense as a Category 5 hurricane, with winds above 155 mph. While an engineering appendix to the report includes an outline for levees that would stretch all across the state, project manager Al Naomi said in an interview yesterday that the agency has not decided where to construct levees.

from the Washington Post

Katrina Victims and Insurer Square Off in a Courtroom

A federal judge on Monday began hearing a groundbreaking trial that could signal whether thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina can receive payouts for losses their insurance companies contend were caused by flooding.

Lawyers for Paul and Julie Leonard say the couple were misled by their insurance agent and then were denied much of their claim for their home in Pascagoula, Miss., without a full review of the facts.

The couple’s insurer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance, argued that while wind damage is covered by its homeowners’ policies, damage from flooding is excluded, including damage from Katrina’s wind-driven storm surge of water.

from the NY Times

First Post-Katrina 'Sustainable Building' Project Breaks Ground in New Orleans

HomeAid, the country's leading non-profit developer of transitional housing, has joined forces with Tulane University's School of Architecture to initiate the first post-Katrina sustainable building project in the City of New Orleans, where much attention is being placed on the opportunity to rebuild better, smarter and more efficiently for the future. The project, a 4,400 square foot, two-story Family Center that will house families displaced by the hurricane, breaks ground today and is being privately funded through a $3 million partnership between HomeAid and Ameriquest Mortgage Company and its affiliates Argent Mortgage Company and AMC Mortgage Services. The Family Center will be built on the site of the historic New Orleans Rescue Mission, located one quarter mile southeast of the Louisiana Superdome at 1130 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. New Orleans-based JaRoy Construction, Inc. will build the project, while Perez APC is serving as the project's architectural director, working in conjunction with Tulane University.

read the full press release

Confusion, hope as more students register for New Orleans schools

Confusion over who is running which public school in post-Katrina New Orleans complicated Monday's first day of registration for 18 of those schools, which have been taken over by the state because of poor pre-Katrina performance.

New Orleans had more than 110 public schools with enrollment totaling 60,000 before the storm hit Aug. 29. Only about 20 were open by spring with an estimated 9,500 students.

How many students will be back this fall is uncertain but there are currently plans to open more than 50 public schools with capacityi for more than 30,000 students. However, only a handful of those schools are being run by the beleaguered New Orleans School Board.

from the Times Picayune

from New Orleans City Business

LA Senators Slam Storm Protection Plan

The Bush administration issued guidelines Monday for deciding how to protect Louisiana from the most dangerous hurricanes _ plans that state officials said ignore specific fixes that could begin quickly.

The much-awaited report, developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, marked the first step in two years of planning how to rebuild New Orleans' levees, bolster Louisiana's coastline and develop other programs to control flooding from Category 5 storms.

But five specific recommendations Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, described as urgently needed to protect the state had been stripped out of the Corps' proposal since a draft was circulated last month.

Instead, Corps officials said they would put off embracing any particular plans to avoid uncoordinated or incomplete safeguards during the process. The rebuilding could take over a decade.

from the AP via the Washington Post

from the Times Picayune

Higher Ground

When the group of outside planners first set up shop in Vermilion Parish to talk about the future of the small Acadiana towns hit hard by Hurricane Rita, the proposal that caught everyone's attention was for moving the entire town of Erath, which has repeatedly flooded over the years, to higher ground.


Mayor George Dupuis listened to all the dreamy discussions and knew that neither the idea -- nor the town -- was going anywhere.

The phone calls began pouring into the Erath City Hall immediately after the proposal was first explained, he said, with elderly residents most offended by the idea of moving from their longtime homes.

from the Times Picayune

Corps misses 2nd floodgate deadline, hasn't set 3rd

After missing two deadlines for floodgates and pumps to protect New Orleans from floods like those after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hasn't set a third.

The project at the 17th Street Canal is an important one. The Corps can't set a new deadline until it hears from contractors and others, said Jim St. Germain, a corps specialist helping design and oversee pumping projects there and at two other canals.
The floodwalls and pumps are ready at the other two canals, he said.

from the Times Picayune

Investors Lead Home Sale Boom in New Orleans

In a market spurred by speculators and bargain hunters, an extraordinarily large number of houses in the flood-ravaged metropolitan area here are being sold, according to real estate analysts, who say volume and sales prices exceed levels before Hurricane Katrina.

The higher prices are largely due to an increase in value in suburban areas, many of which were not heavily flooded, or in dry areas of New Orleans. But flooded houses in the city are being bought as well, often at deep discounts of as much as $50 a square foot less than they would have sold for before the hurricane.

