St. Bernard sewage reveals waste: FEMA hauls it rather than build new plant

Saturday, September 01, 2007
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON -- When floodwaters were finally pumped out of St. Bernard Parish after the 2005 hurricanes, local officials had hoped to move quickly to rebuild basic services, including the sewage-treatment system, so 66,000 displaced residents could return home.

They hadn't counted on "44 CFR 206.226."

That's one of the myriad federal regulations that tell FEMA what it can and cannot pay for when disasters strike. It turns out that a new sewage-treatment system in St. Bernard Parish wasn't covered.

A new system would have run about $38.6 million plus an additional $8 million to ring it with a levee to protect it from future flooding. But instead of footing the bill, FEMA encouraged locals to make repairs to the old, antiquated system. Two years later, they remain at loggerheads.

While officials negotiated and navigated through the complex regulations, federal taxpayers have paid $41.4 million through mid-August for heavy trucks to haul raw sewage away, almost 90 percent of what it would cost for the new system. And the trucks are still rumbling through St. Bernard's streets today.

Members of Congress may have thought that when it approved $110 billion for Gulf Coast recovery, spending the money would be the easy part. They were wrong. As the gatekeeper for most federal disaster money, FEMA hews strictly to the Robert T. Stafford Act and a host of federal regulations that spell out in mind-numbing detail how disaster money can be spent. Although the agency has shown signs recently of being more flexible in how it interprets the rules, the recovery throughout southern Louisiana has been characterized by legalistic arguments over arcane federal regulations.

Some say those rules, designed to protect against waste and fraud, are a hindrance when it comes to addressing a disaster on the scale of Katrina. When Congress reconvenes this month, Louisiana lawmakers, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, are expected to push for changes that grant FEMA more flexibility in responding to catastrophes.

"Why is the federal government haggling with folks over what degree of repairs are recoverable after a major American city was put under water by failed federal levees?" said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "Why not give the community the money and make them document every red cent?"

Push for consolidation
The regulation that has delayed St. Bernard Parish from building a new sewer system is Title 44, section 206.226 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It says that for FEMA to cover the costs of replacing damaged public property it must be "cost effective." Cost effectiveness is determined by the "50 percent rule," which is further explained in the 333-page FEMA "Public Assistance Policy Manual." Under the rules, FEMA will pay only to replace a facility if the repairs would cost more than 50 percent of totally rebuilding.

In painstaking detail, FEMA surveyed the damage at St. Bernard's seven sewage-treatment facilities after the storms and determined that repairs would cost $16.25 million. That was nowhere near 50 percent of the price tag for rebuilding all seven treatment plants from scratch, which would run upward of $150 million.

FEMA said it was willing to spend $16 million on repairs so St. Bernard could get its old system up and running again -- and the waste-hauling trucks could stop -- but a new plant was off the table.

Locals protested that it made no sense to rebuild the old system, which parish officials had planned to scrap before the storm. It was outdated and obsolete. Two of the treatment plants were out of compliance with current environmental standards; one was nearly 50 years old and another was on the property of the historic Chalmette Battlefield, where Andrew Jackson whipped the British in the last major military engagement in the War of 1812.

St. Bernard's plan was to consolidate its seven treatment plants into one. It would be cheaper to operate. It had the backing on environmental agencies and watchdog groups who worried that the current system was prone to accidents. It even had the backing of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which wanted to get rid of a wastewater-treatment facility on one of the most prized battlefields in the country.

A bout of optimism

St. Bernard officials thought FEMA would embrace the idea. And in a future flood, locals would only have to protect one plant, not seven.

"Everyone was in favor of doing this," said Chris Merkl, the parish director of public works. "The FEMA people saw what we saw. Why reinvest in rebuilding this old facility? Let's move ahead with what we had planned."

In a 16-page proposal in January 2006, Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez made his case for a consolidated system. A few days later, FEMA Public Assistance Coordinator Jeffrey Bower wrote back with encouragement.


"We are optimistic regarding approval of the consolidation project," Bower wrote.

There was plenty of reason for optimism. In his speech in Jackson Square two weeks after Katrina, President Bush emphasized the need to rebuild basic municipal services to kick-start the resurgence of the Gulf Coast. "Our goal is to get the work done quickly," he said at the time. He added, "When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm."

But the guiding principle at FEMA is to replace damaged facilities to their pre-storm condition, nothing more.

"We're watching everyone's wallets here," said Jim Stark, director of the FEMA office in New Orleans.

Under the rules, FEMA doesn't merely inspect the damage to a facility and cut a check. It must develop a detailed document, known as a "project worksheet," that spells out the scope of work to be done and how it will be financed in accordance with federal disaster regulations.

At first, St. Bernard officials say, they were encouraged by FEMA to classify their plan as an "alternative project," one of the many terms sprinkled throughout the Stafford Act and the regulations. The strategy would free the $16 million FEMA was offering for repairs so St. Bernard could spend it instead on building the consolidated system. But "alternative" projects also carry a 25 percent penalty, meaning the parish would only get about $12 million, far short of what it needed.

Next, FEMA encouraged St. Bernard to apply for money by classifying its project as an "improvement" under federal rules. There was no penalty associated with "improved" projects, but financing would be capped at the total amount of repairs, a little over $16 million. Before the storm, St. Bernard planned to issue bonds to pay for a new sewerage system. When its tax base was obliterated in the flooding, it was in no position to pay the more than $30 million needed to foot the part of the bill FEMA wouldn't pay.

FEMA had also made clear that while the parish could get money for an "improved" project, the agency wouldn't pay for the $8 million levee to go around it. The Stafford Act forbade mitigation of "improved" facilities that replace old ones, they were told.

By late summer, FEMA's Bower, who had been so encouraging, was gone, and so was optimism over a new sewage-treatment system. In October, the parish made another request for full financing, this time as a "relocation project" under 44 CFR 206.226. A month later, FEMA officially said no.

