Finish The Job: 14,000 in FEMA trailers on the Gulf

by Daily Kos' Commonscribe, a volunteer who regularly returns to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to invest his talent, time, and sweat in rebuilding. Original posting here on December 2, 2007.

With federal relief money still bottlenecked in the system and 14,000 residents displaced by Katrina about to go through their third winter in FEMA trailers or tents, the housing charities of Mississippi are trying to raise $300 million dollars to Finish The Job of getting these people back into permanent housing.

It's been diaried elsewhere how insurance settlements have been low-balled or stalled in ongoing litigation.

It's been diaried elsewhere how state politics and bureaucratic red tape have kept federal relief funds from reaching the residents of the gulf coast.

It's been diaried elsewhere on the long term health risks the FEMA travel trailers pose, and how they were never designed to be occupied for years on end.

What's not well-known is that many of the charities that have organized, financed and carried out the bulk of the rebuilding over the past two years are now running out of money.

A new 501(c)3 is trying to raise one dollar per American to provide the funds for these organizations to continue their work.

You can watch their videohere.
You can make a contribution online here.

Give what you can, or better yet, go yourself. I'll be in Bay Saint Louis the week after Christmas with a group of 30; come by and say hey.

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Brad Pitt Commissions Designs for New Orleans

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: December 3, 2007

Concordia's idea for the devastated Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans includes a house with wide steps where neighbors can gather.


Thom Mayne of Morphosis in Los Angeles designed a house that would float if the city floods. James Timberlake of KieranTimberlake Associates in Philadelphia created a house with native vines climbing up the side walls to provide shade and coolness. Steven B. Bingler of Concordia in New Orleans envisioned a house with wide front steps ideal for a traditional crawfish boil.

Those are three of the designs by 13 architecture firms commissioned by the actor Brad Pitt to help rebuild New Orleans’s impoverished Lower Ninth Ward, one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

James Timberlake added cooling vines climbing up the side of his building.


The project, called Make It Right, calls for building 150 affordable, environmentally sound houses over the next two years. In a telephone interview from New Orleans, where he plans to present the designs today, Mr. Pitt said the residents of the neighborhood had been homeless long enough. “They’re coming up on their third Christmas,” he said.


Mr. Pitt said he had been attached to New Orleans for more than a decade. “I’ve always had a fondness for this place — it’s like no other,” he said. “Seeing the frustration firsthand made me want to return the kindness this city has shown me.”

Rather than bemoan the slow pace of redevelopment in the Ninth Ward, Mr. Pitt said he decided to address the problem directly by teaming with William McDonough, the green design expert; Graft, a Los Angeles architecture firm; and Cherokee, an investment firm based in Raleigh, N.C., that specializes in sustainable redevelopment. John Williams of New Orleans is the executive architect for the project.

“If you have this blank slate and this great technology out there, what better test than low-income housing?” Mr. Pitt said. “It’s got to work at all levels to really be viable.”

When Make It Right was announced at the meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in September, Mr. Pitt pledged to match $5 million in contributions to the project, as did Steve Bing, the philanthropist. Nine other firms — all of whom donated their services — are involved, including Adjaye Associates; Billes Architecture; BNIM Architects; Constructs; Eskew & Dumez & Ripple; MVRDV; Pugh and Scarpa Architecture; Shigeru Ban Architects; and Trahan Architects. “We wanted to have a mixture of voices,” Mr. Pitt said.

Beyond serving a public need, Mr. Pitt — who has a longstanding interest in architecture — was eager to see what the designers came up with. “I was most curious about advancing the discussion further,” he said. “That was certainly one of the benefits of this exercise. There is no other reason to call on these great minds if you’re just going to shackle them.”

The green building elements will reduce upkeep costs by at least 75 percent, Mr. Pitt said, and reduce some of the problems that devastated the Lower Ninth Ward during Katrina, when multiple levee breaks forced thousands of people from their homes.

The architects were each asked to design a 1,200-square-foot house for about $150,000, with Make It Right to help with the financing. The houses had to be built five to eight feet off the ground, with a front porch and three bedrooms.

Mr. Mayne of Morphosis opted for a lightweight concrete foundation anchored by two pylons, like a pier, which would buoy the house if floodwaters rise. “It’s a boat,” Mr. Mayne said.

“The population doesn’t want to live on stilts — and it’s expensive,” he added. “These are simple houses for low-income people.”

Mr. Bingler of Concordia said his design called for homes “that would respond to the culture of the Lower Ninth Ward.” He said residents had asked him for “a house where the baby can be sleeping in the back, the mama making red beans in the kitchen and the grandpa can be on the front porch entertaining neighbors.”

Mr. Pitt is asking foundations, corporations and individuals to contribute to the project by adopting one house, several houses or a portion of a house through the project Web site, makeitrightnola.org. “You can adopt a tankless water heater or a solar panel or a tree or a low-flush toilet,” Mr. Pitt said. “You can give it to someone for Christmas,” he said — instead of another sweater.

Responding to critics who question the wisdom of rebuilding at all in an area likely to get hit again, Mr. Pitt said: “My first answer to that is, talk to the people who’ve lived there and have raised their kids there. People are needing to get back in their homes.”