"We have a stronger housing market than before," said Wade R. Ragas, professor emeritus of finance at the University of New Orleans and the president of a local consulting firm, Real Property Associates.

from the NY Times

Ties that bind

Redwood Creek runs like an artery through the little town of Orick. It's an artery that's been clogged by sediment from old logging, by leaking septic systems, invasive grasses and bad blood between the government and many residents.

The community today has hatched a plan for a slew of surgeries that could turn back the clock and get Redwood Creek working like it's a teenager again.

Orick leaders and landowners, longtime Redwood National and State Parks employees, Humboldt County and non-profit groups like California Trout seized an opportunity when they saw it: Millions of dollars available from state bond measure Proposition 50, an initiative that called for grand-scale thinking about things like fish restoration and community development on a watershed level.

from Times-Standard of California

Levees to lahar, disaster preparation

Two local governments are planning to make their communities safer in case of disaster. King County Executive Ron Sims is right to ask the County Council to adopted a countywide flood-control district.

And in the small Pierce County town of Orting, money is being secured for a bridge that can be used to get to high ground in case of a lahar — a catastrophic slide of debris produced by an eruption of Mount Rainier.

from the Seattle Times

Storms heat up global warming debate

Kerry Emanuel, a respected professor of atmospheric science, stepped to the podium in a packed conference room at the nation's hurricane research center feeling a little bit like Daniel in the lions' den.

His audience that January day included some of the nation's top hurricane researchers and forecasters, and the vast majority in attendance were not expected to like what Emanuel had to say.

from the Times Picayune

Survey: Crime is residents' No. 1 priority

Preventing crime, providing street lighting, creating good schools and making neighborhoods more pedestrian-friendly are among the priorities of New Orleans residents asked to help craft Hurricane Katrina recovery plans, a Tulane University survey shows.

The survey of 1,073 returned and still-displaced residents -- using phone, Internet and in-person interviews -- offers compelling evidence that New Orleanians want crime-fighting measures incorporated into neighborhood designs, said Tom Farley, director of the Prevention Research Center at Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

from the Times Picayune

Report: Workers in N.O. endure abuse

Post-Katrina New Orleans is a dangerous, oppressive place for the working poor who labor on the front lines of the city's recovery effort, according to a report released Thursday by a Washington, D.C.-based legal center.

"The treatment of workers in New Orleans constitutes a national crisis of civil and human rights," said the report by the Advancement Project and the National Immigration Law Center, which interviewed more than 700 workers over several months only to find glaring examples of unfair labor practices, homelessness, and harassment by police and contractors.

from the Times Picayune

LRA allocates block grants

The Louisiana Recovery Authority on Thursday allocated $500 million in block grant money to help leverage billions of dollars in federal spending on infrastructure torn up by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, along with $171 million for small-business and tourism economic development programs.

The LRA meeting at the Jackson Barracks, at the Orleans-St. Bernard parish line, came against the backdrop of an announcement by Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Louisiana National Guard leaders of plans for a more than $200 million overhaul of the flood-damaged military base, including more public uses of the tract and restoration of antebellum homes.

from the Times Picayune

Parking it here

"That was my favorite color for a kitchen," Bernadette Lation said, standing in her driveway and staring inside her house at bright yellow walls covered with dark mold. Among the 519 Pontchartrain Park houses that flooded after Hurricane Katrina, the Lations' ranch-style home sat in roof-high water and muck for two weeks.

Like many people who raised children and grandchildren in the vintage 1950s neighborhood -- the first New Orleans subdivision designed to offer homeownership opportunities to middle- and upper-income black families -- Lation and her husband of 51 years, Raymond, are determined to rebuild. In April, they moved into a government trailer at the edge of their Congress Drive driveway.

from the Times Picayune

UCLA leads national effort to address New Orleans' mental health needs

To address the enormous mental health needs of New Orleans, UCLA psychology professor Vickie Mays is leading a national effort to provide mental health education and training -- including to New Orleans' parents, families, the clergy and mental health providers -- Aug. 8–9.

"There has rightfully been a lot of attention on ensuring that the people of New Orleans have safety, shelter, food and medicine, but in addition to issues of survival, many people in New Orleans in response to Katrina have very serious mental disorders as well as severe emotional distress," said Mays, director of the UCLA Center for Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities. "If we don't intervene with the mental health needs of children now, we could see a generation in New Orleans that will experience depression, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and other chronic problems. We don't want to let the downward cycle start."

from Eureka Newsalert

In New Orleans, Levees' Brawn in Dispute

Government and independent engineers disagreed Thursday when pressed by a U.S. House subcommittee on whether the current state of area levees made it safe for residents to rebuild in parts of the city that flooded worst during Hurricane Katrina.
He told lawmakers without hesitation that he would return if it was his home in the area, but others questioned him, saying that the levees have yet to be tested.

