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S. Hrg. 110–292

GAO’S ANALYSIS OF THE GULF COAST RECOVERY:

A DIALOGUE ON REMOVING THE OBSTACLES

TO THE RECOVERY EFFORT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 12, 2007

Available via http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

DONNY WILLIAMS, Staff Director 

CHIP ABERNATHY, Minority Staff Director 

AMANDA FOX, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Landrieu .............................................................................................. 1

Senator Stevens ................................................................................................ 8

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 19

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2007

Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director of Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office ......................................................................................................... 9

Donald E. Powell, Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, U.S. Department of Homeland Security .......................................................................... 13

Donna D. Fraiche, Chairman, Long-Term Community Planning Task Force, 

Louisiana Recovery Authority ............................................................................. 25

Hon. John Thomas Longo, Mayor, City of Waveland, Mississippi ...................... 28

Edward J. Blakely, Executive Director, Recovery Management, City of New 

Orleans .................................................................................................................. 30

Ernest Broussard, Jr., AICP, CEcD, Executive Director, Cameron Parish 

Planning and Development Authority ................................................................ 31

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Blakely, Edward J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 106

Broussard, Ernest Jr.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 31

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 113

Czerwinski, Stanley J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39

Fraiche, Donna D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 70

Longo, Hon. John Thomas: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 28

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 104

Powell, Donald E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56

APPENDIX 

Charts submitted for the Record by Senator Landrieu ........................................ 119

Bryan McDonald, Director of Governor Haley Barbour’s Office of Recovery 

and Renewal, prepared statement ...................................................................... 122

(1)

GAO’S ANALYSIS OF THE GULF COAST RECOVERY: A DIALOGUE ON REMOVING THE 

OBSTACLES TO THE RECOVERY EFFORT 

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2007

U.S. SENATE,

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in Room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mary Landrieu, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Landrieu, Stevens, and Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LANDRIEU 

Senator LANDRIEU. Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery will come to order. I am pleased to welcome our 

panel and call our Subcommittee to order, and we are looking forward to some excellent testimony to help us get started off in the 

right direction on this brand-new and very important Subcommittee of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

Committee. 

I am a new Member of the full Committee, Senator Stevens has 

served for many years, but neither one of us are strangers to the 

work that is before us in terms of disaster prevention, response, 

and recovery. 

Let me begin by saying how pleased I am to have Senator Stevens serve as my Ranking Member. We are looking forward to 

working very closely together on this Subcommittee to do the work 

that is before us. 

I will recognize the panelists in just a moment, but I do have an 

opening statement, and I would like to begin the first hearing of 

the Subcommittee to signify the significance of what we are doing 

by reading partially into the record the weather message that came 

over the news service on Sunday, August 28. There have been 

other messages read like this in the history of our country, but I 

thought part of this was worth reading. This is Sunday, August 28, 

2005: 

‘‘ . . . Devastating damage expected . . . Hurricane Katrina . . . 

a most powerful hurricane with unprecedented strength . . . rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille in 1969. 

‘‘Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks . . . perhaps 

longer. At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof 

2

and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail . . . leaving those homes 

severely damaged or destroyed. 

‘‘The majority of industrial buildings will become non functional. 

Partial to complete walls and roof failure is expected. All wood 

framed low rising apartment buildings will be destroyed. Concrete 

block low rise apartments will sustain major damage . . . including 

some wall and roof failure. 

‘‘High rise office buildings and apartment buildings will sway 

dangerously . . . a few to the point of total collapse. All windows 

will blow out. 

‘‘Airborne debris will be widespread . . . and may include heavy 

items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. Sport 

utility vehicles and light trucks will be moved. The blown debris 

will created additional destruction. Persons . . . pets . . . and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck. 

‘‘Power outages will last for weeks . . . as most power poles will 

be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make 

human suffering incredible by modern standards. 

‘‘The vast majority of . . . trees will be snapped or uprooted. 

Only the heartiest will remain standing . . . but be totally defoliated. Few crops will remain. Livestock left exposed to the winds 

will be killed.’’

This was issued by Max Mayfield the day before Hurricane 

Katrina, which was a Category 5 storm out on the Gulf, but then 

it turned into a Category 3—by probably no other than God’s 

grace—before it hit. But, nonetheless, the predictions came true. 

And this government, and at the Federal, State, and local level, 

along with many private sector corporations and businesses, as 

well as individuals, have been dealing with the aftermath of this 

situation. 

While we have made some progress, this record will show, as this 

Subcommittee works, that the progress has not been sufficient, and 

that will, I think, be very clear as this Subcommittee goes forward. 

But devastating damage, uninhabitable for weeks, not just in the 

city of New Orleans but in the parishes of St. Bernard and Cameron along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, homes were destroyed, widespread long-term power outages, lack of water, and shelter. This all 

happened, and Hurricane Katrina, as I said, was not even the 

storm that it could have been. It could have been a Category 5, 

with winds over 155 miles an hour and storm surges over 18 feet. 

But as Max Mayfield stated—and he said this upon his retirement, 

which was just this year, on January 3—Max Mayfield, a great 

American stated, ‘‘We are eventually going to get a strong enough 

storm in a densely populated area to have a major disaster. I know 

people don’t want to hear this, and I am generally a . . . positive 

person, but we are setting ourselves up for this major disaster.’’

This was this year, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the 

Gulf Coast, and Max Mayfield was one of the ones that helped to 

write this warning, trying to get the attention of the country. 

That is why this Subcommittee has been formed, and I want to 

thank Senator Lieberman for helping to form this Subcommittee. 

He has reorganized, as Chairman of the Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs Committee, this Subcommittee and another 

one that will be chaired by Senator Pryor, who is also going to 

3

1 Charts submitted for the Record by Senator Landrieu appears in the Appendix on page 119. 

serve as a Member of this Subcommittee, to stay focused on the 

real threats to the Nation from natural disasters and manmade 

disasters of a catastrophic scope. 

As I mentioned, I have the great help and support of Senator 

Stevens in this endeavor. We also have Senator Carper, who has 

agreed to serve, former Governor of Delaware, who brings his own 

set of abilities and experiences, as well as Senator Domenici from 

New Mexico, a longstanding Member of the Senate and former 

Chair of the Budget Committee, who understands that it is one 

thing to talk, it is another thing to apply resources to actually deal 

with the problem. 

So we are going to build a better FEMA, at a minimum. We are 

going to make sure that we are prepared as a Nation. We are going 

to establish, and help establish with the cooperation of other committees, safe and effective evacuation methods and routes. We are 

going to make certain that the Federal role is clear and decisive 

in terms of what it can do to help citizens fully recover their lives, 

their homes, their dreams, their businesses, their families, their 

communities, their livelihoods. And, of course, we are going to do 

this trying to prevent as much loss of life as possible. 

We intend to work hard on this Subcommittee. We have drafted 

a very ambitious schedule which Senator Stevens has helped me to 

outline. We intend to be very problem-solving. We intend to be very 

focused on solving immediate problems of this current recovery 

that is under way along the Gulf Coast, which, by most measures, 

will last for at least a decade, depending on whether you are in 

Waveland, Chairman Powell, or whether you are in New Orleans, 

or whether you are in St. Bernard, or whether you are in Lower 

Cameron. But it is also going to stay focused on the future so that 

we can hopefully mitigate against the damage that is sure to come 

from another serious storm and get the response better coordinated 

at every level. 

So I am going to submit the rest of my statement to the record 

and only to end with a chart that I had the staff blow up, because 

one of my main goals is to get this country to grasp the scope of 

this disaster and to get their arms, their head, and their heart 

around the scope of this disaster. And I have to say I do not think 

I have been very successful, but just because I have not been successful yet does not mean I am going to stop trying. 

I do not know how many more speeches I have to give or how 

many Senators I need to bring down or how many House Members 

I need to bring down. But like Senator Stevens has gotten half the 

Senate over to Alaska in his term to see actually how big of a place 

Alaska is, which people still have a hard time understanding, Senator, I thought maybe I would have these blown up. And if you 

bear with me just a moment and look at the first one, this was 

done by GAO, which is why I asked them to be one of our first to 

testify.1

If you will see the far screen, it is Hurricane Camille. Now, for 

any of you from the southern part of the country, Hurricane 

Camille was the measure before Hurricane Katrina. It was, ‘‘Did 

you live through Camille, before Camille, or after Camille?’’ In the 

4

lore of hurricanes, Hurricane Audrey was when my mother was a 

child; Hurricane Camille was when I was a child. And we were always waiting for the next big one. Well, we think we got it with 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

But Hurricane Camille, which is still talked about in barrooms 

and restaurants all over the South, you can see the damage was 

severe, but that is what it represents. You can see the casualties, 

the homes, etc. 

Then you look over here to Hurricane Andrew, where you can see 

2 million people evacuated. You can see the damage, etc. 