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Brad Pitt busy making it right in the Lower 9

Posted by Michelle Krupa, staff writer, December 02, 2007

STAFF PHOTO BY MATTHEW HINTON
Actor Brad Pitt near the corner of North Roman and Deslonde in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans.

At the center of a buzzing construction zone in the heart of the worst-ravaged corner of the Lower 9th Ward, movie megastar Brad Pitt took a break Sunday afternoon to imagine the future.

Strewn around him a half-mile in every direction were hundreds of enormous pink blocks, 8-foot-high boxes and huge triangular wedges, representing the uprooted foundations and dislocated roofs that littered the area beside the Industrial Canal for months after Hurricane Katrina.

"Right now there are scattered blocks, like they were scattered by fate's hand, symbolic of the aftermath of the storm," Pitt said as crews installed more of the metal-and-tarp structures. "But we will be flipping the homes, essentially righting the wrong."

In his first extensive one-on-one interview since moving his family to New Orleans last year, Pitt shared with The Times-Picayune on Sunday details of this next phase of his $12 million "Make It Right" project: a vast public art display to be unveiled today as a fundraiser to expand the project beyond its initial goal of 150 homes, and possibly into other neighborhoods and parishes.

Pitt, 43, also spoke of his years-long love for New Orleans, which he thinks will thrive again despite the propensity of some public officials to let the city "die on the vine," and his hope that national leaders will use the ongoing disaster as an impetus to retool public policy with an eye toward the poor.

Katrina "illuminated the brutal truth that there's a portion of our society that we're not looking after, that we are marginalizing. And that shouldn't be," said Pitt, who watched the horrific televised images of the flooded city in 2005 from Calgary, Alberta, where he was filming the 2006 movie "The Assassination of Jesse James."

Green-friendly homes

Steering the conversation away from himself, Pitt focused on Make It Right's efforts to build affordable, environmentally friendly, storm-safe houses for residents of the Lower 9th Ward on the same lots where their old homes once stood. In announcing the project in September at a meeting of world leaders on global warming, Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing pledged $5 million each to jump-start the project.

"This cannot be about me," he said Sunday from inside a trailer at the project site. "I am fortunate to have a big spotlight in my hand, and I can point it in a direction."

Today that place will be the section of the Lower 9th Ward best-known as the spot where a barge came to rest after floating through a fractured levee. Pitt is slated to lead news reporters on a tour around the area's conglomeration of pink art pieces, then to issue a public call to corporations, foundations and church organizations around the world to "adopt" the blocks, for $150,000 each, to support his project.

Donors also will be invited to make smaller gifts -- from $5 to $45,500 -- to sponsor the individual elements of the houses' eco-friendly designs, such as fluorescent bulbs, low-flush toilets and solar-panel installations. More information is available at the project's Web site, www.makeitrightnola.org.

With the average house slated to cost between $100,000 and $174,000, planners expect participants to contribute some money, including insurance and Road Home proceeds, toward construction. But they expect most homeowners will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes. To fill the gap, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable loans of as much as $100,000, with the caveat that applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina.

Pink 'screams the loudest'

Eventually, Pitt said, planners will turn the all-natural pink fabric covering into novelty items, such as bags, that will be sold to raise more money.

"Why pink? For me it screams the loudest," Pitt said. "It says that this place, where so many people thrived, is still sitting there like a barren wasteland, and we can change that."

In addition to being a tool for fundraising, the giant pink pieces will, Pitt said, become the ornamentation for a nightly driving tour in the style of City Park's annual "Celebration in the Oaks" festival, albeit with a more somber focus. Expected to open to the public Tuesday evening and extend for five weeks, the tour will feature the large pieces interspersed with 1,000 smaller bulbs representing the residents who died in Katrina. All the lights will be solar-powered, he said.

In addition, the whole installation will be laid out in the precise pattern of the constellations as they glowed on the night of Aug. 29, 2005, he said.

Though the vast work of art aims to draw attention to the Make It Right project, Pitt said it also reflects the "vitality" of the city that he first visited in 1994 during the filming of "Interview with the Vampire" and adopted as his home a year ago, when he and his partner, actress Angelina Jolie, bought a house in the French Quarter.

New Orleans is "the only place that we could do something as crazy as what you see out there and it not be considered so crazy, that it (could) actually be fun," he said. "This is the place of Mardi Gras. This is the place where I had a parade going by my house yesterday. I have no idea what for. It was at noon. I have no idea, but it made me smile."

'We love it here'

Saying he plans to spend the next several weekends in the city, Pitt reiterated a point he has made before: that New Orleans offers himself, Jolie and their four children uncommon tranquillity.

"We love it here," he said. "And for some reason we can have some semblance of a normal life here. The folks treat us so well and give us space and let us be a family. We don't have that luxury in other major cities."

A prime focus of Pitt's work in the coming months will be helping a team of nearly 200 planners, many working for free, turn Make It Right plans into reality. Tom Darden, the project's executive director, said 13 architecture firms from around the globe that lent their efforts pro bono have finished schematic designs and are working on blueprints.

Eight pilot families have been chosen, all with lots in the three blocks of Tennessee Street between North Claiborne Avenue and Galvez Street, Darden said. Construction is expected to begin by the end of March.

