REBUILDING THE GULF: Katrina? Katrina who?

12/10/2005

WEDNESDAY MARKED 100 days since Hurricane Katrina roared ashore east of New Orleans and created the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.

In many ways, the disaster is still unfolding. The White House and Congress are split on how much to spend on rebuilding the Gulf Coast. President George W. Bush has requested $17 billion, some of which would come from $62 billion already appropriated for emergency relief. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wants to spend $35 billion.

"The delay has created uncertainty and is having very negative effects on our recovery and rebuilding," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told a House committee on Wednesday. "It is taking the starch out of people."

In his dramatic speech in New Orleans on Sept. 15, President Bush made an Iraq-like pledge: "We will do what it takes; we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives."

But does that promise hold when Katrina no longer leads the news? When the emergency has morphed into mere discomfort and dislocation? When a nation already running deep deficits has to pay for a war, and Republicans are pushing for more tax cuts?

There are legitimate concerns in Congress about how the money that's already been appropriated is being spent. "I am unwilling to just continually send checks into what I think is an unaccountable black hole," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, having acquired only 16 percent of the 22,000 mobile homes and temporary housing units it needs, is still housing tens of thousands of people in hotels and motels.

Billions in clean-up contracts don't withstand scrutiny. It was revealed last week, for example, that a relative of Mr. Barbour's owns a company that has received 10 separate FEMA contracts, some without competitive bidding. In parts of New Orleans and Mississippi, the clean-up effort seems to have stalled in its tracks.

In its initial "Katrina Index," monitoring reconstruction efforts, the Brookings Institute reported that New Orleans was still in a state of emergency. Although many businesses have reopened, the city's housing stock has been depleted, its work force has been cut by two-thirds and a third of the city is still without electricity. According to some news reports, 80 percent of the population of New Orleans has yet to return. It is Baghdad on the Bayou.

Perhaps most ominously, it was reported last week that the administration hasn't yet decided to reinforce New Orleans' levee system to withstand a Category 5 storm. At the same time, forensic engineers reported that the levees may have failed because they were improperly constructed. That could subject the Corps and its contractors to lawsuits, further compounding the question of how, when and whether New Orleans will ever be rebuilt.

A hundred days and counting and, the reconstruction of the Gulf has begun to follow the same track as the reconstruction of Iraq: lots of money, little accountability and no firm plan. A nation that keeps its commitments abroad must surely keep them at home.

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