But then I want you to take a hard look at this chart for Hurricane Katrina. The overwhelming damage that has been done in 

terms of casualties, building loss, homes destroyed, people evacuated was about the same. But nothing else was the same. The evacuation was the same—about 2 million people fleeing to higher 

ground, trying to find safety, confused about where the storm was 

really going to come, not having the communication systems that 

they needed, not sure what roads were going to be open, not sure 

what hotels would be available, not enough shelters for everybody, 

not enough water in the cart. Two million people fled and had to 

find safety within 48 hours. But the sad story of this is that many 

of them still cannot get back because there were no homes to come 

back to, no office buildings, no small businesses—20,000 lost. 

And to finally just say for the record that the most I have been 

able to ascertain to date is that the impact of Hurricane Andrew 

to Florida was $139 per capita. When the World Trade Towers collapsed in New York after being hit by terrorists, the impact on 

New York State was $390. The best figures that I have to start this 

Subcommittee off with, the impact of Hurricane Katrina alone—not 

counting Hurricane Rita—is $4,700 per capita in the State of Louisiana. When we add Hurricane Rita and when we add Mississippi—because those numbers are very hard for us to get, and 

I am working on them as fast as anybody in Washington—that 

may go up. 

But that is what this Subcommittee’s job is. This is not a Subcommittee focused on getting trailers to tornado sites. And I know 

tornadoes are terrible and tornadoes can destroy a lot and they can 

destroy hundreds of homes. And that is a major disaster. But this 

Subcommittee is going to focus its energy on catastrophic disasters 

because we have found the Federal Government, and to some degree State governments and local governments, wholly unprepared 

to either react to quickly, respond to effectively, or help this part 

of the country to rebuild. 

Now, the final thing I will say is this: America has spent a good 

part of its career building itself. It is what we do every day here 

to make a more perfect union, and we do a lot of rebuilding around 

the world, and we do it pretty well. It is about time we start doing 

a better job right here at home after catastrophes like this. 

So I will submit the rest of my statement for the record.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MARY L. LANDRIEU 

URGENT—WEATHER MESSAGE 

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 

1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

5

. . . DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED. . . . HURRICANE KATRINA 

. . . A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED 

STRENGTH . . . RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE 

OF 1969. 

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS . . . PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES 

WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL 

. . . LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. 

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON 

FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL 

BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE . . . INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. 

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY . . . A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. 

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD . . . AND MAY INCLUDE 

HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT 

VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE 

MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. 

PERSONS . . . PETS . . . AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS 

WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK. 

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS . . . AS MOST POWER POLES 

WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES 

WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. 

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING . . . BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

‘‘We’re eventually going to get a strong enough storm in a densely populated area 

to have a major disaster. I know people don’t want to hear this, and I’m generally 

a very positive person, but we’re setting ourselves up for this major disaster.’’ 

—Max Mayfield, January 3 2007—upon resigning as head of the National 

Hurricane Center 

Devastating damage. . . . 

Area uninhabitable for weeks . . . 

Homes destroyed, wide-spread, long-term power outages, lack of water and shelter. . . . 

This all happened. And Hurricane Katrina wasn’t even the storm it could have 

been. It could have been a true Category 5—with winds over 155 miles per hour 

and storm surges over 18 feet—but thankfully, it weakened. However, the ‘‘big 

storm’’ is still waiting to happen. And it could happen. As Max Mayfield stated this 

January. There will be another major storm that hits and devastates one of our cities. This could happen. To New Orleans. To Houston. To Miami. To Charleston. To 

New York. And the question is—are we prepared? Did we learn from Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita? 

This is why Chairman Lieberman and I created this Subcommittee—the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery. We created it for many reasons:

• To make sure that we are prepared. 

• To establish safe and effective evacuation methods and routes. 

• To make certain that we have a FEMA that works. 

• To ensure that our citizens can fully recover their lives, their homes, their 

families, their communities, and their livelihoods. 

• To prevent the loss of life that occurred. 

• To protect the elderly, the disabled, those without means.

We intend to work hard on this Subcommittee. We have drafted an ambitious 

schedule in which we intend to oversee the recovery of the Gulf Coast from the hurricanes of 2005—removing impediments to the recovery and eliminating the red 

tape that threatens to drown our people a second time. We intend to solve problems 

in this Subcommittee and build a better FEMA. Today is the first of many hearings—hearings that will oversee the recovery at hand in the Gulf States and also 

look to the future to determine what must be done to recreate the most effective 

6

disaster response and recovery system possible. That is my charge, my commitment, 

and my responsibility—and you will find that I am very serious about it. 

I would now like to officially bring to order this first hearing of the new Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery. I am absolutely thrilled to be joined by Senator 

Ted Stevens, the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, along with Senators Pete 

Domenici, Tom Carper, and Mark Pryor. I look forward to working with these wonderful colleagues of mine, all of whom, I know, share my dedication and passion for 

both the current recovery efforts underway and the future preparedness of this 

country to handle a catastrophe. 

If you look behind me, you will find three charts that illustrate the magnitude 

of three of our Nation’s most costly and deadly hurricanes. First, you see the damage of Camille, which at the time was a storm like none the country had experienced. Growing up on the Gulf Coast, I would often hear about Camille and the 

awesome power of that storm. This Category 5 hurricane took over 250 lives and 

cost nearly $10 billion in damages, in 2005 dollar terms. The next extremely serious 

storm that most of us clearly remember is Hurricane Andrew, which was a $38 billion storm in 2005 dollars, and devastated Homestead, Florida and the surrounding 

area. 

Now please take a moment and just look at the startling image that is Hurricane 

Katrina. If you look closely, the purple area is superimposed over the striped and 

solid blue areas which represent the impacts of Hurricanes Camille and Andrew. I 

saw this chart for the first time two days ago and my heart nearly stopped. This 

chart is wonderful because at first glance, it looks like some kind of massive mistake—like the printer broke and the ink just splattered all over the page. But that’s 

not the case. This is Hurricane Katrina—and Hurricane Katrina only—and does not 

mention Rita. This is the enormity of it all. This is the massive impact and rebuilding that we are dealing with. This illustrates the scale and the magnitude of this 

disaster and what we are now dealing with. 

I want to draw the numbers out from this chart a bit more for everyone here to 

consider, 1,836 people perished in Hurricane Katrina’s murky floodwaters, 90,000 

square miles of Gulf Coast land was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, an area that 

dwarfs the land mass of Great Britain, 650,000 people were displaced, and 275,000 

homes were completely destroyed, more than 200,000 of which were in Louisiana. 

Thousands of renters lost their rental units. In Louisiana alone, a quarter of a million jobs were lost, 20,000 businesses were destroyed, billions and billions of dollars 

of property damage was incurred, and as you know, there were 22 levee breaks that 

filled the city with up to 20 feet of water in some places for 6 to 8 weeks. These 

facts are well illustrated by the chart behind me. 

This Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the way we house victims during and 

after disasters. We also have responsibility over any and all long term recovery activities. Through this new Subcommittee, we have an opportunity to make sure that 

what has taken place since Hurricane Katrina never takes place in any other city, 

State, or region in this country. Through the Gulf Coast’s misfortune, we have a 

shot at making a disaster recovery mechanism that provides Federal, State, and 

local actors both the resources and the flexibility to rebuild in the aftermath of disaster efficiently and intelligently. 

I would like to thank the three distinguished panels for making the trip to Capitol 

Hill; particularly those from Louisiana and Mississippi, who made the long journey 

during your hectic work week. I understand that every moment for you away from 

the recovery effort is a moment that could have been spent making a difference. We 

sincerely hope that your presence here will help guide this Subcommittee towards 

improving our disaster recovery efforts. 

At the request of Chairman Joe Lieberman and Ranking Member Susan Collins, 

who have been steadfast and ardent advocates for the Gulf Coast beginning when 

the first winds of Hurricane Katrina blew on until this very day, GAO has begun 

a series of reviews and reports on the progress of the Gulf Coast recovery. GAO has 

been asked to keep track of a variety of matters that deal with the recovery specifically, but also in a broader manner, the entire recovery effort. We are very grateful 

that GAO has taken on this, which is a massive and ever evolving task, and I am 

certain that our request will be broadened as we seek to find ways to further improve our mechanism. 

I read GAO’s testimony, and while I appreciate the effort, I am concerned. I am 

concerned because despite their hard work, there are significant questions as to 

whether the Federal contribution truly meets the needs for the scale of a disaster, 

or rather, catastrophe caused by the 2005 hurricane season. There are a number 

of questions that need to be answered:

7

(1) Are the funds appropriated by Congress adequate to fulfill the needs of the 

90,000 square miles of devastation suffered by the Gulf Coast? 

(2) Is there a need for the Congress to appropriate more funds in the future 

to help rebuild? What processes are in place to assess the need for more 

funds and how are those needs communicated to the White House and the 

appropriators in Congress? 