What had irked the locals as much as the denial was what they saw as duplicity on FEMA's part.

"Don't encourage me to do this and then turn around and reject it. Tell me you aren't going to do it up front. I can take it. I'm a big boy," said Merkl, the public works director. "For two years, we could have been doing improvements and there wouldn't have been any hauling trucks now."

Rodriguez, the parish president, seethed as he pointed to a chair in his temporary trailer where he says a FEMA official sat and promised consolidation would be fully financed by the federal government.

"I just wish I had tape-recorded the meeting," Rodriguez said.

Money on the table
John Connolly, who now oversees FEMA public assistance projects in Louisiana, said the agency never promised to pick up the whole tab.

"Yes, we encouraged them to work with us," Connolly said. "But the agency did not make a commitment. . . . We made a pledge to take a hard look at it. We gave them an answer they didn't like."

Connolly says that FEMA is no happier with the waste-hauling costs than the locals are. The agency was so alarmed at the mounting costs that it balked at paying the bills. The Unified Recovery Group, the private company doing the work, threatened in March to let raw sewage run in the streets unless it was paid the $24 million it was owed. A settlement was quickly reached and a new contractor now hauls the sewage.

Still, FEMA officials put the blame on St. Bernard for not taking the money available to make repairs and get its old system back on line. FEMA says that had St. Bernard made repairs, hauling costs wouldn't be nearly as high as they are.

"St. Bernard hasn't taken the money on the table," said Gil Jamieson, who oversees FEMA operations in the Gulf Coast. "St. Bernard isn't doing what they need to do."

Recently, there have been signs that a resolution could finally be in the offing.

FEMA has revised its treatment-plant repair estimate in St. Bernard upward to $23.5 million, about half the cost of the new system and a levee to protect it. In June, the Louisiana Recovery Authority earmarked $26.3 million for infrastructure improvements in St. Bernard. Together, the two pots of money would be enough to pay for a new consolidated sewer system in the parish.

But, once again, there are procedures to be followed. St. Bernard must officially request that FEMA reclassify the project from a "repair" to an "improvement" so it can get access to the $23.5 million. As of last week, FEMA officials said the money would be available for St. Bernard's sewer consolidation, all they had to do was ask.

Bill Walsh can be reached at bill.walsh@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7817.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Note from A.M. in the Morning! on Sun Herald Editorial

by Ana Maria


With great sadness, I am posting the Sun Herald editorial which addresses the divide and conquer approach to reviewing what is needed to ensure the recovery of the entire Katrina-ravaged region. My sadness comes from seeing a tremendous amount of dissension among all of us who are trying to go beyond merely surviving Katrina's wrath to gloriously flourishing in her aftermath.

Whether pitting the Lower 9th War against the totality of the City of New Orleans, or the smaller towns outside of New Orleans against the city itself, or Louisiana against Mississippi and Alabama, the dichotomy is false, hurtful, painful, and unproductive.

This is not about who "got" more. This is about whether everyone is receiving what they need in an efficient and effective manner to achieve full recovery. Many of us have family and friends throughout the Katrina-ravaged region. Pitting us against each other needs to be turned into joining hands together to make things happen for all of us.

If something needs doing, let's get to doing it, funding it, building it, creating it, developing it. Recovery is about doing right by all of us. Recovery is about justice for all. The language of inclusion will assist us most in having folks think about ALL of us and doing for ALL of us.

That is one of the Sun Herald's points with which I agree most adamantly. I hope that you will, also.

I once heard a story about the difference between those who are successful and those who only dream of it. Plenty of variations of this story exist, I'm sure. This is the one I enjoy sharing.

In one room, a massive banquet was set on a table where the hungry folks sat. The most delicious foods and beverages with the most savory of smells filled the room. The problem, however, was that no recipient had elbows. The hunger made everyone more agitated and the inability to feed oneself made life . . . living hell.

In another room, the banquet was set all the same where hungry folks sat. The most delicious foods and beverages with the most savory of smells filled the room. Like the other room, the hungry folks had no elbows. Their own forks and spoons--like their friends in the other room--could not reach their own mouths.

What to do?

They fed each other.

I'm big on eating and celebrating, helping each other, and pulling together our resources so that all of us get what we need, create a united front so that others cannot divide us, and living happily ever after in each moment.

For those who think I'm pollyanna, I say that dividing and conquering is an old tactic to which each of us have a choice regarding whether we participate.

I want New Orleans to have media coverage and plenty of it. Mississippi and Alabama would like the same, thank you. I want the 9th Ward to have plenty of media coverage . . . and I want Slidell and Chalmette as well as the rest of New Orleans to receive it as well. We ALL need money, resources, insurance, jobs, health and vibrant businesses, safe communities, fabulous schools, and wonderful lives.

This isn't about getting our share of the pie with someone else determining the size, shape, and type for our families and communities. It's about ensuring that we have plenty of pie in the first place.

I'm a great pie baker. So, I say, let's be sure that we have plenty of ingredients to make all the pie we need!

(Really, I'm a great cook like many folks down here. Just a quick plug for our fabulous culinary skills throughout the Katrina-ravaged region: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama!)

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

A False War Between the States

Posted on Sun, Sep. 02, 2007
An Editorial

There is a particular sadness with which we consider the offensive launched against Mississippi survivors of Hurricane Katrina on the very somber second anniversary of the awful day in which the great storm devastated our state and caused a civil engineering failure of vast and deadly proportions in Louisiana.

On Aug. 29, 2005, South Mississippi and Southern Louisiana, geographic and cultural members of the family of Gulf Coast States, were united by a bond of common suffering forged in the destructive assault against our people and property.

In the days that followed, a coalition of political and social assets possessed by these neighbors was arrayed in a united effort to gain federal support for the recovery of a region that had suffered the greatest natural disaster in American history.