"I am telling you, there are going to be families returning into homes, they'll be spending Christmas here next year," Pitt said. "They won't have to spend another Christmas away from home. Next Thanksgiving: turkey dinner."

Pitt acknowledged that even as Make It Right nears groundbreaking on its pilot homes, the project he first pitched to residents in February has faced hurdles, including the deep skepticism of a community where residents lived for years amid abandoned properties, failing public schools and escalating crime fueled by the illegal drug trade.

Cautiously optimistic, residents demanded full participation in the project. And they got it by way of weekly meetings in their neighborhood with architects and planners. Each time architects returned from their drawing boards, residents have said, their plans included more of neighbors' suggestions, from the inclusion of backup fuel sources for solar-powered appliances to wheelchair ramps to reach elevated first floors.

"I come from Missouri," Pitt said. "They call it the Show Me State. I grew up with the same nature. When you know the story here, (can you) question that the locals here would question some outsider coming in?

"Look at the way the freeways are laid in," he said. "They're just laid right on top of neighborhoods. It's so clear some of them were laid out for the needs of a few and not the needs of many."

'A social justice issue'

Aiming to even the balance, Pitt -- a professed "technology junkie" -- has steered his curiosity about advances in environmental design into a requirement that any Make It Right house incorporate such items as energy-efficient appliances, south-facing roofs laden with solar panels, outdoor space for composting, and interior finishes made from products that are not harmful to residents' health or the environment.

"This to me is a social justice issue, too," he said. "They're not getting the crap materials that give your kids asthma, increase your health bills. They're not getting the cheap appliances that are going to run up your bills and keep that burden on you. It's a respectful way to treat people."

Broadly, Pitt said he hopes such issues will be raised during the 2008 presidential campaign. He also wants candidates to address directly the ongoing struggle of hurricane victims across the Gulf Coast.

"I would challenge all the candidates to focus on what's going on down here, what's not going on here," he said. "We're going to build some houses here, but there are bigger issues that need to get answered here, such as education and health. These need to be major factors of the campaign.

"My point is: If you can't get it right down here, you're not getting it right anywhere. This is the place to do it, and there's definitely a need for it right now. I hope to see it become one of the major issues of the upcoming campaign, not as a tool to beat the past administration but as a real focus on the problems of this country."

Even as Make It Right revs up, Pitt said he remains concerned about New Orleans' future and criticized the failure of local leaders to make clear decisions, such as which parts of the city will be rebuilt and how.

"Someone said that it was like it was being left to die on the vine, and I couldn't put it any better than that, meaning there's no real effort either way," he said. "There's just been no clear line drawn."

Public officials say, "¤'We want you to come back, but we're only going to give you a little bit (of money) to come back.' It just hasn't been a strong enough, clear plan of direction," he said.

Nevertheless, Pitt said residents' resilience will pull the city back to its feet.

"The thing is, I don't believe it will ever die on the vine," he said. "There's just too many seventh-generation families. They're not letting this place go under."

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A good housing plan for Bayou La Batre

Friday, November 30, 2007

GIVING BAYOU La Batre residents still living in FEMA trailers priority in a new federally funded housing development is a good way to avoid housing issues that have arisen in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Modular homes are scheduled to be built in two neighborhoods. Most of the money comes from a $15.7 million FEMA grant, part of a larger program aimed at providing housing for hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast.

At a community meeting Tuesday, residents learned that families still living in FEMA trailers in the city and others who received housing assistance from FEMA will get first chance at the new homes, which city officials hope will be finished by February. Other people still living in FEMA trailers in Mobile County will have a chance at the remaining homes.

Mobile County families are still living in 142 FEMA trailers more than two years after the devastating hurricane, so the 120 furnished modular homes won't completely solve the problem. The housing problem is not nearly as severe as in Louisiana, where thousands of residents are still living in FEMA trailer parks.

But getting the modular home neighborhoods under way in Bayou La Batre will help resolve the issue of affordable housing for people who lost their homes and may not be able to afford to move or rebuild on their own.

In Louisiana, a severe shortage of affordable rental housing has made it very difficult for people to leave the trailer parks. The trailers were never intended for long-term housing, some families are living in terribly overcrowded conditions and there are questions about air quality inside the trailers because of the presence of formaldehyde.

FEMA has tried to move people out of the Louisiana parks, but there simply has been no place for all of them, including elderly and disabled residents, to go. But in Alabama, expediting construction of the modular homes in Bayou La Batre will provide some relief and make relocating the remaining trailer occupants easier.

Nobody is giving the houses away, and at a maximum of 1,600 square feet, they are hardly mansions. The program is aimed at giving people a chance to help themselves by offering safe, sound housing and chance to buy into the development.

People will have to apply for the housing and will pay rent in the first year of 20 percent of household income. After that, occupants have the option to buy the homes, and a portion of the rent can be used for a down payment. In addition, the occupants will get help finding mortgages.

In addition, those applicants whose original homes were condemned must agree to have them demolished. The new neighborhoods are located outside the federal 100-year flood plain, so those who lost their homes to Katrina's floodwaters won't be living or rebuilding in the same place and risking the same destruction in the future.

