Tuesday, August 31, 2010
It was the administration of for- mer President George W. Bush, a Republican, that formulated the recovery of the Gulf Coast region devastated five years ago by Hurricane Katrina. Congress appropriated $142 million in federal money to facilitate the recovery.
It is the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, that has streamlined the process for getting the federal funds and other assistance to the region, especially the city of New Orleans.
Thus, the question: Should the federal government and all the other public entities even be involved in rebuilding the communities?
We pose this question on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina because of the attitude on the part of a growing number of Americans that governments at all levels are too involved in our daily lives.
However, as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill in the Gulf has shown, beliefs quickly change when the disaster hits home. The federal government will end up spending millions of dollars in the Gulf region to restore the economies of the communities affected by the oil spill — even though BP has said it will pick up the entire cost of the clean up.
While it has become popular to demonize the federal government, the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort has benefitted greatly by having Washington involved.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, an independent report released this month shows that the $142 million has been money well spent in metropolitan New Orleans. The report was compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution and the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. They analyzed 20 indicators of prosperity, such as re-population, housing costs, local tax collections and the reopening of schools, the Monitor reported.
“It [the study] concludes that the New Orleans area is poised to become a safer, more sustainable, and economically stronger city than it was before the storm,” according to the newspaper.
Presidential visit
President Obama visited New Orleans Sunday and reassured disaster-weary Gulf Coast residents that he would not abandon their cause.
“My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done,” Obama said to cheers at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm.
The president said there are still too many vacant lots, trailers serving as classrooms, displaced residents and people out of work. But, he said, New Orleanians have showed amazing resilience.
“Because of you,” the president declared, “New Orleans is coming back.”
The images of that fateful day on Aug. 29 when the hurricane struck still shock the senses, while the statistics reveal the extent of the devastation. More than 1,800 people were killed, many in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. About 850,000 housing units were damaged, destroyed or became inaccessible; 900 churches, synagogues and mosques were destroyed or damaged.
But the most telling number is the one that deals with the exodus of people from New Orleans. Only about 40 percent of the residents who left have returned to the city.
That’s what government officials locally and in Washington are trying to change.
Reassurance
The president seemed to hope, in part, that his mere presence would reassure residents they were not forgotten. Obama toured Columbia Parc, a development of attractive new townhouses replacing the St. Bernard Housing Development that flooded during Katrina. He met with a longtime resident who had to be rescued from her home in a boat after Katrina struck.
And Obama dropped in at the Parkway Bakery and Tavern, a local institution known for shrimp and roast beef po’boys, which was underwater after Katrina. “I appreciate you coming here,” one woman told him. He responded with a hug.