By most objective analyses of this strategic effort, Mississippi, though a poor state with meager resources, possessed the superior congressional team with Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott situated especially well to spearhead the fight for the billions that would be necessary to help citizens of the Gulf recover and rebuild.

Louisiana seemed to recognize the value of the neighboring leaders, and gladly accepted the additional role that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour played in obtaining the relief funding.

This newspaper has from the very beginning of the debate supported New Orleans and Louisiana as an ally and a friend in the full meaning that term implies.

Over the course of the two years since Katrina we have listened to the occasional signs of partisanship that have rumbled across the border but have remained silent, choosing to stay focused on our own knitting, understanding the frustration with many aspects of the difficult environment in which our neighbors were existing. But we must express concern about the emerging narrative put forward by Louisiana newspapers that suggest there is a competition for federal Katrina dollars, and that Mississippi has received an unfair share of those funds.

Much of the Louisiana storyline in the discussion is crafted around a set of numbers apparently compiled by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, numbers cited around the anniversary date to show that Mississippians received a disproportionate share of the funds.

The leading number cited by the newspapers involves the number of damaged homes, and the number is outrageously in error. The numbers, cited both in a chart accompanying a Times-Picayune editorial headlined "Treat us fairly Mr. President," reported that in Mississippi Katrina severely damaged only 15,610 homes and only 61,386 homes were damaged at all.

The numbers provided by FEMA show that more than 60,000 homes were totally destroyed, and an additional 55,000 were heavily damaged.

Given this obvious error, it is difficult to take any of the LRA report, repeated by The Times-Picayune and other papers, seriously.

The tone of the discussion relating to Mississippi took a serious step toward incivility with an op-ed piece in The Times-Picayune on Aug. 29, headlined "Cleaning up, the Mississippi Way." In the column, a staff writer sarcastically suggested that even though Louisiana is in line for $15 billion in federal funding to improve levees, "Mississippi might as well have grabbed the levee loot; it certainly grabbed everything else."

The column goes on to state: "Louisiana bore the brunt of Katrina, and its aftermath. Yet from health care to higher education, Mississippi won out every time."

So, it would seem proper for such a debate not to be one-sided and lacking in response.

Others in the media from across the land have attempted to engage us in the comparison between the recovery efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. They have almost universally commented that they observe two distinctive approaches to the recovery efforts in each state, and that this goes back to the earliest days following the storm.

The lack of agreement between the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana was the most noticeable early part of the Louisiana response.

Meanwhile in Mississippi a recovery plan started in the Sun Herald newspaper offices with local political leaders, civic and business leaders and the governor, meeting within the first week to create a recovery plan that resulted in a comprehensive plan to rebuild our coast, a plan that was completed and delivered to the public by year's end of 2005.

It was understood that getting our schools up and running was central to establishing a sense of orderliness and normalcy in the life of our communities, and though half our schools were destroyed, all but one had been re-established and were up and running by November. In comparison, by the end of that year no school had re-opened in New Orleans. This may speak to the functionality, planning and execution of a vision that existed within the framework of the two regions. It should also be noted that one of the most significant early roadblocks to the recovery effort in both states involved the effort by Louisiana's members of Congress when they said their state should be given $250 billion for disaster assistance. This high number created a chilling political response in the Congress and the administration and has been described by some as the low point of the effort to obtain the funding needed in both states.

The principal fact concerning whatever success Mississippi has enjoyed is that our state had a plan, and Louisiana did not. Indeed without Mississippi's effort, Louisiana would not have received as much as it has.

Both Louisiana and Mississippi have received billions in federal assistance, and both have been aided by the unbelievable help of hundreds of thousands of volunteers without whom we could not have recovered anywhere near our current state.

Louisiana has received significantly more media coverage, and far more aid delivered by national foundations.

But the most notable component of South Mississippi recovery is the spirit and hard work of our people who grabbed their chainsaws and started digging out from day one. More than 90 percent of our citizens have returned to the region and are re-establishing roots in their homeland, although many who formerly resided on the coastline will rebuild inland.

So to our friends in Louisiana we respectfully say their desire to receive more funding is understandable, and our prayers and support for those efforts will continue. However, we believe this focus on what someone else has or has not gotten, as a means to that effort, will only diminish their future hopes, and ours, as such a competition will not likely provide a more charitable or generous mood in either the public or private sectors.

We believe today, as we did on Aug. 29, 2005, that Louisiana and Mississippi will stand or fall together. This war of words between neighbors should cease.



Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

A War (of words) Between the States

Posted on Sun, Sep. 02, 2007

By GEOFF PENDER
SUN HERALD

BILOXI -- Numerous recent national and regional media reports and opinions stop just short of saying Mississippi has stolen federal Katrina-recovery dollars from Louisiana.

"Mississippi might as well have grabbed the (New Orleans) levee loot; it certainly grabbed everything else," penned Times-Picayune staff writer James Gill in a column titled "Cleaning up, the Mississippi way." Although national media reports weren't as blunt, the message was similar: Per capita, Mississippians have made out like bandits in federal Katrina-relief spending.

But is it true? Per capita, have we received more?

That's questionable.

About 65,000 homes in Mississippi were destroyed (not just "damaged" as numerous news outlets are reporting) by Katrina. About 205,000 homes in Louisiana were damaged either with "major" or "severe" damage, according to the state's Web site. It also noted that of the 205,000 homes, 169,000 had major or severe flooding. The number includes 82,000 rental units.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office says federal hurricane-relief spending to date is about $116 billion.

Mississippi has received about $23.5 billion of that total, including money that went to repair federal facilities here.

Though no one in Louisiana appears to have a firm number on how much has been spent there, it would be reasonable to assume the bulk of the remaining $92.5 billion Mississippi wasn't able to "grab" went to Louisiana.

Conservatively assuming Louisiana received only $75 billion of that spending, that would put Louisiana slightly ahead, per capita, of those who lost their homes, at $366,000 in federal spending for each. Mississippi's total federal spending amounts to $361,000 per devastated homeowner.