Bayou La Batre has the opportunity to serve as a model for the Gulf Coast as the recovery from Hurricane Katrina continues. Hurricane victims can't live in FEMA trailers indefinitely, but they must have somewhere to go.

© 2007 Press-Register. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Mississippi Blinding

from Pensacola Beach Blog

It's been an eventful week for the Lott clan. On Monday, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) announced that he'd be retiring late this year. The next day, FBI agents raided the law office of his brother-in-law, Richard "Dickie" Scruggs. Yesterday, Scruggs, his son, and three associates were indicted for bribery.

-- Paul Kiel atTPM Muckraker, Nov. 29, 2007

A search warrant was executed this week in the law office of Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs. Barely a day later, he also was indicted on charges of bribing a state trial judge. Conservatives and liberals, alike, are chortling over what they imagine to be the imminent downfall of one of America's most successful, and richest, trial lawyers.

No surprise, really. Both sides see the event through partisan prisms that tend to blind one to the whole truth, whatever that turns out to be.

Republican neocom fanatics who reflexively side with corporate interests against individuals view "plaintiffs' lawyers" as bogeymen out to undermine America's capitalist foundation. As for Democratic Party liberals, it seems they can't see beyond the fact that the sister of Scruggs' wife is married to U.S. Senator Trent Lott, which makes the two men brothers-in-law. On no discernible evidence other than that, a good number of Lott critics are suggesting the Scruggs indictment explains why, just two days beforehand, the senior Mississippi senator announced that he intends to resign his seat before January rolls around.

Color us skeptical. It may be, as alleged, that a third man, also a lawyer, who supposedly offered a bribe to a Mississippi state judge was acting for Dickie Scruggs. Or, it may be that he wasn't. It may be that this other lawyer offered a bribe. Or, it may be the judge was fishing for a personal campaign contribution, as is the widespread practice among judges in that state.

With no proven facts to speak of yet, what we're left wondering is what does the known history of each side in this drama suggest about their motives and capabilities? On that score, we're ready to give more than the legal presumption of innocence to Scruggs. We give him the benefit of a doubt.

The most likely reason for Senator Lott's resignation, as it seems to us, has nothing to do with Scruggs or his family ties. It's more in harmony with Lott's character and political history that he simply doesn't want to wait an extra year to pig out on lobbyist fees.

It's the political ties we find more intriguing. Dickie Scruggs and his law firm, as we have noted before, are among the leading litigators battling property insurance companies over their penurious -- some juries would say, even fraudulent -- handling of Hurricane Katrina claims. Scruggs undertook to represent well over a thousand devastated hurricane victims in Mississippi -- including that self-same brother-in-law, Trent Lott, who was the scourge of trial lawyers himself until he needed one. The Scruggs firm also led the way in knitting together a number of other law firms to form what's now known as The Katrina Group.

As Newsweek noted a few years ago, Scruggs has a long history of representing the little guy against the insurance industry and their corporate clients. He made his bones suing tobacco companies, then represented thousands of blue collar ship-builders afflicted with asbestosis. More recently, the intrepid lawyer added the health insurance industry to his list of targets.

One can surmise there are plenty of huge, well financed corporations out there who would happily contribute whatever it takes to see Dickie Scruggs brought down. If that isn't reason enough to reserve judgment at the news of his indictment, consider this:

• The indictment was engineered by U.S. Attorney Jim M. Greenlee in the Northern District of Mississippi. Greenlee has been a "loyal Bushie" U.S. attorney throughout the entire period [Karl Rove] Bush's lapdog, Alberto Gonzales, was busy politicizing the Justice Department.

• Allegations of Justice Department "selective prosecution" and "targeting" of prominent Democratic party supporters across the nation have been at the heart of investigations by both the House Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

• It's already a matter of record that the Justice Department has been using "criminal prosecutions to help Republicans win elections" in Mississippi by selectively prosecuting Democrats. Although he's given to both parties, Scruggs is best known for being one of the largest individual contributors to Mississippi Democratic Party candidates.

• Barely three weeks ago, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger and other news sources began reporting that Scruggs was funding "a new attack ad on Republican insurance commissioner hopeful Mike Chaney." Last July, he gave a quarter of a million dollars to "Mississippians for Fair Elections, a PAC 'created to raise awareness about the role the insurance commissioner plays'" in Mississippi government.

• Last June, Scruggs filed a 100-plus page complaint in the Southern District of Mississippi, accusing State Farm Insurance Co. of a "racketeering enterprise" to suppress or destroy engineering reports it received from its own chosen expert evaluators that found insured homes had been damaged by high winds rather than flooding water. The allegation is the legal equivalent of nuclear war, potentially subjecting State Farm to treble damages and a host of other severe punishments.

• Just one day before the indictment was made public, Scruggs filed an amended complaint [pdf format] in the ongoing litigation. As described by Biloxi reporter Anita Lee "a team of policyholders' attorneys led by Richard 'Dickie' Scruggs" added new allegations that State Farm had actually financed the start-up of an engineering firm which then wrote hurricane damage reports with conclusions dictated by State Farm:

• The owner of an engineering firm hoped to make up to $1.5 million over three months by adjusting Hurricane Katrina claims for State Farm, borrowing $150,000 and establishing a line of credit with State Farm Bank to set up shop on the Mississippi Coast in September 2005, according to records filed late Tuesday in federal court.
  