(3) Do the damages and issues that we see so effectively illustrated on this 

chart warrant the waiver of the 10 percent public assistance match requirement—from here the answer is clearly yes? 

(4) Was using CDBG the right choice for this recovery? Were there enough 

CDBG funds distributed? 

(5) Does it make sense to deduct the money received from SBA loans and other 

forms of critically needed assistance from the CDBG funds provided to 

storm victims, when these dollars were meant to be a completely separate 

pot of assistance meant to bring our people back home and get our cities 

moving again? 

(6) Is enough being done for people who did not own their homes and our large 

renting population? 

(7) What are some of the differences between Mississippi and Louisiana’s housing programs? 

(a) What are some of the pros and cons for both programs? 

(b) Is either State truly moving as quickly and effectively as they could be 

moving to get money out of the door and into the hands of storm victims? 

(c) How are both States taking care of renters and low income individuals 

through their CDBG funds?

These are questions that are left outstanding from GAO’s preliminary work and 

if GAO cannot answer these questions now, I will ask my colleagues to join me in 

requesting that GAO delve further into the recovery to provide answers in the 

weeks to come. 

I am pleased that once again the Federal Coordinator, Chairman Donald Powell 

has interrupted his schedule to join us. The Chairman has been very responsive to 

Congress, and his reputation for being truly concerned for the rebuilding and for 

truly caring about the people so gravely impacted by catastrophic aftermath of the 

hurricanes precedes him. Chairman Powell has a difficult position. As the Federal 

Coordinator, he is the liaison between the Federal, State, and local actors participating in the recovery activities. GAO has praised the job the Chairman is doing, 

and I agree that he is working hard. However, I question whether the authority he 

was provided by the President is adequate for such a heavy responsibility and hope 

to hear from both GAO and the Chairman on whether they believe the role of the 

Federal Coordinator can be strengthened and most meaningfully used in the years 

to come. 

I am also interested to learn more about what the Chairman thinks are some of 

the challenges facing the recovery, both with regard to the CDBG programs and the 

Public Assistance programs that are being used to deliver vital recovery resources. 

What I hope will not happen is what happens all too often at these hearings, the 

Federal Coordinator comes and tell me everything is alright. Believe me, I know 

that everyone is working hard and doing their best—but everything is not perfect. 

For example, there are over 20,000 Public Works projects currently in different 

phases of being administered in the State of Louisiana, and State and localities 

throughout the Gulf Coast are finding that the original estimates for rebuilding 

were grossly understated by FEMA, I want the Chairman to explain what is being 

done to ensure that the worksheets are updated so that the proper amount of funds 

are provided for these projects. This is just one of a myriad of problems, and they 

all need answers. 

I am equally interested to hear from the State and local panels made up of individuals from Mississippi and Louisiana. It is essential that we begin to foster a dialogue between the actors, which is something I hope to do, with the help of Senator 

Stevens. We need to hear from them, what they’re experiences have been up until 

this point. We need to hear what suggestions they have for the Federal Coordinator, 

and the Coordinator needs to communicate his concerns to them. This hearing, 

through GAO’s work, will provide an excellent overview of the many working parts 

of this recovery. However, a far more critical examination of these policies and programs must be undertaken before we can believe to rest comfortably assured that 

our efforts are the right efforts and are effective. While we did not intend for this 

hearing to get into the weeds of the different programs, we do hope that today we 

can paint a clear picture of what programs are in motion and where problems are 

apparent from the Federal, State, and local levels. 

8

I am excited to begin the work and to lead this new Subcommittee in its effort 

to look after the efforts being made to rebuild the lives of our fellow American citizens. With the help of Senator Stevens, we can make sure that we are adequately 

prepared to respond to a disaster or catastrophe—whether it occurs in Louisiana or 

Alaska, Seattle, Miami, or any where else in this country. I would like to turn it 

over to the Ranking Member Senator Stevens for his opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS 

Senator STEVENS. Well, thank you very much. I am delighted to 

join you on this new Subcommittee, and I would ask you to put my 

opening statement in the record also. 

In a State like ours, which is one-fifth the size of the United 

States and half the coastline of the United States, we have disasters almost daily. And we understand the problems that you have 

just outlined. I did take a trip, as you know, one of the first trips 

down to your area, and I was appalled at the damage I saw and 

some of the failures of the systems that were there that should 

have prevented some of that damage. But I am anxious to go 

through some of the findings as a result of this disaster with you 

and to see what we can do to prevent a repetition of the type of 

losses your area has suffered. 

But I also am very interested in trying to find ways to have a 

better warning system for disasters, to have a better system of 

preparation for people to know where they can go when there is a 

disaster, to really have disaster coordinators available on a basis 

before the emergencies exist. 

We know areas which are prone to particular types of disasters. 

We are earthquake prone, and most people do not know we had a 

typhoon off the northwest coast of Alaska not too long ago. It is the 

first one in history. 

There is change going on in our climate. I think some of those 

things can be prevented from becoming disasters if we understand 

them and try to work in advance. 

So I am delighted you are willing to take this on. I am happy 

to work with you and am looking forward to the testimony today. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Stevens follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS 

I am pleased to be here with my colleague Senator Landrieu for the inaugural 

hearing of the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery discussing the Gulf Coast recovery efforts. 

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank the GAO for giving us a preview of 

their report, which I understand will be available by June. I am sure all of us here 

today will be interested in your findings. 

I also wanted to thank the Federal Coordinator and all of the local and State officials here today for taking the time to come here to assist us in understanding the 

current situation in the Gulf Coast region. 

I, and my fellow Alaskans, understand your plight. The most powerful earthquake 

ever measured in North America, the Good Friday earthquake, had its epicenter in 

Prince William Sound less than 75 miles from Anchorage causing extensive regional 

damage. Our State must face the full gambit of natural disasters from earthquakes 

to tsunamis to forest fires to volcanoes. We understand your situation and want to 

help. 

When regional disasters such as these occur, the Federal Government must step 

in to provide assistance and expertise. Effective and efficient rebuilding cannot 

occur, however, without a partnership among the Federal, State, and local governments. 

I am eager to hear how this partnership is progressing, both to better address the 

situation in the Gulf Coast region and to better prepare ourselves for future events.

9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Czerwinski appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Let us begin with our first panel. We have received a report, which I have read in detail, and I am pleased to 

have the Director of Strategic Issues with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), with us, Stanley Czerwinski. I am very 

happy to have you with us, and, of course, Chairman Don Powell, 

who is the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding, who has 

a tremendous amount of hands-on experience and has been a pleasure to work with through these last almost 2 years now, it will be 

in August. 

So why don’t we begin, Mr. Czerwinski, with your testimony, 

please. 

TESTIMONY OF STANLEY J. CZERWINSKI,1 DIRECTOR OF 

STRATEGIC ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Madam Chairman and Senator Stevens, thank 

you for asking GAO to assist you with oversight of the rebuilding 

of the Gulf Coast. As you mentioned in your opening statement, 

Madam Chairman, you are absolutely right. This could take years, 

maybe decades, and the rebuilding challenge promises to surpass 

the challenges faced in the immediate response and recovery. 

In such a time, congressional oversight becomes especially important, and at your request, what we have done is try to analyze 

some of the key challenges facing you and today give you some preliminary observations. Our goal is to help you try to set an agenda 

for oversight of this area. 

Today what I would like to do is to focus on three issues: First 

of all, the resources needed to rebuild the Gulf Coast; second is the 

mechanisms that the Federal Government has to deliver those resources; and, third, the partnerships that are going to be needed 

to be put in place among the Federal Government, State and local 

governments, and private for-profit and nonprofit players to make 

this happen. 

CBO estimates the loss in the Gulf Coast at between $70 and 

$130 billion. That is a very conservative estimate because the key 

word there is ‘‘loss’’—not what it takes to rebuild. There are other 

reputable estimates that run as high as 50 to 100 percent higher 

than that amount. Regardless of what number you choose, the bottom line is that the problem is huge, and it is going to take the 

concerted effort and investment of the Federal Government, State 

and local partners, and the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. 

Congress has already made available over $110 billion to the 

Gulf Coast. The vast majority of that money, though, has gone into 

the immediate response and recovery, with a much smaller amount 

going into rebuilding. The good news is that the money that is out 

there for building today is enough to address what you are facing 

today, though not necessarily in the future. The bad news is that 

the money is not getting into the hands of those who need it fast 

enough. It is like if you are driving in your car and your gas gauge 

says the tank is reading pretty good, but yet your engine light is 

coming on and saying, ‘‘We are not getting enough gas.’’ You do not 

know which to believe. In this case, you believe both. 

10

What I would like to do is talk a little bit about the mechanisms 

being used to deliver the money to the Gulf Coast. 