Now, some pundits who are lamenting Louisiana being shortchanged use the total population of Louisiana, which dwarfs that of Mississippi. But another way to look at that would be that a far larger percentage of Mississippians were harmed by Katrina.

Those leveling the complaints about Mississippi also use only federal Community Development Block Grant funding, from U.S. Housing and Urban Development, as their basis. Louisiana received $10.4 billion; Mississippi, $5.5 billion. Using the number of destroyed homes, Mississippians averaged $84,600 each; Louisianians, only $50,500 each.

So if there is a disparity, why?

Louisiana 'whining'

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour believes it's because Mississippi had a plan when it went to Congress, hat in hand, after Katrina.

"We presented a very specific, reasonable request... ," Barbour said. "We didn't ask for everything we ever dreamed of, multiplied by two."

Louisiana, Barbour noted, "said they should get $250 billion, about two months after the storm." Barbour and others at the time said this request from Louisiana, made by Sen. Mary Landrieu, made it hard to get any additional relief funding from Congress at the time. "Everybody in Washington was offended," Barbour said.

Louisiana's initial request after Katrina included spending for improvements at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and other projects of dubious relation to Katrina.

During a recent meeting with the Sun Herald, Barbour went off on what he called the "whining" in Louisiana that Mississippi got too large a share.

"One of the things they used was that the number of schools in Mississippi that were still closed by December in 2005 compared to the number of schools that were closed in Louisiana was just a tiny fraction," Barbour said. "Of course it was, because we had all our schools back open. We worked our tails off. We had all our schools back open before New Orleans had one back open."

And though Mississippi schools were open, children were, and are, attending in temporary trailers used as classrooms because their schools were destroyed.

"So what's the idea? Are they supposed to punish us for getting our schools back open quickly? That's their mentality: 'Somebody do this for me,'

" Barbour said. "Down here, people said, 'We're going to do this for ourselves, and we hope you'll help us,' and that's what happened."

But, Barbour said, he doesn't bear any ill will toward New Orleanians.

"New Orleans was a very important part of many people in Mississippi's lives," Barbour said, noting he "went to New Orleans seven times" during one semester of college which, "is probably why my grades weren't what they should have been."

Ironic envy

Of the Louisiana complaints, U.S. Sen. Trent Lott said, "I don't know if it's justified, but I don't think it's helpful." He said such sniping is not going on between Mississippi's and Louisiana's congressional delegations.

"Our congressional delegations work well, across party lines," Lott said. "I think Louisiana people would have to acknowledge that a good chunk of the money they have gotten is because of the efforts of Sen. (Thad) Cochran, with some help from myself and others."

Lott said, "I'm not going to say anything negative about Louisiana. I feel sorry for them. But one thing they are going to have to answer for is the difference in attitude. They have complained and whined and focused on who else got what. If they would just focus on what they need, they'd be better off."

Reilly Morse, a member of the Steps Coalition community advocacy agency, said, "There's merit to the complaint," when you look at per capita spending on housing. But he said Louisiana and Mississippi sniping at each other about it is "heartbreaking."

"I think there have been some successful efforts to divide advocates for a fair and equitable recovery along state lines, along party lines - because Louisiana's delegation is primarily Democratic and Mississippi's Republican - and along racial lines and class lines," Morse said. "Any time we do that, we are failing ourselves. We are all United States citizens.... My view is that, if Mississippi residents need that much (CDBG spending) to recover, then that ought to be the benchmark for the entire region. If Mississippi has indeed gotten more, then even it out and help them."

Gulf Coast Business Council President Brian Sanderson, as a guest on a national TV news show last week, found himself having to defend Mississippi over the Louisiana disparity claims.

"The point I made was that we had a reasonable, well-laid-out plan, a thoughtful plan, and we didn't just go out and ask for $250 billion thinking we'll figure out what to do with it once we get it," Sanderson said. "We've been too busy doing the work of recovery rather than keeping score."

Sanderson said any fighting between the two states would be sound and fury at best, and possibly hurt both states in the long run.

"We have a lot of historical and cultural ties with New Orleans, and economic," Sanderson said. "It doesn't serve anyone good to get into that type argument."

Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute for Government, notes the irony of any state being envious of Mississippi.

"For once in Mississippi's life, I think we were in the best position to take advantage of who we are and the people we know," Wiseman said. "It was how the stars were aligned - we had as our governor the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who has helped a number of powerful people in Washington. We had the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a powerful former majority leader.

"For once, we were standing first in line. Gov. (Kathleen) Blanco was a Democrat coming before what was then (2005-'06) Republican-held (Congress) with a Republican president. She had to introduce herself at our family reunion."

Original Sun Herald article published September 2, 2007.



Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Church Groups Give Key Aid to Miss. Town

Volunteers Courtney Jeselsohn left, and Chuck Thigpen, from the Christ Church in Mandarin, Fl., work to install flooring in a home they are building in Pearlington, Miss. Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By REGINA L. BURNS

PEARLINGTON, Miss. (AP) — The sweat and donations from religious groups are bringing hope and new homes to many residents in this tiny community, still struggling two years after Hurricane Katrina left much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in ruins.

Adolph Harris, who watched his house get washed away while he clung to a nearby tree as the storm roared ashore, will move this month into a new home built with money and volunteers from a Kempton, Ind.-based Christian organization.


Adolph Harris poses for a photograph in front of his new home as he talks about taking refuge in a tree next to his home during Hurricane Katrina in Pearlington, Miss. Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Standing outside his new home, one of 35 new homes built by the International Disaster Emergency Service, Harris said he often thinks about the miracle of his survival.

"I was up the tree from 8:30 that morning until about 7:30 that afternoon," he said. "If that tree had fallen that I was in, I would have been in that water — 25-30 feet of water — with all those moccasin snakes and, you know, it was just a scary, scary situation to be in."