• Because of the arrangement, Forensic Analysis & Engineering Corp. was beholden to State Farm, which wanted to minimize its Hurricane Katrina losses for wind damage, the lawsuit says. Another vendor that adjusted Katrina claims, the independent adjusting firm E.A. Renfroe & Co. Inc., at times owed 80 percent of its income to State Farm, the court records say.

• The 73-year old Calhoun County, Mississippi, judge, Henry Lackey, who claims a Scruggs intermediary tried to bribe him waited less than 48 hours before hitting the interview circuit to share his story with Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

Not to mention (though we will) the indictment was handed down just a couple of weeks before Scruggs was scheduled to host a large fund raiser at his home for Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It may be difficult for folk living in a normal state, or even a politically subnormal state like Florida, to believe that the federal and state judicial systems in a place like Mississippi could be so bent that the weight of the law might be brought down on someone just because they belong to the wrong political party. But the erudite international lawyer and Harper's Magazine blogger, Scott Horton, has some familiarity with the depths to which his native South can sink.

He's been exposing the through-and-through corruption of Alabama's system for much of the past year, now. Here's a sampling. It isn't easy reading but it is eye opening.

Horton has occasionally remarked that things in neighboring Mississippi are much the same. As he wrote a few weeks ago:

In the last several months, we have looked in some detail at the prosecution of Democratic Governor Don E. Siegelman in Alabama. There is now substantial evidence that this prosecution was politically motivated, involving a number of key figures in the Alabama G.O.P., Karl Rove, U.S. attorneys in Birmingham and Montgomery, and political appointees at the Justice Department in Washington.
* * *
[W]hile studying the Siegelman case, I have been looking over a series of cases in Mississippi which are remarkably similar to the Siegelman case in many ways. At this point I believe, based on documents and evidence which have come to me, that the Mississippi prosecutions will also shortly be exposed as being politically motivated and directed. In any event it is clear that they were designed to, and did, have a key role in influencing elections in Mississippi for the benefit of the Republican Party.

"For five years Washington has had a Department of Political Persecutions where the Department of Justice used to stand," Horton also has written.

It is some measure of the damage done to the Justice Department under the Bush administration that one can even entertain the thought Scruggs' indictment may be politically inspired. But we know, now, that the Justice Department has perverted justice elsewhere for just that reason. The likelihood that's its happening again in Mississippi is too plausible to be dismissed.


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New allegations outlined in State Farm case

By ANITA LEE
calee@sunherald.com
November 28, 2007

The owner of an engineering firm hoped to make up to $1.5 million over three months by adjusting Hurricane Katrina claims for State Farm, borrowing $150,000 and establishing a line of credit with State Farm Bank to set up shop on the Mississippi Coast in September 2005, according to records filed late Tuesday in federal court.

Because of the arrangement, Forensic Analysis & Engineering Corp. was beholden to State Farm, which wanted to minimize its Hurricane Katrina losses for wind damage, the lawsuit says. Another vendor that adjusted Katrina claims, the independent adjusting firm E.A. Renfroe & Co. Inc., at times owed 80 percent of its income to State Farm, the court records say.

A team of policyholders' attorneys led by Richard "Dickie" Scruggs" unearthed the information and other new allegations against the insurer and vendors while researching a policyholders' lawsuit originally filed in June. The attorneys now want to amend the complaint.

They now allege that State Farm essentially acted as head of "mob boss," with the vendors serving as "hit men." The purpose of the racketeering scheme was to make money, the lawsuit says, by minimizing or denying policyholder claims.

It alleges destruction of documents, perjury, obstruction of justice and fraud.

State Farm and the vendors have previously denied any wrongdoing. State Farm spokesman Fraser Engerman said Wednesday the company has not reviewed the complaint and couldn't respond to new allegations.

"Although we haven't reviewed it yet, we still contend this lawsuit is a combination of every wild allegation Mr. Scruggs has thrown at us since Katrina," Engerman said.

State Farm termed the initial lawsuit "fiction," saying in June that the company has paid Mississippi policyholders at least $1.2 billion for Katrina damage. Since then, the company has paid an additional $55 million through a claims re-evaluation process.

However, the amended complaint says: "State Farm's market share, wealth and unscrupulous methods of doing business give it coercive force within the home insurance sector. Adjusters that deviate from its plans are cast aside. Engineers who issue reports that would result in payments by State Farm are fired."

Policyholders who disagree with State Farm's conclusions face a dilemma, the complaint says: either accept pennies on the dollar or spend years, forfeiting time and money, "to simply get what is rightfully theirs."

The attorneys are asking U.S. District Court Judge William H. Barbour Jr., who is presiding over the case in Jackson, to accept the amended lawsuit in place of the original. They want to add State Farm Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance company, as a defendant and remove Forensic, which has confidentially settled its grievances in the case with policyholders.

The policyholders' attorneys claim State Farm is defrauding policyholders through the re-evaluation process because the company does not reveal any multiple engineering reports that may have been produced for properties. Insurance companies use expert reports to help determine the cause of damage and whether it is covered under their policies.