Faced with the need to get money to the Gulf Coast very quickly, 

the Congress did the prudent thing. It looked at vehicles it had on 

the shelf to deliver money, and essentially there were three. Today 

I want to focus on two of them, primarily: One is FEMA’s Public 

Assistance Program and the other is HUD’s Community Development Block Program. 

Before I do that, I wanted to spend a second on the other piece, 

and that is, GO Zones. GO Zones are tax credits. The tax credits 

are very good at making deals come together, but they are not very 

good at starting the project. They are the sweetener that can make 

it finally happen. 

If you look at what has been used for GO Zone credits, right now 

you will find very little. But I urge you not to use that as a measure of the sense of the quality of that mechanism and to think 

about what you are going to need going forward, because it actually 

will complement the other two mechanisms I want to talk about 

today. 

The two major vehicles I want to talk about are Public Assistance in FEMA’s program and CDBG, which is part of HUD. 

Public Assistance is project based, essentially going to State and 

local governments to help them rebuild their public infrastructure—buildings, utilities, roads, etc. Because it is project based, it 

has very specific rules that the State and locals have to follow and 

a very detailed process. This has certain strengths. It helps ensure 

the Federal Government that it is not paying more than it should. 

It also keeps you from doing projects that should not be or overbuilding. But there is also a cost to this because it is a very cumbersome, time-consuming process. 

Madam Chairman, as you noted in your opening statement, there 

are disasters and there are catastrophic disasters. Public Assistance is best used in typical disasters, and it works best looking at 

a specific project. When you start to have a whole area that is destroyed, you start to run into some problems with Public Assistance: Because it looks at particular structure, it does not look at 

the comprehensive piece. Then what the State and locals find 

themselves doing is going through a lot of effort to try to get just 

one particular piece that may or may not make sense in the overall 

scheme. 

An example would be if an area had a police station in one area, 

say a courthouse in another, and a jail in another. Under Public 

Assistance, they would get funding for each individual piece, where 

it is, to rebuild it the way it was. If you have to rebuild all three 

at once, it may make sense to bring it together, and you could do 

it a little bit more efficiently. It is very hard to do this under the 

Public Assistance Program. 

The Community Development Block Grant Program is the exact 

opposite of that. It is money that is given to State and local governments with wide discretion, and in the case of Mississippi and Louisiana, they chose to do the same thing. And it was actually, I 

think, the right thing. They focused on housing, particularly homeownership. 

11

In this case, what becomes important is to look at how the States 

have actually implemented it, because once the Federal Government gives them money, it is really up to the States to do what 

they want with it. 

Louisiana and Mississippi faced very different circumstances. As 

you know, the major challenge in Louisiana is the population loss. 

The people are gone. You want to bring them back. In Mississippi, 

it is more an issue of stock. How do you rebuild the housing stock? 

So it is not surprising that both States chose different programs. 

I know you have a representative from the Louisiana Recovery 

Authority (LRA) up here later today, so I will not go into much detail on that program. I will leave it to Ms. Fraiche, except to say 

that Louisiana came up with a catch-all program that says let’s 

bring everybody home and let’s try to rebuild. 

Mississippi took a much more targeted approach, and what they 

did was in two phases. The first phase is for homeowners who were 

outside the floodplain and, therefore, did not have flood insurance, 

but because the extent of surge from Hurricane Katrina was so 

large, they actually lost their homes. These are people who did everything they should. They had private insurance, but not flood insurance. This program is designed to make them whole. It is very 

easy to identify those people and to reach those people, and Mississippi has. They are virtually done with phase one. The second 

phase, though, of Mississippi’s program is much more challenging 

in that it is trying to get everybody else, i.e., low and moderate 

homeowners, those who were uninsured and underinsured. In that 

case, Mississippi has not distributed any benefits yet. That phase 

of the program really has not started. 

At this Subcommittee’s request, we are beginning a review of the 

CDBG program and how it is implemented by the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, and we will be reporting more to you later. 

I would now like to turn to the role of the Federal Gulf Coast 

Coordinator. We have spent a lot of time on the Gulf Coast, and 

we have done a lot of talking to State people and local people in 

Louisiana and Mississippi, and we have heard one thing uniformly 

from them: They tell us this man is doing a great job. They have 

very high praise for him. They say that he and his staff are engaged, hands-on, on the ground, and making improvements. 

What I would say is that improvements in my characterization 

are at the micro level. When there is a problem, they trouble-shoot 

it. When there is an issue, they push it forward. When there is a 

challenge, they raise it. They are working with State and local governments to help them get their message across. For example, Louisiana officials told us that the Office of the Coordinator helped 

them make the case to the Federal Government that they needed 

more CDBG funds, and they got it. That is exactly the right approach that we would say for this stage of rebuilding. However, we 

are about to hit a critical stage of rebuilding that requires us to 

think about where we want to go beyond this. 

I mentioned different funding streams coming together: Public 

Assistance for infrastructure, CDBG for housing, GO Zones for economic development. Right now those streams and those delivery 

mechanisms are all working in isolation. 

12

To give you an example, if you want people to come back, you 

have to rebuild the homes. But if you do not have the infrastructure there along with the homes, they still will not come back. Or 

if they do come back but you do not have economic development, 

what will they come back to? 

So the challenge then is to bring together these different pieces 

in a concerted way, and also to bring it together with the players 

who really have to take responsibility. It is not just a Federal program. It is the responsibility of those on the Gulf Coast. 

There is a lot of interplay going on between the communities, 

and, Madam Chairman, you know the area much better than I do. 

For example, we were speaking to the CAO in St Bernard’s Parish, 

and he told us, ‘‘We have a plan to rebuild, but we realize that anything that we do is inextricably linked to what New Orleans does.’’

What we would suggest is that there is a need to look at the vehicles that we are using to provide the funding and the partnerships at the State and local level together and to come up with essentially a coordinated approach. In this regard, we believe that 

the Federal Coordinator is in a unique position. He has built up 

good will. He is highly respected and now has an opportunity to 

shape where things go in the future. 

How do we bring the resources together? How do we essentially 

increase the partnerships among the various parties and then leverage private investment? Today, in giving the coordinator a 

chance to talk about his role, I think that the Subcommittee is giving him an opportunity to articulate his vision of where he wants 

this to evolve and what we can do to help it. 

In sum, we believe that Congress has done a very good job of 

using the tools at hand to deliver benefits so far. The mechanisms 

that we are using do have some limitations. In the future, there 

may be more need for resources, but right now the major challenge 

is getting the resources to those who need them. Before we address 

the need for more resources we need a concerted vision, a strategy, 

a goal, that not only talks about how we deliver the money but also 

what the partnerships of the Gulf Coast do. 

In this environment, we believe that congressional oversight is 

especially important, and we are very appreciative of you asking us 

to help you. As you go forward, we are ready to help you with any 

kind of work that you would like us to do, and we look forward to 

working with you throughout. 

That concludes my statement, Madam Chairman. I would be 

happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much, and we will have some 

questions. 

I would like to turn to Don Powell, who is the coordinator, in just 

a moment, and refer the Subcommittee Members that, as you all 

are aware, GAO is a great resource for us, and they have already 

conducted and completed, as of my last review, approximately 25 

to 30 individual reports on individual subjects related to this disaster response and recovery. So I recommend them to the core staff 

and Members of the Subcommittee. 

Mr. Powell. 

13

1The prepared statement of Mr. Powell appears in the Appendix on page 56. 

TESTIMONY OF DONALD E. POWELL,1 FEDERAL COORDINATOR FOR GULF COAST REBUILDING, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. POWELL. Thank you. Good afternoon, Subcommittee Chairman Landrieu, Ranking Member Stevens, and distinguished Members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery. I am Don Powell, and I am 

pleased to appear before you today as the Federal Coordinator of 

Gulf Coast Rebuilding. I am here today to discuss the progress we 

have made in the Gulf Coast region and both the challenges and 

opportunities we face in this unprecedented domestic recovery, as 

well as the long-term rebuilding effort. 

Before I begin my testimony, I would like to thank Senator 

Landrieu for inviting me here today. I understand this is the inaugural hearing for the newly formed Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, and I am honored to be on its first witness panel. 

Although Senator Landrieu and I were introduced by Hurricane 

Katrina, we have developed a dynamic working relationship and, 

more importantly to me, a deep friendship based on honesty and 

mutual respect. Our shared vision and work for New Orleans and 

the great State of Louisiana has been based on common principles 

and has remained above partisan discourse. And for that, Senator, 

I am grateful. 

In the aftermath of the most powerful and destructive natural 

disaster in our Nation’s history, President Bush created the Office 

of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding and asked me 

to coordinate the long-term Federal rebuilding effort in support of 

State and local officials. 

The President is committed to supporting the local recovery and 

rebuilding efforts in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and 

Texas from the damage sustained from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, 

and Wilma in 2005. The entire Gulf Coast region is of great historical, cultural, and economic importance to this country, and we 

strive to ensure that State and local governments have the resources they need to help the residents get back on their feet. 