While the memories of metal flying like missiles off neighboring homes still haunt him, Harris said his prayers have been answered.

Volunteers also helped bring back the West Hancock County Volunteer Fire Department.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency made a lot promises, "but we got tired of waiting," Fire Chief Kim Jones said.

"So, we went ahead and took what little insurance money we had and donations from other fire departments and church organizations and individuals and rebuilt our station," said Jones, 52.

FEMA also provided $216,464 in public assistance to help replace the fire department's equipment, clothing, and a radio system, agency spokesman Eugene Brezany said.

The rebuilding also has changed the lives of the volunteers.

Ron Loomis, disaster assistance relief training supervisor, with the Indiana group said he initially came to Pearlington on a short mission trip in June 2006. He decided to leave his North Branch, Mich., home four months later and continue the Pearlington rebuilding effort on a permanent basis.

"God touched me. I owned my own business. I closed it and found jobs for my employees before returning to Pearlington," said Loomis, 48, who travels back to Michigan to visit his family.

A group of volunteers from Christ Church in Mandarin, Fla., weathered the August heat to build houses on behalf of IDES.

"We basically came here as open books, letting them teach us what we needed to learn," said 21-year-old Sarah Kolbe of Jacksonville, Fla. "I had no knowledge of how to do anything as far as house building goes. I've learned how to put in laminate floors and they showed us how to do it and we've done three so far."

Volunteer Courtney Jeselsohn from Christ Church in Mandarin, Fla., looks out the window of a home she is helping to build in Pearlington, Miss. Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007. Before Katrina, Pearlington had 1,680 residents said Kim Jones, chief of the West Hancock County Volunteer Fire Department,but that number has dwindled to about 800. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

She and her University of North Florida roommate Courtney Jeselsohn, 20, are the only women on the team.

Kolbe said "being around the people and seeing how their lives were affected and seeing how many people are still living in trailers and really suffering makes me realize how much I do have and how much they've lost."

Pearlington has dwindled to about 800, half its population since the storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005.

Harris, 61, a retired financial aid director, is still waiting on funds from a Homeowners Assistance Grant Program from the Mississippi Development Authority. He said he hopes the funds will come through soon to help him continue rebuilding his life.

Ron Loomis left from North Branch, Mich., talks with Adolph Harris in the home that Loomis and other volunteers built for Harris in Pearlington, Miss. Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

"Hopefully, 10 years from now Pearlington will be a prospering little community again and it will get back to normal."

Original Associated Press article published on September 2, 2007.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

The Best of A.M. in the Morning! August 25-Sept 1, 2007

by Ana Maria

Blog entries
Mid-West Floods and Katrina: The Insurance Connection 8.27.07
Katrina Connects the Big Insurance Rip Off Dots 8.28.07
What Katrina Taught Me8.29.07
Katrina, Bush's New Orleanian Betrayal and The American Way 8.30.07
A.M. in the Morning! Answers State Farm Apologist 8.31.07

New Items
Clyburn on the Two Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina 8.29.07
Opposing view: Expand federal program 8.28.07
Bush compliments Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) 8.27.07

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

A.M. in the Morning! Answers State Farm Apologist

by Ana Maria

There ought to be a national registry of child molesters and insurance company executives because I hold them in the same very low esteem.

Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS)
CNN's The Town the Fought Back
February 25, 2007

An open letter to Ms. Lauren Shurden of Hattiesburg, Miss., who wrote a letter to the editor to the Hattiesburg American. The letter is titled State Farm employee's message for Taylor.

Dear Ms. Shurden,

When I read your letter to the editor published yesterday, August 30, 2007, in the Hattiesburg American in which you publicly chastised Congressman Gene Taylor for a statement you apparently misunderstood, I wondered about the source of your misunderstanding.

In your letter, you wrote

We are now likened to "child molesters" and "should be put on a national registry." I cannot tell you what it feels like to be compared to the lowest of the criminals.

My only crime is to have been employed by a State Farm agent for the last 17 years. Up until August 2005, my vote and taxes seemed to be important to you. Now I am not worth a second thought to you.

Ma’am, you’ve committed no crime here unless you consider it a crime for being a State Farm apologist and failing to get your facts straight before publicly chastising a man who has done a magnificent job of demonstrating heroic courage in the face of extraordinarily enormous challenges brought on by the worst natural disaster in the history of our nation and the worst financial disaster homeowners and business owners are facing because of an industry consumed with greed.

Congressman Gene Taylor lost EVERYTHING in the storm. When Congressman Gene Taylor and his wife Margaret G. Taylor boarded up their home, packed an overnight bag, and drove up the country to a family member’s home where they would ride out Katrina, it never occurred to them that whatever they brought with them would be all that would remain of all that the two of them had. Every stitch of clothing, every family photograph, every piece of familial memorabilia as well as everything else inside their home Katrina’s winds scattered to the four corners of the planet.

Like thousands of families in South Mississippi, the Taylors learned that the insurance company intended not to honor its WIND policy provisions for which its loyal customers had faithfully paid.

Granted State Farm was not the only insurance company to have customers that felt betrayed. Other corporations appear to have implemented similar pre-determined conclusions on insurance claims--the water did all the damage and none of it was from the 135 miles per hour that battered the homes and business for hours on end before the water arrived. To be candid, I’m not sure what honor there is in saying other companies betrayed the American public.

The betrayal club, however, is the reason that Republican Leader U.S. Senator Trent Lott, who also lost everything in Katrina and was also denied a penny on his WIND insurance policy claim, is co-sponsoring federal legislation to ensure that the entire insurance industry be subjected to the same anti-trust laws by which every banker, real estate agent, and other business people are required abide. Like Congressman Taylor, U.S. Senator Trent Lott had to resort to hiring an attorney—Lott's brother-in-law, Dickie Scruggs—and sue before receiving any money on the WIND policy for which each of these families had faithfully paid their premiums through the years.