Army Corps of Engineers Col. Richard Wagenaar stressed that the levees ringing the metro area now are significantly stronger and in some cases higher than what existed before Katrina hit Aug. 29.

"I think the Colonel is a bit optimistic," said Dr. Gordon Boutwell, with the American Society of Civil Engineers.

from the Washington Post

Study links increase in wildfires to global warming

Global warming may be largely to blame for the increasingly destructive wildfires in the Western United States in the last two decades, new research suggests.

Longer and fiercer wildfire seasons since 1986 are closely associated with warmer summer temperatures, earlier arrival of spring, and earlier snowmelts in the West, scientists reported yesterday in the online edition of the journal Science.

from the Boston Globe

Jackson Barracks will be restored

Gov. Kathleen Blanco will announce today a $200 million restoration of Jackson Barracks, a project that will spur redevelopment in the Lower 9th Ward and Arabi and will allow the Louisiana National Guard to return its state headquarters to the complex.

LRA Executive Director Andy Kopplin said he believes the project could become an anchor for redeveloping the area.

At the same time, the huge repair project, which will include new building materials and will be done in accordance with FEMA elevation guidelines, will demonstrate to property owners how to repair shattered homes and build new ones according to new hurricane codes, Blanco said. The first floors of the salvageable buildings at the base will be built of materials that both protect the architectural integrity of the homes and repel water.

from the Times Picayune

New Orleans Sets a Way to Plan Its Rebuilding

Mayor C. Ray Nagin and other municipal officials announced a long-awaited framework Wednesday for planning the rebuilding of ruined neighborhoods, nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina and after months of indecision about how various parts of the city should work together toward recovery. Under what is being called the Unified New Orleans Neighborhood Plan, Mr. Nagin, the City Council and community leaders have agreed to back a single comprehensive land-use planning process, which will coordinate the recovery of more than 70 distinct neighborhoods. Some of those neighborhoods are already far along in their efforts, while others, particularly in low-income areas, have yet to begin.

from the NY Times

from the NY Times

Entergy New Orleans seeks 25% rate boost

New Orleans residents could see their electric and gas bills rise about $45 a month under a plan Entergy New Orleans has filed with the New Orleans City Council.

The filing is the first time since Hurricane Katrina that Entergy New Orleans has requested a rate increase to help pay for damage it sustained in the hurricane and to adjust rates based on its much-smaller customer base.

from the Times Picayune

California's bayou

Sacramento and New Orleans are 2,000 miles apart. But when the Crescent City
was submerged in what the media insisted on calling "toxic gumbo" following
Hurricane Katrina, it brought overdue attention to the neglected levees of
California's Delta.

That's the good news. The bad news is that estimates for the amount of money
needed to completely fix the Delta levees could range up to $1.5 trillion,
according to Ron Ott, deputy director of the California Bay-Delta Authority.

from Capitol Weekly of California

Effect of climate change on oceans gaining attention

Two decades ago, when Dr. Richard Feely at the Seattle laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported his concerns about atmospheric carbon dioxide significantly altering the chemistry of the oceans, his findings were largely ignored.

Wednesday, Feely might have felt vindicated as one of the authors of a major federal report compiled by a blue-ribbon panel of scientists that pretty much said the same thing.

from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

New Orleans Shotgun Redefined in Treme Project

The blighted property at 1930 Dumaine St. is now a skeleton of wood in a cleared lot. But what is happening on that property is a modern version of ancient magic as Tulane architecture students are bringing to life one of the home designs recently displayed as part of the architecture design exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

from the Tulane University Magazine

Huge marine wetland starts life

Almost 115 hectares has been flooded at Wallasea Island, Essex, to create wetland, mudflats, saline lagoons and seven artificial islands. The £7.5m government-funded project aims to replace bird habitats lost to development, improve flood defences, and create leisure opportunities. Excavators were used to breach the sea wall on Tuesday to allow the sea in.

from the BBC

The Long Wait

In some parts of recuperating New Orleans, the FEMA trailer days are over.

Here, in the Lower 9th Ward, they have only just arrived.

Many homeowners across the region, having repaired their residences, want the government's contractors to come haul away the Cavalier brand trailers, which have become a symbol of New Orleans, almost as ubiquitous as a fleur-de-lis, in this post-Katrina landscape of a city on the mend.

from the Times Picayune

Street-level flooding is more likely

Heavy rain from a tropical storm could fill more streets with water this year than residents were used to seeing before Hurricane Katrina, according to new government projections.