The amended complaint, which also adds three policyholders to the 21 already listed, says one engineer at Forensic altered, spoiled or falsified at least 30 reports.

Evidence turned over under subpoena in the case indicates for the first time that State Farm wanted a Forensic engineer removed from company claims investigations. The engineer had found wind damage covered by State Farm policies.

The Forensic office manager, Nellie Williams, wrote in another instant message: "State Farm would prefer that all reports make water the cause of destruction (then they don't have to pay) - they have been returning our wind cause reports and demanding another inspection as they don't agree with our findings."

Williams had previously denied under oath that she had Forensics information on her personal computer, but the Scruggs group found it there after they secured her computer hard drive through a subpoena.

Forensics owner Robert Kochan said in an instant message to his office manager that he had spoken with "Mark," which the lawsuit says refers to State Farm employee Mark Wilcox. According to Kochan's instant message, Wilcox said his boss wanted Forensic engineer Brian Ford, who found wind damage to properties, removed from State Farm catastrophe inspections.

State Farm offered policyholders a different explanation for multiple engineering reports. The company in April began notifying Coast policyholders that they could have their claims re-evaluated. State Farm explained, according to the lawsuit: "At times, inadvertent duplicate assignments were made on a single property and/or follow-up on engineering reports was necessary, resulting in some cases, in multiple engineering reports."

Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who recently lost his re-election bid after eight terms, ordered the re-evaluation. But Attorney General Jim Hood has sued State Farm for failing to live up to an agreement he reached with the company in January. That agreement said any multiple reports would be revealed to policyholders.

State Farm says it has lived up to its promises through the re-evaluation, maintaining the agreement with Hood was part of a proposed global settlement with policyholders that a federal judge rejected.

The insurance company and Hood are currently embroiled in a federal court dispute. State Farm is asking a judge to stop a criminal investigation by Hood, claiming he filed it to harass the company.

State Farm and Scruggs also are battling because Scruggs engaged whistle-blowers, as he did in successful lawsuits against Big Tobacco, to glean information about the company's Katrina claims adjusting. The FBI served a search warrant Tuesday on Scruggs law firm, but an attorney for the firm, Joey Langston, said agents were seeking a single document that would be "ancillary" to Katrina litigation. Langston said he does not believe the document exists and the firm is cooperating with investigators.

Also, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Jackson has indicated it is investigating State Farm's Katrina claims handling practices and will decide by January whether to prosecute a lawsuit the whistle-blowers have filed against the company, also in U.S. District Court in Jackson.


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Hancock board condemns 64 properties

46 spared; razing bids received; Hancock board condemns 64 properties
By J.R. WELSH
jrwelsh@sunherald.com
November 28, 2007

HANCOCK COUNTY -- Nearly 27 months after Hurricane Katrina, county supervisors are still ordering the removal of storm-wrecked houses that litter the county.

Supervisors decided this week to condemn and order the destruction of 64 properties, all considered hazards and public nuisances. Most are in the southern area of the county, particularly in Bayside Park, Pearlington and Shoreline Park.

The vacant homes are in various states of disrepair. All were inspected by Compton Engineering, the county's contract engineer, before being condemned. Supervisors notified property owners, and on Monday the board reviewed each property at a public hearing.

The county started with 110 houses on its hazard list, but some were removed. Numbers of houses actually condemned and ordered destroyed were not available until Tuesday when it was announced 46 properties were taken off the list.

Costs of demolishing the structures will be reimbursed by FEMA. "This is your last chance to have your property cleared at FEMA's expense," board President Rocky Pullman said at the hearing.

A standing-room-only crowd of property owners showed up Monday, asking that their houses be spared. Their stories were as varied as their faces. In one case, supervisors removed a house from the demolition list at the request of a woman who said she finally had received a grant to rebuild.

In another, they removed from the list a house whose owner, according to Pullman, was deceased. That case was delayed until the county can determine who now owns the land.

In yet another, supervisors declined to condemn a house because photos of the property presented by inspectors showed a new door on the structure and a pile of shingles standing next to the house. Supervisors considered that evidence that renovations are ongoing.

"We're not here to hurt people," Pullman said.

There will be a final public hearing Dec. 17, when supervisors are expected to hold condemnation proceedings on 54 more houses. Those costs, too, will be covered by FEMA.

Also Monday, supervisors received bids from five companies to demolish the condemned properties. Bids ranged from $637,400 to nearly $2.5 million. The bids will now be reviewed by FEMA and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency before an award is made.


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A reunion of heroic proportions: Rescue and Search

Chris Granger / Times-Picayune
Johnny Jackson, right, holds onto the shirt that he remembers David Martin, left, wearing when he rescued him by boat following Hurricane Katrina.

By Bruce Nolan
November 27, 2007

David Martin was standing outside the agreed-upon rendezvous point, the headquarters of the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, when the approaching Johnny Jackson caught his eye. In Tuesday's dying light they regarded each other as the distance closed, different in many ways -- Martin, the white, weather-beaten, small-town outdoorsman, and Jackson, the black, city-bred former politician and gregarious bon vivant.

"There he is," called Jackson, extending his arms.