About 18 months ago, Congressman Taylor stated

There ought to be a national registry of child molesters and insurance company executives because I hold them in the same very low esteem.

Please read this CNN transcript carefully. The word is EXECUTIVES. Congressman Taylor knows very well who makes the decisions that agents implement. He knows that it is the executives who drafted the policies that were written in the memos which he has uploaded on his congressional website here.

I can understand, Ms. Shurden, that you are upset because of your misunderstanding of Congressman Taylor’s comment. As you can see, however, your concern is misguided.

We all know that no insurance agent or broker had an iota of influence on the directives handed down from corporate.

How frustrating it had to have been for you and your peers to feel the brunt of the public chastisement as family after family was wrongfully turned down for the legitimate WIND policy claims that had been submitted.

How humiliating it had to feel that the company from which your families are fed, clothed, and sheltered are denying the funding it should have provided to feed, clothe, and shelter the customers with which you and others like you had cultivated strong relationships.

How you and others like you had to have felt your own sense of betrayal for representing a company that you believed in, that you had believed would honor its commitments.

However, none of the humiliation and betrayal that employees of these insurance companies felt or continue to feel can measure against the financial ruin and emotional devastation that any of your Katrina-ravaged customers feel. To feel ravaged by the company to which one has faithfully paid WIND policy premiums—and paying them without the company having to hire lawyers and engineers to haul them to court to pay up, I remind you ever so gently, remains a horrific sense of betrayal.

Yes, Congressman Taylor likened the Executives of insurance corporations to the same low level of esteem as he holds child molesters. And unless you yourself are really an executive and not an agent, I believe your public tirade has been misplaced.

Now, I have a question for you, Ms. Shurden. What is it that prompted you to write such a letter that is based on factually deficient information and to do so 18 months after Taylor made the comment?

You know, something comes to mind that I would like to share with you. I remember when I was working for the Comptroller of the Treasury as a legislative performance auditor. That is the state version of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). We would go into state agencies to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. We’d write up audit reports, publish those reports, and testify before the State of Tennessee legislature regarding our reports’ conclusions.

Our reports criticized management for it is management’s job to institute the will of the state legislature and to do so in an efficient and effective manner that would garner the results desired. We were always careful to place the responsibility where it belonged: management, not the front line employees who are only doing as management directed.

However, some agency management failed to take responsibility for its actions. One routine trick of theirs was to distort our reports and tell its employees that the auditors blamed the front line employees for the conditions we found. Of course, if any of the employees had read the reports, this misinformation would have been cleared up. But those employees have busy and hectic lives just like the rest of America and so some of the employees just drank the Kool Aid, as it were.

I’m just wondering if this may be something that has happened here. Is corporate management doing a “shift the blame” routine? See, one result of that would be to get a loyal employee to go public with their feelings about being wrongly accused of what is management’s responsibility alone. Another result would be to help would be brave whistle blowers feel ticked off and not come forth with evidence of corporate wrong doing.

A third result would be to stir up chatter among its employees which then spreads out into the community. That chatter would be, perhaps, similar to what you’ve written in your letter. Upset at Congressman Taylor for . . . well it is for something that is not true and that were it to have been true, would have been devastating and disgusting. The only thing that is disgusting in this in the current situation is being financially ruined by corporate greed and the emotional devastation that has come from it.

So, I’m just wondering the extent to which, Ms. Shurdan, you may be experiencing some of the same things that those state agency employees I was referring to earlier. In a way, I’d sure hate to think that you came up with the misinformation all on your own some 18 months after the statement was made.

Well, the main thing is that now you know that Congressman Gene Taylor’s comment was that the insurance executives ought to have their names on a national registry because he thinks of them in the same low esteem as child molesters.

Down here where the brunt of the Katrina and insurance disasters hit, Taylor continues to enjoy tremendous—and maybe even more—support because he is championing the baseline financial security of every family and business owner that has been ravaged by Katrina then the insurance industry.

See, in true fashion, Congressman Taylor’s constituents are in good hands with him and his strongly committed staff. Just as you worked as you suffered through personal loss and worry about your family’s safety in Katrina’s aftermath, so, too, did Taylor and his staff work as they dealt with the blows Katrina dealt to their own families and friends. Just as you did all you could for your customers as you worked through your own tragic circumstances, so did Taylor and his staff.

Like all agents, you wanted to make good on the corporate marketing. You wanted to be a good neighbor and have your customers feel that they were in good hands. All of us wanted that for you as well.

Taylor has an impeccable reputation in the district because reality reflects his reputation. Taylor's reputation is the only marketing he has.

Thankfully, Congressman Taylor’s constituents feel that he is like a good neighbor. They feel that way because when the chips have been down, Taylor has been there just like a good neighbor, and they were in good hands.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Bush compliments Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS)

At his stop in Bay St. Louis, Miss., on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the nation's worst natural disaster, George W. Bush complimented Congressman Gene Taylor, the Democratic Congressman who lives in the Bay.

"Gene Taylor cares a lot. I'm proud to be here with Congressman Taylor. Gene was raised here. The Taylors' daughter was married right there recently. This is where he told me he was baptized, married, and if you're compassionate enough, will be buried. (Laughter.) In other words, this is home. And when you're talking about a man's home you hear a sense of passion in his voice. The Congressman has worked hard to make sure the people down here are well represented and he's doing a fine job for the people of southern Mississippi. Congressman, thank you for being here. (Applause.)"

-President George W. Bush, August 29, 2007

It is right that Bush compliment Congressman Taylor, who has worked tirelessly, as has his entire staff, to provide governmental assistance in the district's greatest time of need.

Too bad Bush didn't come here at Katrina's Ground Zero to announce he is throwing the entire weight of the White House behind H.R. 3121 so that American families and businesses can have one policy that provides both wind and flood coverage.