The Army Corps of Engineers has drawn up maps showing parts of Gentilly, Lakeview and Uptown that can expect rainwater accumulation this hurricane season even if they did not typically flood in previous tropical storms. Closing the floodgates under construction at the 17th Street, London Avenue and Orleans Avenue canals in advance of a tropical system is what would trigger the extra flooding from rain.

from the Times Picayune

Katrina spawns cottage industry

Hurricane Katrina has spawned a real cottage industry, catering to the tens of thousands of families still crammed in government-issued trailers 10 months after the storm.

Teams of architects and builders are racing to design, construct and sell creations like the "Katrina Cottage" and "Coastal Cabana," billed as comfortable, durable and affordable alternatives to the flimsy trailers furnished by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Congress also joined the fray earlier this month, earmarking $400 million for a pilot program that could move thousands of FEMA trailer occupants into cottages.

from the AP via the Seattle Post=Intelligencer

In a Town Swept by Storm, a Wound Before Healing

This time a year ago, the river that separates southeast Texas and Louisiana reflected the blossoms of Fourth of July fireworks. The next month, Hurricane Katrina evacuees streamed across that river and were greeted by Orange with food, shelter and hugs.

People here just could not imagine. Three weeks later they could, as Hurricane Rita sent nearly all 19,000 residents fleeing north. When they returned to their small city, which calls itself "the sweetest taste of Texas, any way you slice it," the taste of Orange hinted of salt — maybe from the Gulf of Mexico, maybe from something else.

from the NY Times

In Battered Parish, Officials Bear the Brunt of Neighbors' Anguish

They convened a meeting here the other night in just about the only building still intact. They recited the Lord's Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then the elected officials of Cameron Parish tried again to govern in the protracted wake of chaos. Six part-time members of the Cameron Parish Police Jury, a sort of county legislature, sat in a semi-circle in the dank Cameron Courthouse, where a calendar in the deserted basement is paused at September. One member is a farmer, another a carpenter. A third maintains portable toilets. Three wore baseball caps; all wore that look of forever-lost sleep.

Just outside the courthouse, flatness and emptiness: stores gone, subdivisions gone, people gone. Inside, a brief talk about taxes provided a nostalgic whiff of the comfortably mundane — until the discussion turned again to removing more storm debris, demolishing more buildings and trying to recover from the time-stopping September visit of Hurricane Rita.

Katrina shocks New Orleans visitors 10 months on

Bill Friend thought he was ready to go home again. He had read the newspapers, watched TV and talked with friends about the devastation wreaked on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

Still, he was shocked. "You go down street after street after street and see nothing — wreckage," said Friend, 80, who grew up in New Orleans and now lives in the Washington area. "The overall impression of it is how much of it there is."

from ABC news

Oil industry bracing for the storms

With weather forecasters expecting an ``above-average'' hurricane season, government regulators and major players in the energy sector hope errors made last year during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita won't be repeated.

Mistakes and mechanical failures coupled with last year's unprecedented back-to-back severe storms disrupted U.S. oil production and gasoline distribution and sent global oil prices soaring past $70 a barrel and gasoline above $3 a gallon. Natural gas prices also doubled.

In the suburbs of Houston, the nation's energy capital, oil producers, refiners and pipeline operators report that Katrina and Rita punched holes in what they had thought were water-tight emergency plans. Energy companies couldn't communicate with government responders or even internally.

from the San Jose Mercury News

Levees could be in Delaware River's future

As the waters of the Delaware River recede, Pennsylvania and New Jersey officials are considering how to prevent future floods. Several days of downpours brought the river to flood stage for the third time in less than two years. Residents of low-lying areas are reported to be tired of evacuations and of returning to a water-logged mess in their homes.

from UPI

Corps report ignores call for specifics

The Army Corps of Engineers, which was directed by Congress to prepare a report on how to protect Louisiana from a Category 5 hurricane, is poised to issue a vaguely-worded document that will not list the specific projects that would be needed to secure the state's fragile coastline. The report was to be issued Friday, but the corps postponed action until July 10 after several heated exchanges with representatives of Gov. Kathleen Blanco who say the Bush administration has inappropriately removed a list of specific projects that corps engineers had included in the document's initial draft.

Instead of listing the projects, a draft of the report shown to state officials merely outlined a "decision matrix" the administration would use to decide how to pick projects in the future to protect Louisiana.

from the Times Picayune