The two embraced briefly, a little awkwardly. A guy greeting.

They hardly knew each other. They had not seen each other since the terrible morning of Aug. 31, 2005, when Martin, a stranger, nosed his aluminum flatboat below a second-story window and plucked Jackson, his 80-year-old mother and two others out of their house in the Upper 9th Ward and ferried them to safety.

They were together probably less than an hour that day. They did not exchange names and did not expect to meet again, until Jackson arranged the meeting Tuesday to thank the stranger who appeared out of the dark that day two years ago. 

'Y'all need a ride out?'
The night of their first encounter, thousands of New Orleanians for miles around Jackson's Press Park neighborhood were still marooned on roofs or trapped in attics or upper floors two days after the passage of Hurricane Katrina.

The military was mobilizing. And so were hundreds of private citizens like Martin, fishers and hunters with boats who were running their own ad hoc rescues all over the flood zone, pulling people out of houses, dropping them at gathering points on interstate ramps, then turning back for more.

Early on Aug. 31 Martin and a fellow member of the Cajun Redfish Club, Shannon Ordoyne, found Jackson; his elderly mother, Josephine; a disabled cousin, Kevin; and a nephew.

In the predawn darkness they played a spotlight into the window over the blacked-out second floor, Jackson remembered. "Ya'll need a ride out?" they said.

The Jacksons did. They pulled themselves into Martin's 16-foot boat and sat, soaked, as Martin and Ordoyne made for railroad tracks on high ground near Interstate 10.

"I remember we just talked about how bad it was," Jackson said Tuesday. They did not exchange names. But Jackson never forgot a distinctive shirt his anonymous rescuer was wearing.

Even in the dark he could tell it was a knit polo shirt with a fish on the breast. He thought he remembered the words "redfish" and "club." 

Landing in Dallas

Martin and Ordoyne dropped the Jacksons near Louisa Street and the interstate, then turned back to gather more people.

Over the next three harrowing days, Jackson, a former state legislator and City Council member, shepherded his family to the chaos of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, then out of the city to shelter and food in Westwego.

A week later, they were in Dallas. There they were adopted by two Texas families, Alan and Kathy Box and Charlie and Cathy Fisher, who enveloped the Jacksons in extraordinary care and helped them settle in the Dallas area.

Two years later The Times-Picayune featured the Jacksons' story, from the anonymous rescuers in the boat to the Boxes and Fishers in Texas, in second-anniversary storm coverage that focused on how strangers aided storm victims in the desperate time after Katrina.

In subsequent weeks the newspaper was able to identify Martin as a man who might have been Jackson's rescuer. The two were put in touch.

Jackson and Martin exchanged e-mails. Martin sent Jackson a picture of his shirt. Jackson mailed back from Dallas his deep gratitude, for himself and his family. 

Shirt sticks out

They arranged to meet for the first time Tuesday on the sidewalk in front of the Zulu clubhouse; Jackson is a member and float captain in Zulu's annual Mardi Gras parade.

"I want you to see something. I got the shirt," Martin said.

They walked to Martin's black pickup. He reached in and pulled out a hanger holding a polo shirt with a redfish on the breast and the words "Cajun Redfish Club."

"Yeah, that's it! I remember. That's it!" Jackson said.

Jackson escorted Martin inside and introduced him to a dozen club members sitting at the bar.

"What'll you have?" he asked Martin. 

Salvage turns to rescue

Over Jackson's Crown Royal and Martin's vodka and 7UP they traded recollections.

Martin, 51, the president of the fishing club, said he had towed his boat to New Orleans from his hometown of Montegut the day after the storm hoping to salvage equipment from a club travel trailer parked in Chalmette for a Labor Day club rodeo.

But that was clearly irrelevant, given the condition of the city. Instead, he said, he and Ordoyne launched their boat and motored into the flood zone, thick with people calling for help.

"We stayed out three days and two nights," he said.

Ferrying people from roofs to high ground, Martin said, they burned through 24 gallons of gas they brought, plus another eight they cadged from the National Guard.

They worked at night until they broke the last of their hand-held spotlights.

They borrowed drinking water. "I don't think we slept much," Martin said.

Martin said he didn't keep count, but he estimated he and Ordoyne collected perhaps 100 people.

After several days they returned to the Houma area, where Martin lives when he is not working on a huge Exxon construction project in Africa. He shuttles back and forth, a month on, a month off, he said.

Martin said his old fishing club is dead, its 80 members scattered. "What Katrina didn't wipe out, Rita finished off," he said.

"I got club members, I still don't know where they are. I mean, I don't even know if they're all alive or not. Is that the way it is with you, Johnny?" he asked. 

Proposal floated

In the clubhouse together, the men sipped their drinks and compared notes.

Jackson's mother and brother live in Slidell now. He and his wife live in Dallas and will remain there. But he frequently returns to New Orleans, where he hopes to repair his ruined house.

"I never looked to get anything out of it, you know?" said Martin. But to meet Jackson again and see him well, "this is a blessing."

And more than a blessing.

When Jackson, typically loud and social, introduced Martin to his friends at the Zulu bar, someone shouted over the noise, "Put that man on your float!"

"If he wants a ride," declared Jackson, "he's got it." 

Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3344 


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County seeks allies vs. FEMA

By MICHAEL A. BELL
mbell@sunherald.com
November 29, 2007

HARRISON COUNTY -- The county has written members of Congress in hopes of gaining support against FEMA's refusal to reimburse $12 million for Hurricane Katrina cleanup.

An internal probe by FEMA in 2006 questioned nearly $9 million worth of debris on public rights of way and nearly $3 million on cases involving private properties.

FEMA, which inspected more than a dozen roads where TCB Construction workers removed leaning and dead trees, could not match the number of stumps left on roadways and private properties to what the Poplarville company had ticketed. FEMA also believes TCB charged excessive fees.

Tim Holleman, the county attorney handling the appeal, sent letters to Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran and Reps. Gene Taylor and Bennie Thompson. MEMA is backing the county's appeal.

"It's simply a letter setting forth the basic issues and asking them if they can review it," Holleman said. "We're hoping that FEMA will follow recommendations of MEMA to begin with and pay the county's claim for benefits."

"The alternative is we hope the representatives or senators can help us, get FEMA to pay it off," he said.

Harrison County is not alone in haggling with FEMA. Earlier this year, nearly two dozen counties and cities across the Gulf Coast were in danger of losing more than $18 million after FEMA questioned debris removal costs, The Associated Press reported.

County leaders have supplied FEMA with more than 30,000 pictures documenting and validating TCB's work, which FEMA has until Nov. 30 to act on.

FEMA believes that Harrison County agreed to pay TCB too much for debris cleanup. But Holleman said the TCB rate is less than what FEMA pays the Corps of Engineers for such work.

Holleman said he requested the contracts between FEMA and the corps. However, FEMA has refused, citing proprietary information.

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Coast will miss senator's dogged Katrina work

Lott says he's trying to tie up loose ends on hurricane legislation

By Natalie Chandler
natalie.chandler@clarionledger.com
November 27, 2007

A retiring Sen. Trent Lott promised Monday to continue pushing legislation that will help the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina, a storm that made him reconsider earlier plans of leaving office.

But he said it would be difficult to advance the bills before he leaves at the end of the year.

And Gulf Coast leaders said his absence will make it much more difficult for the area to rebuild from devastation that still lingers.

Lott, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, and others in the state's congressional delegation won praise for securing billions of recovery dollars for south Mississippi.

A state-run grant program seemed to move more quickly one year after the storm after he and 4th District Rep. Gene Taylor, a Democrat, publicly urged officials to make changes and speed distribution.

Of Lott's retirement, the Rev. Richard Young of Escatawpa said, "Nobody down here's ready for that yet."

"If they put somebody in there that don't know us and have the feelings for us, it will be many years before this Gulf Coast recovers," said Young, whose church has not been rebuilt.

In a statement, Taylor said that Lott, whose Pascagoula home was destroyed in the storm, "understands the sense of loss that so many of us experienced, and this perspective has made him an especially effective advocate on recovery-related issues."


Taylor, who also lost his Bay St. Louis home, has worked with Lott on legislation that would offer federally funded insurance for disaster victims.

Insurance companies denied claims made by Lott, Taylor and many of their constituents after the Aug. 29, 2005, storm.

Company officials have said their policies cover a hurricane's wind but not its rising water.

"Hopefully, Trent can arrange a Senate floor vote before he retires, and I pledge to help with any assistance that I can provide," Taylor said.

Lott said he's had problems "getting the appropriate committee in the Senate to step up. I'll keep working on it."

He also has championed a bill that would revoke an antitrust exemption for insurance companies, which have been accused of conspiring to deny claims.

Lott said that while he still supports the legislation, it may be too difficult to pass.

Other issues have slowed the bill and killed its momentum, he said.

A committee chairman in charge of the legislation doesn't believe there are enough votes to sustain the bill, he added.

Lott said he spoke with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on Monday. "I said, 'Pat, do me a favor. Get a vote on this repeal of the antitrust exemption. This is something I feel strongly about. Help me with a going-away present,' " Lott said.

Lott had considered retiring before Katrina flattened and flooded his hometown. His mother died earlier that year.

"I dare say that without Lott and (Sen. Thad Cochran) and Taylor, the Gulf Coast would be pretty much still in the Stone Ages," said Jackson County supervisor John McKay. "It's just going to be extremely difficult to replace (Lott's) leadership for (hurricane recovery) and for the whole state."

"The feeling in Washington has been, 'It's been two years; let's move on to the next thing,' " said Mayor Tommy Longo of Waveland, where city offices still are housed in FEMA trailers.

"(Lott) has understood our needs and that it was going to take longer and that we were going to need more help," Longo said.

Lott's office quickly helped whenever issues with FEMA arose, officials agreed.

In June, Lott settled with his insurance company. He and his wife, Tricia, live near Jackson.

Lott has placed a manufactured home on his Pascagoula property. He has not rebuilt, although he has said he would like to.

"So many people had needs for materials and workers," he said. "Our neighbors were still trying to rebuild.

"We didn't think, since we had a place to hang our hat, that we need to rush and (rebuild.) And I have to be honest. My wife is very concerned about rebuilding on the water."



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