Whole communities were ravaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 

but I am confident that together we will see a better tomorrow for 

our fellow Americans in these affected areas. 

Fundamentally, my job is to ensure that the Federal Government 

provides thoughtful, coordinated, and effective support to the State 

and local leaders who are driving the long-term rebuilding and renewal of the Gulf Coast. I do this by working closely with the people in the affected regions, including stakeholders from the public, 

private, and nonprofit sectors to identify and prioritize the needs 

for long-term rebuilding. I then communicate those realities to the 

decisionmakers in Washington, advising the President and his 

leadership team on the most effective, integrated, and fiscally responsible strategies for full and vibrant recovery. Finally, I work 

with other Federal agencies to help ensure the successful implementation of these strategies. 

President Bush has made a commitment that the Federal Government would be a full partner in the recovery and rebuilding of 

14

the areas devastated by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, and he is 

keeping that promise. To date, the Federal Government has committed more than $110 billion for the recovery effort through programs as varied as HUD’s Community Development Block Grants, 

funding the Corps of Engineers, FEMA Public Assistance funding 

for infrastructure, Small Business Administration loans, and Department of Education and Department of Labor Federal grant 

funding, just to name a few. This figure does not include the cost 

of the GO Zone tax legislation from which some provisions were extended to the end of the 109 Congress at the President’s urging. 

This Administration also understands the importance of being 

good stewards of the substantial amount of taxpayers’ money that 

has been spent on this effort. We rely on State, local, and congressional oversight and accountability mechanisms in place to assist 

in the protection of the American taxpayer. If Americans see their 

tax dollars being ill spent, their support, which is critical, will 

wane. It is my duty to review the various plans and strategies 

brought to us from the region to ensure that they are conducive to 

the prudent, effective, and appropriate investment of taxpayer dollars. 

It has now been over 18 months since Hurricane Katrina tore 

through an area of the Gulf Coast equivalent to the size of Great 

Britain. A few weeks later, Hurricane Rita followed Hurricane 

Katrina’s path into the Gulf of Mexico and then made landfall on 

the coast of Texas and Louisiana. In many towns and communities 

along the Gulf Coast, we have been pleased and even encouraged 

by the progress being made. For today’s purposes, I will focus 

mainly upon my work in Mississippi and Louisiana. 

The President has made it abundantly clear that the vision and 

plans for rebuilding the entire Gulf Coast should take a bottom-up 

approach that starts from local and State leadership, not from 

Washington, DC. Rebuilding should be an exercise in coordinated, 

thoughtful, and prudent planning, but not centralized planning. 

In that spirit, Governors Blanco and Barbour brought together 

diverse and talented teams tasked with rebuilding their respective 

States. Governor Blanco formed the Louisiana Recovery Authority 

(LRA) and Governor Barbour formed the Mississippi Development 

Authority (MDA). Our office has worked well and tirelessly with 

both the LRA and MDA to assist them in finding the best pathways to success, and we will continue to do so until they no longer 

request our assistance. 

From the beginning, the people of Louisiana all agreed that levees were paramount to the revitalization of New Orleans, and the 

President made it clear that public safety is a critical part of the 

long-term rebuilding in that area. People must feel safe and secure 

in their decisions to come back, whether as a resident or a business 

owner. President Bush promised a better and stronger hurricane 

protection system, and the current New Orleans levee system is far 

better than it was before Hurricane Katrina. But our work is still 

ongoing. Specifically, the President requested and secured nearly 

$6 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair and enhance the levees and the entire hurricane protection system. The 

planned improvements will be the best, most comprehensive system even known by New Orleans. 

15

It should be noted, however, that hurricane and flood damage reduction systems have one primary purpose: To reduce risk. There 

will never be a guarantee that the risks are completely eliminated, 

and this is especially true for the areas like New Orleans that are 

below sea level. It is simply not possible to design a system that 

will eliminate all risk of flooding from every conceivable storm or 

track of storm imaginable. Each and every storm has its own 

unique characteristics, from storm surge to wind speed to length of 

storm. 

Given this reality, it is important for citizens to take precautions 

to safeguard their homes and their lives by utilizing safe building 

standards and adhering to at least the minimum required base 

flood elevations, carrying property and flood insurance, demanding 

a meaningful evacuation plan from their State and local officials, 

and following that evacuation plan when instructed to do so. 

The most pressing need for Federal assistance in both Louisiana 

and Mississippi was housing. The Community Development Block 

Grants Program was chosen because it is a well tested mechanism 

for a long-term disaster recovery that provides the State with the 

greatest flexibility in how funds may be spent. This flexibility is 

one of the primary attributes of the CDBG funds because it allows 

State leaders, those closest to the local issues, to make the decisions on where to best use the money. 

Both Louisiana and Mississippi used their CDBG funds to establish a homeowner grants program to assist their citizens in rebuilding. The Louisiana Recovery authority established the Road Home 

Program, and Mississippi utilized the Homeowner Assistance Program. 

To help communities replenish their funds spent on public infrastructure, there is FEMA’s Public Assistance Program. Historically, 

this process has worked well, but the size and scale of Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita made the program more sluggish than people 

along the Gulf Coast would like. To that end, and at our urging, 

several months ago FEMA made significant changes in its operations in Louisiana and Mississippi in an effort to streamline processes and hasten the delivery of Public Assistance funding to applicants seeking to rebuild infrastructure. 

In Louisiana, for example, FEMA increased staffing of experienced personnel and added an experienced senior public assistance 

officer dedicated to each parish. FEMA has also reduced average 

processing of grants from many months to several weeks by removing bottlenecks and creating better reports to track the status and 

progress of Project Worksheets (PW). We also continue our work 

with our State partners so that they may find ways to expedite 

their respective processes as well. 

President Bush is committed to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, and 

rebuilding it better and stronger than it was before Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita. A tremendous amount of progress has been 

achieved and a tremendous amount of work still lies ahead. We 

move forward each day determined to ensure that the Federal Government continues to do its part to support and strengthen the 

State and local leaders who must drive the rebuilding effort. 

I am confident that when history writes the book on Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita, it will be a story of renewal. The Gulf Coast 

16

States and its leaders have a chance to restore their communities 

and revive hope and opportunity. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Chairman Powell. 

I would like to now recognize Senator Carper, who has joined us. 

We thank him very much for being a part of this Subcommittee, 

and we would like to start now the first round of 5 minutes each. 

And then if we go to a second round, then to our next panel. 

Let me begin, if I could, Mr. Czerwinski, with you. You men- tioned the $110 billion, and that is a number that is thrown around 

here a lot for different reasons, but we will leave those aside. I 

would like to just get clear for the record if you could, say, break 

down the $110 billion, as you did in your testimony but repeat it. 

How much has gone for immediate short-term individual assistance, how much for the insurance, which people paid premiums for, 

although the program came up? And what has been basically the 

remaining for the rebuilding effort? You said most of the money 

has gone for the short term, a smaller amount for the long term, 

and could you be a little bit more clear about those numbers? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Sure, Senator Landrieu. When it comes to disasters, it is very difficult to come up with precise accounting of 

funds because of the way that it is budgeted. A lot of the money 

goes into what they call a Disaster Relief Fund and it gets mixed 

together for various purposes. So what I will talk about is rough 

magnitudes. 

Of the major pieces that go into rebuilding, as Chairman Powell 

mentioned, the single major piece is Community Development 

Block Grants, and that one runs about $17 billion, so we know that 

piece is exactly for rebuilding. 

There is a segment of the Public Assistance Program, as I mentioned, that goes to rebuilding. That is harder to tease out because 

it gets mixed in for other processes like debris removal. So that is 

harder to figure out. But it is certainly not larger than what is 

going out in Community Development Block Grants. 

And then there are a few other pieces. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, it is very important for the country to 

understand this, so if you want to present this testimony to the 

Subcommittee in a different way, then you can. But it is very important for us to have on the record of this Subcommittee as much 

as we can where this $110 billion has gone to, to date, so we can 

arrive at whether we have spent enough or not spent enough or 

what it is going to. So I think for the purposes here, we can say 

that not much more than $16 billion has gone to the long-term recovery. It could be another half of that amount or—would that be 

fair? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. That is probably fair. 

Senator LANDRIEU. I do not want to lead you here. 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. That is probably a fair rough magnitude to talk 

about. 

Senator LANDRIEU. We know that $23 billion went to flood, and, 

Chairman Powell, if you have these numbers? 

Mr. POWELL. Yes, I do. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Twenty-three billion dollars went to flood. 