Let's tell the White House that we want ONE policy for both wind and water and that H.R. 3121 is the way to do it. Believe me, you'll have peace of mind knowing you gave Bush a piece of yours. ;)

Phone Script
Call the White house at 202-456-6213 or 202-456-1111 and tell the operator that you have a message to relay to Mr. Bush. As always, be polite. It goes such a long way. ;)

Hello, my name is ______. I live in (city, state). I would like Mr. Bush to know that I support one policy for both wind and water and that I support H.R. 3121. I would very much appreciate it if he would come out publicly in support of helping Americans in gaining this important part of our financial security. It's a specific kind of homeland security that is basic and fundamental to American families and businesses.

Thank you.

Email
Email Bush at comments@whitehouse.gov.

Dear Mr. Bush,

I am writing to let you know that I support one policy for both wind and water and that I support H.R. 3121. I would very much appreciate it if you would come out publicly in support of helping Americans to obtain this important part of our financial security. It's a specific kind of homeland security that is basic and fundamental to American families and businesses.

Thank you.
Your name
Your address
City, St., Zip Code


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Katrina, Bush's New Orleanian Betrayal and The American Way

by Ana Maria

Like much of the country, I was glued to the television and the Internet when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The images of the New Orleans Superdome and people on roof tops. Nothing about Mississippi though. The first I really ever saw of Mississippi’s devastation was CNN’s documentary on Bay St. Louis reported by Kathleen Koch who did a fabulous job. Kathleen grew up in Bay St. Louis. Together, she and I attended high school as well as the University of Southern Mississippi.

CNN's anchor and reporter Kathleen Koch with blogger Ana Maria of A.M. in the Morning!at the Katrina 2nd Anniversary Memorial Celebration in Waveland, Miss., on August 29, 2007.
Photo by Ellis Anderson.

It took me forever to understand the difference between what happened in New Orleans and what had happened on the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. Like most others, I didn’t understand that the hurricane itself caused the damages to my home town and the Mississippi Gulf Coast while the levee breaks were what ripped apart the city where the majority of my family have lived for well over 100 years.

The final pieces fell into place when I watched Greg Palast’s Big Easy to Big Empty. Palast is an internationally award winning investigative journalist from Southern California who works for England’s BBC. His investigation broke the news about the stolen 2000 presidential election. Since then, I’ve become personal friends with him. I trust this man’s work completely. That’s an important part of my journey. Got it?

When I saw Palast’s DVD on what happened in New Orleans, I stopped it in the middle. Palast had just exploded another rude truth all over my computer screen.

Ivor Van Heerden, Deputy Director of Louisiana State University’s Hurricane Center reveals who knew what and when — before, during, and after the storm — and warns that his job is in danger for telling us his story.

“FEMA knew at eleven o’clock on Monday that the levees had breached, at 2 o’clock they flew over the 17th St. Canal and took video of the breaches, by midnight on Monday the White House knew, but none of us knew.”

On the DVD, one New Orleanian lawyer in the film responded to this succinctly. “This is criminal negligence for which people go to jail.”

I stared blankly into space. I couldn’t believe what I had just learned. I didn’t want to believe it. How could I believe it? Yes, I trusted his work completely. Palast has an impeccable history of telling the rude truth to power.

This was different for me, though. This was personal. This was about what happened to my family in New Orleans and its surrounding cities and towns.

The first problem with what happened to New Orleans was a man made error in the levees’ construction. By the time I watched the DVD, I had finally understood that point. Besides, the levees weren’t all that big size-wise.

One of my favorite all time childhood memories involves playing with my cousins after we had eaten our annual Thanksgiving Feast. FYI, we started every holiday meal with pasta, salad, and a type of Italian bread made only in New Orleans. Then we moved on to the traditional eatings.

After we ate, my cousins and I would put on our play clothes—because we always attended the annual family gathering at my Grandmother’s home in our Sunday best. We’d get our pieces of cardboard, walk ½ block to the levee, and delight in the joy of sliding down the levee on the cardboard. I’ve often wanted to relive those moments, but something about no longer being a kid keeps me from doing that to my body. The point here is that while the levee seemed huge to me as a child, as an adult—particularly now in the post-Katrina era—the levee at that place in the greater New Orleans area was no more than a very small hill that provided oodles of fun for my cousins and me.

Back to the DVD.

The second problem with what happened in New Orleans was also man made, though this time the problem resided in the moral fiber of the man who sits in the White House and all those in the Bush Administration who chose not to utter a sound to Louisiana Governor Blanco, the Louisiana state emergency management people, or New Orleans Mayor Nagin or anyone outside of the Bush clan, for that matter.

Why hadn't I learned of this? Where were the news reports? I found this New York Times piece titled White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm" and published on February 10, 2006.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

Greg's work, as always, was dead on target. The New York Times continued.

But the alert did not seem to register. Even the next morning, President Bush was feeling relieved that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet," he later recalled. Mr. Chertoff, similarly confident, flew Tuesday to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu. With power out from the high winds and movement limited, even news reporters in New Orleans remained unaware of the full extent of the levee breaches until Tuesday.

While my first thought is a great big “WHY?”, my second and more overwhelming thoughts revolve around “HOW?” and “WHAT?”

1. How could anyone deliberately and callously sit there and do nothing?
2. What kind of failure of leadership allows any American to drown?
3. What kind of immoral compass possesses a man to talk about loving America while deliberately keeping mum about the impending deaths of Americans who will experience a most gruesome and preventable hellacious nightmare?

At that point, no one could prevent the actual breaking of the levees. However, Bush could have worked with the state, parish (county), and local officials to evacuate everyone immediately.

Oh, that’s right, Innovative Emergency Management, the firm to whom the Bush Administration had given federal tax money to develop an evacuation plan for the city of New Orleans were experienced in financing his election campaign and inexperienced at evacuation planning.

When Palast asked the company for a copy of the evacuation plan they were to have written some two years prior, IEM apparently couldn't find it. In fact, ir seems no one could find it for months on end. In his ever witty manner, Palast explains.