The rest of it basically went to immediate emergency shelter, individual temporary assistance in the direct aftermath of the disaster 

17

because of the multitude, millions of people involved in that evacuation, re-sheltering effort, etc. Is that correct? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. That is correct, Madam Chairman. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. In your statement, you talked about the 

most flexible program, the Community Development Block Grant 

initiative. As you will recall, our delegation—I will use this word 

carefully, but it is kind of what we were doing—flailing around, 

looking for what might work in a situation that appeared to all of 

us to overwhelm what was currently available and came upon the 

Community Development Block Grant, looking for a more quick, 

flexible way to get money to Mississippi and Louisiana, because we 

were not able to identify any other mechanisms through FEMA or 

HUD, even though that goes through HUD, but others to do it. And 

I think given the choices we had, we made the best choice. 

Are there today impediments—and what are they, one or two impediments—to that Community Development Block Grant program 

that is keeping the money that you said from getting to the people 

at the other end that need them? And, Chairman Powell, if you 

want to jump in and answer this question as well. But would you 

identify the barriers? Or do they not exist? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Well, first of all, you did a very good job in picking Community Development Block Grants. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Well, I don’t know if we did, but——

Mr. CZERWINSKI. In our sense, that is a very good way of delivering money, and HUD has done a good job of coming up with a 

way to expedite that funding. 

Where there is an issue is in the balance between determining 

accountability on one end and getting recipients and benefits on 

the other, and, frankly, the State has struggled some with that. 

And in this regard, lately HUD has stepped in and provided some 

technical assistance because this is something that HUD does 

every day, with varying degrees of success. But that is probably the 

major issue—determining how much verification you need versus 

how much need there is to get the benefits to people. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Powell, do you want to add anything? 

Mr. POWELL. Yes. I think clearly that the CDBG offered the best 

vehicle for flexibility. I think it is important that we recognize that 

these programs were designed by the State, with the State’s need, 

and that is the reason you find the State of Louisiana’s plan a little 

bit different than the State of Mississippi’s. They are developed by 

the States. 

What you may be referring to, Senator, is the issue as it relates 

to the 10 percent—I will just bring it up, the 10 percent about the 

‘‘red tape’’——

Senator LANDRIEU. Good, because I was going to ask you about 

that. 

Mr. POWELL. Yes. And it is law that both HUD and FEMA have 

to follow different courses as it relates to, for instance, environmental charges. 

But at the end of the day, these plans are designed by the State. 

They are designed by the State, and we in our office are in constant contact with those people to make sure that there is no impediment, that the Federal Government is not an impediment to 

18

making sure that those things run smoothly, as smoothly as they 

should. 

Senator LANDRIEU. My time is up. Senator Stevens. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, I would ask you, Mr. Powell, what would 

you think about having these areas that are disaster prone have 

Federal Coordinators in advance, having them be part of the preparation for and activities regarding to prevention of damage should 

the disasters occur? 

Mr. POWELL. I have thought about that, Senator, and every catastrophic event, especially one such as this one—incidentally, I have 

not found a way to describe this one that appropriately describes 

it—is unique. And it may be best—I think clearly we have learned 

some lessons from this, and I think we have changed the way we 

do business. 

I don’t know if it would be good business to have someone in 

place before. I think it is more important to make sure that we 

have procedures and policies and regulations in place that will 

speak to the immediate relief and understanding some things that 

maybe we can do better the next time around. I think it is important that we have policies, procedures, and laws in place, perhaps 

more than having a coordinator in place. I think the coordinator 

really plays a role more in the long-term recovery, and I think it 

is important for us to distinguish between long-term and immediate relief. 

Senator STEVENS. Well, my mind goes back to one of the major 

floods we had, and I found that as we recovered, we had the Small 

Business Administration in one place, we had the Red Cross in another, we had the State welfare people here, and we had FEMA 

there. And people did not have their cars anyway. We took it upon 

ourselves to find a mall, and we put these people all in the same 

place, and we provided some transportation to bring people to 

there. And so they were coordinated in terms of what efforts, what 

assistance might be available to help them recover from the activities. 

Another one I go back to, I remember James Lee Witt with 

FEMA, and we had a monstrous fire, and it was beginning of 

spring. We had some rental allowances for them to go live in town 

until the houses were built. We looked at it and said, Well, why 

don’t we just give you the allowances. You can rent a trailer for 

your own house and you can be there and supervise your rebuilding. Another place we organized and went to schools and churches, 

and we had prepositioned disaster recovery—blankets, etc.—already out there. 

Now, it does seem to me that in most instances we wait until it 

is over to find out what people need, and we do not have 

prepositioned activities, we do not have prior coordination methods. 

There was no reason for these people to have to go four different 

places to determine which one is going to help them after a disaster. 

Now, you cannot anticipate what happened in New Orleans unless you went down and took a look at some of the faulty design 

of some of those flood barriers. But the concepts that are involved 

in it are the same. When we were down there, they were having 

to find some way to go 3 and 5 miles apart to find out what assistVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 27, 2008 Jkt 035524 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\35524.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
19

ance is going to be made available to them from any particular 

agency when they should have had some coordination prior to it, 

saying if there is a disaster, this is what is going to happen. 

As a matter of fact, we at one time under the Stafford Act required disaster pre-planning and had a plan in effect to be executed. Those unfortunately fell apart. 

I remember once we went to the Valdez with Senator McClelland 

and the whole Appropriations Committee, looking at the situation 

as far as the pipeline was concerned there, and we asked what 

would happen if there was an oil spill from one of these tankers. 

And they came out with these small boats, and they actually 

dumped about 200 dozen tennis balls in the water, and they had 

these skimmers to pick them up that showed us what would happen. Well, 15 years later, it happened, but no one knew where even 

the tennis balls were. And we now have in our areas citizens advisory committees that advise on how to prepare, how to execute the 

rescue and recovery activities should a disaster happen. Why 

shouldn’t that be national? 

Mr. POWELL. I think the National Response Plan is for immediate Federal response. The State government also has a role, and 

it is critical in those procedures, and I think it is a partnership. 

And that is the reason we can probably do a better job in coordinating with the State. 

However, my focus, again, is on long-term rebuilding, but I think 

there is no question that coordination, both at the State level and 

the local level and the Federal Government, could be better. 

Senator STEVENS. It is taking a long time down there in Senator 

Landrieu’s place to decide what the design of these new houses are 

going to be and how they are going to have to be constructed in 

this recovery period. Don’t you think that could have been planned 

in advance, too? 

Mr. POWELL. Absolutely. I do, Senator. I think it is important 

that somehow we empower people to make decisions. I think that 

is critically important, make decisions on the ground, understanding that sometimes those decisions are going to be poor and 

they are going to exercise poor judgment. But sometimes the culture is such that no one wants to make a decision. 

Senator STEVENS. Do you work under FEMA? 

Mr. POWELL. No, sir. I work with FEMA. We are part of DHS. 

Senator STEVENS. Thank you very much. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One of the reasons that some of the decisions were hard to make 

is because no one could really make them without the flood maps, 

and the flood maps, which are being designed by the Federal Government for Louisiana and Mississippi, are not even yet complete, 

and it is 18 months. So before someone can rebuild a house, they 

need to have an elevation. They do not have their elevation, so it 

is very difficult. That is just one of a dozen things that are, I think, 

holding people up. So either people like me who can make quick 

decisions are having a hard time. 

Go ahead, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

20

Gentlemen, welcome. We are delighted that you are here. Thank 

you for your stewardship. 

Mr. Powell, you spoke about the kind of working relationship, 

good working relationship that you and the folks who work for you 

have developed with our Chairman, and I think that speaks volumes really for both of you. And it inures to the benefit of the folks 

that she represents and the folks that pay our salaries. 

Senator Landrieu has dragged, I think, most of us down to New 

Orleans in the months since Hurricane Katrina struck there, and 

when I was down a year or so ago, we had another Subcommittee 

hearing, and I may touch on a couple things that we covered at 

that Subcommittee hearing. 

But we got in a helicopter and we ended up flying down around 

the coastal wetlands to see really how they are disappearing and 

to have a better understanding of how dramatically their disappearance is going to affect the future of New Orleans and other 

surrounding neighborhoods and communities. 

Let me just ask you, if I could, how have concerns about the 

Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to rebuild levees in New Orleans 

and to restore the coastal wetlands affected the recovery effort? 

Have doubts about the Corps’ ability to build a reliable product 

played a role in keeping residents from returning home? 

Mr. POWELL. It is critical, Senator. The safety of the citizens in 

that area is the most important thing. I can recall when I first 

went down there, and I came back and visited with the Administration. I said there are three issues in New Orleans: One is levees, 

two is levees, and three is levees. It is critical. 

The integrity of the levee system is of paramount importance, 

and I know that the Corps of Engineers understand their charge 

and their responsibility. I think they did extraordinary work right 

after the storm in repairing the breaches, inspecting the 220-mile 

levee system for any weakness in making those repairs. The levee 

system is better and stronger today than it was before Hurricane 

Katrina. The President is committed to making sure that this levee 

system is better than it has ever been. 

Shortly, there will be the results of a study that has been in the 

marketplace for some time that will model storms, and that study 

will be the plan that the Corps will use in order to build and protect against a 100-year flood. And that should be out within the 

next 30 to 60 days. 

So the Corps is committed and this Administration is committed 

to rebuilding the levee system to the 100-year flood protection. 

Senator CARPER. You mentioned the No. 1 issue is levees, No. 2, 

levees, No. 3, levees. Would No. 4 be coastal wetlands and rebuilding the coastal wetlands? 

Mr. POWELL. The whole hurricane protection system, which 

would include the wetlands. Incidentally, that is another reason—

and Senator Landrieu worked very hard, I can assure you. She was 

passionate about this. 

Senator CARPER. I have noticed. 

Mr. POWELL. Well, what I am about to say is that this President 

led the effort for the revenue sharing, and I think the State legislature and the people of Louisiana have dedicated the income from 

that to restore the wetlands. So hurricane protection includes the 

21

wetlands and the levee system and the whole hurricane protection 

system. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Mr. Czerwinski, do you have any comments on my question? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. I think the point that you make, Senator Carper, talks about the interlocking nature of anything that we do so 

that when we look at the different aspects of rebuilding, we have 

to look at them as they affect one another. So you are absolutely 

right when you talk about the wetlands being a priority, but it also 

has to be fitting in with the way that the State and local governments want to go about doing all developments not just in wetland 

areas. They have to be partnering in that. 

Senator CARPER. Alright. Thanks. 

Another committee that I serve on, the Banking Committee, is 

chaired by Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and we held hearings a day or so ago, and we focused on flood insurance. And, Mr. 

Powell, I think you mentioned somewhere in your testimony that 

people have got to be responsible in how they rebuild by carrying 

flood insurance, and there is a requirement, actually, in a lot of 

places to have it. Not all the lenders are actually doing what they 

ought to be doing under the law, but can you give us any information about the availability of flood insurance and maybe other 

forms of homeowners’ insurance in the area that we are talking 

about? 

Mr. POWELL. Well, in designated areas that are designated flood 

areas, flood insurance is available through the government. It is an 

issue that we in our office have been dealing with for some time. 

We assembled the CEOs of the major insurance companies in 

America, a year or so ago. 

As you mentioned, it is important that local people establish 

building codes to make sure the buildings codes are sufficient. I 

think insurance companies are looking at that. 

It is also important to understand, in my view, that insurance is 

a State issue and it is a marketplace issue. Its affordability is an 

issue along the entire Gulf. This is not unique to Louisiana and 

Mississippi, as you know, and Florida and the whole coastal line. 

But it is a market issue and one that we believe that the market 

in time, together with working with the State, will resolve. 

Senator CARPER. Madam Chairman, thank you. Gentlemen, 

thank you very much for your testimony. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. 

If the Subcommittee would allow me just to follow up with a few 

more questions, then we will go on to our next panel. And if you 

have others for this panel, please jump in. But I need to follow up, 

though, with you, Chairman Powell. As well as we work together, 

and we do, and respect each other, we have very different opinions 

about certain things, and I want to follow up on this levee issue. 

You say in your testimony, ‘‘President Bush promised a better 

and stronger hurricane protection system.’’ This statement seems 

inconsistent, however, with the Administration’s recent request to 

shift $1.3 billion previously allocated between levee projects instead 

of authorizing an additional $1.3 billion. 

22

This Congress has put the $1.3 billion back in the budget. The 

President says he has issued a veto threat saying it is neither necessary and it is extraneous and it is not cost-effective. 

I know you have to carry the President’s message, but what 

would you say if I argued with you that his words are not matching 

his budget documents? 

Mr. POWELL. Senator, let the record also reflect that I am a New 

Orleans Saints fan. I am not a Cowboy fan. 

Senator LANDRIEU. See how he tries to divert. 

Senator CARPER. He is good. [Laughter.] 

Senator LANDRIEU. He is good, but I am not going to let him off 

the hook. 

Senator CARPER. We can learn from him. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Yes. 

Mr. POWELL. I spend a lot of time briefing the President on the 

Gulf Coast area. Without question, there is no reservation in my 

mind he is committed to building the levee system better and 

stronger than it has ever been. There is no question in my mind 

that he is committed to spending the necessary money to protect 

the people against a 100-year flood. No question in my mind. 

The vehicle, as I understand it, the reason for transferring the 

$1.3 billion from one supplemental to another supplemental—and 

I am not a legislative person, and I do not understand the mechanics of that, but I do understand his commitment—was to make sure 

that work did not cease and to make sure that work would continue and would not stop. Because as I understand it, when Congress appropriates it, it appropriates it for specific issues. The way 

I describe it in my simple mind, you have five or six checkbooks 

and you can only write a check out of that account for specific 

areas. So when that checkbook has a zero balance and this one has 

money in it, we want to transfer it from that checkbook to that 

checkbook in order that the work would continue. But there is no 

question in my mind about his commitment. 

Senator LANDRIEU. You have described the process, but I have to 

get on the record that the checkbook system only works if you have 

someone actually filling in when all the checkbooks go down to 

zero, with the appropriate amount of money. Now, if you start off 

short $1 billion, it does not matter how much is in each checkbook, 

because at the end you are still going to be $1 billion short, and 

that is my problem and that is our problem. 

We are $1.3 billion short, and we cannot get this money, if it is 

moved, out of the regular appropriations, and I will tell you why. 

The total appropriations for the entire United States of America for 

new construction for the Corps of Engineers is only $1.5 billion. So 

I most certainly cannot be put in the position as the appropriator 

representing Louisiana to go ask the Committee for all the money 

they have for this levee project. And I am not going to do it. 

So I need you to take this message back to the President. This 

money has to come to us through emergency supplemental. It can 

come in this emergency supplemental or another one. I cannot fund 

this through regular appropriations, and he needs to ask for it. And 

if he does not, we will put it in the supplemental. 

The other thing I want to ask—and then I am going to go on to 

the other panel—is on the 10-percent waiver. You mentioned it, 

23

Mr. Czerwinski, and I need to let the Subcommittee Members and 

the staff focus on this, 10 percent of all of the FEMA Public Assistance money, correct? Because it is a 90–10 split. 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Correct. 

Senator LANDRIEU. We have asked for a waiver of that 10 percent to expedite these projects because every elected official along 

the Gulf Coast for the most part, that I know of—and if there is 

one that has not put his name to this, then please let me know. 

But everyone I have talked to—big city mayors, little city mayors—

says that this 10-percent match—it is not that we do not have the 

money. It is the way it is being required to put it up is causing just 

a complete shutdown of these projects. 

So while the money is there, you say—I am not sure I agree—

the money to rebuild, they cannot access it because of our rule. We 

have asked that rule to be waived, and, again, the President is 

blocking it. 

So what would you say to that? And then we are going to go to 

the next panel. 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. We talked to a lot of State and local officials 

about this issue and uniformly heard the same thing, Madam 

Chairman, and that is, when you have a disaster of this magnitude, it becomes virtually impossible for the local governments to 

come up with the up-front money on their own. Their fiscal capacity is down. Their needs are great. 

So what they then have to do is rely on contractors who can essentially front the money for them, i.e., the big contractors. Of 

course, what this means is that the larger contractors know they 

have a position that is to their advantage, and there is a large carrying cost to that. So that is one effect of it. 

The other is that it tends to squeeze out the smaller contractors 

from being able to participate, which are typically your local contractors. So it does have a hamstring effect on getting the projects 

done. 

Senator LANDRIEU. So, to conclude, not only does it increase the 

risk of large contractors who cease to be interested in fronting the 

money when they have not been paid for the last project they did, 

but it also puts a damper on the small local contractors, the ones 

you want to get back in business because they are the ones leading 

their own recovery. Many of these small business owners are trying 

to rebuild their own homes and businesses. Is that correct? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. The way the small contractors would get involved is if it was sub-contracted to them, but then what you are 

doing is you are putting a pyramid in place, which has additional 

costs. And the way the large contractors carry this is they raise 

their bid. If they know they are getting their money later versus 

earlier, and they know that there are not many other games in 

town, then they can charge more for the construction. 

Senator LANDRIEU. And it is true this was waived in September 

11, 2001, and it was waived in the previous disasters, correct? 

Mr. CZERWINSKI. We have issued reports that have shown that 

in other disasters it has been waived. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. Let’s go to the next panel. Thank 

you very much. And if you all could stay to hear this next panel, 

24

I would appreciate it because it is some excellent testimony that we 

are about to receive, unless you have to run. But thank you. 