Here’s the key thing about a successful emergency evacuation plan: you have to have copies of it. Lots of copies — in fire houses and in hospitals and in the hands of every first responder. Secret evacuation plans don’t work.

I know, I worked on the hurricane evacuation plan for Long Island New York, an elaborate multi-volume dossier.

So Bush did nothing, said nothing. Bush remained on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Bush’s silence on the levee breach coupled with his disingenuous comment that New Orleans had “dodged a bullet” cost us lives, livelihoods, homes, neighborhoods, communities, places of worship, etc. and so forth. Bush’s silence enabled the ambush of an entire American city.

This is unforgiveable. Simply unforgiveable.

Never one to shun a photo opportunity for something meaningful, Bush had the nerve to visit New Orleans on the 2nd anniversary. Guess Rove ordered updated photos.

My family and the families of countless others suffered greatly because George W. Bush failed to tell the State of Louisiana and New Orleans that the levees were breached and to evacuate everyone. My family and the families of countless others suffered greatly because George W. Bush and Dick Cheney handed the evacuation plans for the city of New Orleans to their campaign supporters who knew nothing about emergency planning AND who didn’t have plans that amounted to more than their Republican buddy in the Mississippi Governor’s mansion, Haley Barbour.

When Hurricane Dale was out in the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi Governor did a robo-call to the state’s coastal residents essentially saying “Run For Cover!”

Is that the best those folks can come up with? Taking federal taxpayer money and yelling “run for cover?”

At yesterday’s memorial service, I prayed for all of us living inside and out of Katrina Land whose family and friends are living testimonials to the power of putting one foot in front of the other. I also prayed that those folks in charge of our protection, whose legal authority provides access to the best of the brains in our nation and to the financing of access to those brains. I prayed that those same folks actually remember what it is to have a conscience and to be infused with the overwhelming power of using it.

Mostly, though, I prayed that the rest of us whether we are living inside the Katrina-ravaged region or we are in elected positions that can assist in the full and vibrant recovery of this region or we are a member of the media that can shine the light of day on what is needed and how to achieve it to the benefit of all or we are simply someone who can take a part of this grand jigsaw . . . I pray that we’ll have the energy, strength, and vision to make our recovery easier and more quickly the reality we’d all prefer to live.

I prayed that one day soon, we’ll have a sunrise ceremony that comes on the heels of an all day and all night celebration of putting into place the final piece which rebirths a vibrantly alive area from New Orleans, Chalmette, and Slidell, Louisiana, through Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pass Christian, Miss., to Bayou LeBatre, Alabama.

For that sunrise ceremony and annual sunrise ceremony of remembrance, I pray the day to come quite soon.

The folks here are simply tired of being tired, tired of feeling alone and abandoned, tired of the betrayal from the White House and federal agencies, and of course, tired of the insurance industry taking our money and ripping us off by denying our legitimate wind policy claims.

We’d all prefer to be tired because we’re celebrating living. That’s the New Orleans way. That’s the Mississippi Gulf Coast way. That’s the way in Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pass Christian—the three tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero.

When it comes to throwing a party, living large, and celebrating the art of celebrating, we’re the experts.

We’d all prefer to be tired because we’re having so much fun celebrating our triumphs with the most deliciously decadent food for which our region is well known and dancing to one of the area’s many talented band whose music delights our hearts and our feet. Perhaps, visions of this celebration of celebrations keep my family, friends, and neighbors going. I know I think of it and become renewed with energy to keep going.

Katrina's community members to strive for a better life for ourselves and family, our community, and the next generation. We all know life’s better this way. At its core, this is the American way.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Opposing view: Expand federal program

Covering wind and water damage would aid taxpayers, policyholders.

By Gene Taylor

After Hurricane Katrina, insurance companies paid for wind damage as far inland as Tennessee, 300 miles from the Gulf Coast, but denied wind damage claims in coastal areas where five hours of destructive winds were followed by the storm surge.

State Farm instructed its adjusters that "where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage." Other companies implemented similar policies.

Homeowners who paid high premiums for decades were left with unpaid claims for wind damage. While denying their own claims, companies were generous with taxpayers' money, paying federal flood insurance claims in full without proving how much damage was caused by flooding.

When insurers did order damage assessments, the reports were rigged. One engineering firm was fired and then rehired by State Farm only after promising to rewrite reports that found wind damage. Managers at another firm changed the on-site assessments of engineers who concluded that damage was caused by wind.

In Louisiana, adjusters billed the downstairs flood insurance claim for damage to upstairs contents that should have been on the wind insurance claim. Allstate used different cost estimates for identical building materials — exaggerating the cost when figuring the flood insurance check while underestimating the cost for the Allstate payment.

A year and a half after Katrina, federal courts ruled that insurance companies have to prove that damage was caused by flooding in order to exclude wind coverage. Only then did State Farm and Allstate offer settlements for the wind damage that preceded the storm surge. The delay took advantage of the desperation of disaster victims. Many settled for less than they were owed; others had given up and relied on government assistance.

Congress has provided more than $30 billion for housing repair grants, FEMA trailers, rental assistance, subsidized loans, tax deductions and other housing assistance. Many of those costs should have been covered by insurance.

The best way to protect taxpayers and policyholders from insurance company fraud is to allow the National Flood Insurance Program to offer both wind and flood coverage in one policy.

The insurance industry will not cover flooding and does not want to offer wind coverage in hurricane-risk areas. It has dumped $600 billion of coastal risk into state wind pools and other state-sponsored insurers of last resort.

The Multiple Peril Insurance Act would benefit every taxpayer in America by ensuring that more disaster costs are covered by insurance premiums instead of by costly and inefficient disaster assistance programs.

Rep. Gene Taylor, a Democrat from Bay St. Louis, represents coastal Mississippi.

Original published in USA Today on August 29, 2007, Hurricane Katrina's 2nd anniversary. Also read USA Today's opposing editorial.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......