Thank you all very much. Our next panel is leading members of 

the recovery effort along the Gulf Coast. I will introduce them as 

they are seated here and ask them to summarize their statements 

for the record. I think we are limiting the time to 3 minutes each 

for opening statements and then a round of questions. Let me just 

briefly introduce them: 

Donna Fraiche, who is an outstanding leader in the city of New 

Orleans and is chairing the Long-Term Community Planning Task 

Force for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, is representing herself 

and her committee and also Dr. Norman Francis, who leads the recovery effort for Louisiana. Ms. Fraiche practices law as a member 

of the Health Care and Public Policy Department in New Orleans, 

Baton Rouge, and Washington. She has recently served as Chair of 

the Board of Trustees at Loyola University. She is the treasurer of 

the Louisiana Supreme Court Historical Society, and she has given 

numerous, untold hours to this recovery. 

Ms. Fraiche, we appreciate you being here. 

Our next panelist is the Hon. John Tommy Longo from 

Waveland, Mississippi. Mayor Longo is a lifelong resident of the 

great city of Waveland, of about 10,000 before the storm. He attended St. Stanislaus High School and then studied business at 

Pearl River and Mississippi College. He lived through the storm in 

Waveland with his family and has an amazing story of survival 

and recovery to tell. He will tell part of that today. 

Thank you, Mayor, for being with us and for your bravery and 

your help. 

Dr. Ed Blakely is the Executive Director of Recovery Management of the City of New Orleans, basically recently on board, I 

think for the last 6 months. But he comes with a long history of 

urban and community planning and regional development, most recently chairing the Urban and Regional Planning and Director of 

the Planning Research Centre at the University of Sydney. Prior 

to that he was Dean of the Graduate School at the New School’s 

University; and worked very closely, Senator Stevens, with our 

former colleague, Bob Kerrey, who gave very glowing compliments. 

He previously served as Professor and Chair of the Department of 

City and Regional Planning at the University of California at 

Berkeley and has helped with the recovery on the West Coast and 

also in New York. 

We thank you, Dr. Blakely, for joining us. 

Ernie Broussard is a good friend from the western part of the 

State, from Cameron Parish. Mr. Broussard has been directing the 

efforts of the revitalization, and he chairs the Cameron Parish 

Planning and Development Authority. He has a degree in planning 

and urban design from the University of Southwest Louisiana, and 

he has given some excellent help over the last 18 months to that 

region. He has over 30 years of experience in government, capital 

project management, land use administration, and the parish and 

the region could not have a better person on than Mr. Broussard. 

Plus he is actually a Cajun cowboy, leads the annual rodeo and 

roundup, and I have been to rounding up with him before. 

25

1The prepared statement of Ms. Fraiche appears in the Appendix on page 70. 

And it is good to see you, Mr. Broussard, and thank you for being 

here. 

Ms. Fraiche, why don’t we start with you. 

TESTIMONY OF DONNA D. FRAICHE,1 CHAIRMAN, LONG-TERM 

COMMUNITY PLANNING TASK FORCE, LOUISIANA RECOVERY AUTHORITY 

Ms. FRAICHE. Thank you very much. Madam Chairman, Senator 

Stevens, and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Donna 

Fraiche. I am a long-time resident of New Orleans, Louisiana. I 

have nearly 50 family members, some even on the Mississippi Gulf 

Coast, that were directly affected by the storms, and I have the 

house that everybody is coming to. But I think I am the only one 

here on the panel today not being paid to be here. In my other life, 

I do have a law practice sometimes. 

Thank you so very much for inviting me to speak on behalf of 

the Louisiana Recovery Authority, more commonly known as the 

LRA, about the progress of our recovery and the long-term challenges Louisiana is facing in the aftermaths of these hurricanes—

Katrina and Rita, the two most catastrophic and costly disasters in 

American history. 

In October 2005, the LRA was established by executive order of 

the Governor of the State of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, to plan 

and coordinate recovery efforts and special funding in the aftermath of these catastrophes. The legislature later codified the work 

of this body, and I chair the Long-Term Community Planning Task 

Force. 

The commitment is to rebuild Louisiana safer, stronger, smarter. 

That is our litmus test by which we measure this important work. 

I want to personally thank the Members of this Subcommittee who 

have traveled far to Louisiana to witness firsthand the magnitude 

of the disasters. I would also like to express our sincere gratitude 

to Congress and the American people for their unprecedented generosity. Congress has appropriated $110 billion to help the five 

States hit by the hurricanes in 2005, and we estimate roughly $59 

billion in Federal hurricane response that has been allocated to 

Louisiana. However, most of these funds went to pay for emergency 

response and contractually obligated flood insurance payments to 

policyholders. We are thankful for the estimated $26 billion that 

has been allocated to the State to help us rebuild homes and our 

fiscal infrastructure, but it is important to put that number in perspective as the GAO suggested. 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, exacerbated by the failures of the 

Federal levee systems, which flooded an area 9 times the size of 

Washington, DC, caused an estimated $100 billion in damages to 

homes, properties, businesses, and infrastructure in Louisiana 

alone. Congressional appropriations were about $26 billion, but our 

families and businesses have received $40 billion in insurance payments compared to $100 billion in physical damages, and that 

leaves us with a hole of $35 billion as a gap necessary to rebuild 

South Louisiana. Put another way, it is about $20,000 per household in the State of uncovered losses. 

26

We sustained 77 percent of the Gulf Coast total housing damage, 

22 parishes across South Louisiana were declared disasters, impacting 2 million people. 

But you have called today’s hearing to focus on the progress of 

this recovery and the long-term challenges. Let me address that. It 

would be foolish to ask for Federal assistance without a visionary 

plan for recovery and implementation. 

In an effort to turn this tragedy into opportunity, Louisiana has 

embarked on one of the most ambitious and dynamic planning efforts in our Nation’s history. From the ground up, this combines efforts of local, State, and Federal partners along with experts, 

stakeholders, and citizens in a comprehensive, long-term planning 

known as ‘‘Louisiana Speaks.’’ Unlike most other LRA programs, 

this was funded almost entirely through donations of private citizens and national philanthropic organizations raised through the 

Louisiana Recovery Authority support foundations. With this we 

hired a ‘‘dream team’’ of top professional planners and architects to 

develop best practice resources to support the planning and redevelopment for individuals, neighborhoods, parishes, and regions. 

Through Louisiana Speaks, tens of thousands of citizens across 

South Louisiana, including those that are still displaced, were 

asked and their voices were heard. Acknowledging this immense 

planning task at hand, the State and the LRA began working with 

FEMA to establish long-term community recovery teams in order 

to address parish-level recovery, with supporting implementation of 

prioritized recovery projects by setting aside $200 million in CDBG 

flexible funds currently available to the State. 

Additionally, the board has stated its intention to expand these 

allocations by $550 million if we could just get that 10-percent 

FEMA match waived. 

In addition, funding for these purposes will be one step closer to 

ensuring sustainable long-term recovery for local communities, and 

to give you an example, the LRA helped to secure funding from the 

Rockefeller Foundation to create a citizen-driven, grass-roots plan 

for the entire city of New Orleans, know as UNOP, and we are 

working closely with Dr. Blakely to implement that plan. 

We also put together pattern books used by the architects, the 

contractors, and citizens for approximately 100,000 people in the 

State and tool kits free of charge on how to plan. 

Mother Nature wiped out entire communities where I grew up, 

including St. Bernard, but there is a silver lining to these events 

in that the destruction provided us the opportunity to locate and 

identify where to rebuild safer and smarter. 

We had an extensive public outreach to engage citizens in development of this vision. In fact, we did paper ballots we distributed 

to individuals all over the area and outside in many of the States 

where we focused on five key recovery planning questions, spanning economic development, coastal recovery, growth land use patterns, and risk management property rights. This is the largest 

and most inclusive regional planning outreach ever conducted in 

the United States, and we have gotten tens of thousands of responses—mandates, as it were, for public policy. This includes ballots from displaced residents in 32 different States. The response 

27

rate was even better than after September 11, 2001, where New 

York received 2,000 responses. 

A team of national experts, local planners, and we hope elected 

leaders of the future are now using this data to create a consensusbased vision for South Louisiana, which will be released and delivered to Congress in May 2007. And to make this long-term vision 

a reality, we set aside $50 million in CDBG funds for regional investment projects. But, again, if Congress appropriates additional 

funds or waives the 10-percent FEMA match requirement, this 

board has made its intentions clear that it would use a portion of 

that additional funding to increase the allocations to the separate 

regional investment pools. 

There are three areas where you can make this happen, if I could 

go very quickly and give you those, Senator Landrieu. 

First, Congress needs to waive that 10-percent match in FEMA’s 

Public Assistance. This process is choking us with red tape associated with the monitoring and oversight required by two Federal 

agencies—FEMA and HUD—for 20,000 separate construction 

projects. If nothing changes, we are forced to produce nearly 2.6 

million documents—that is documents, not pages—in order to comply with dual Federal paperwork requirements. We offer a solution 

to this problem in a global match, but so far our recommendations 

have not been heeded. A Federal waiver could cut the red tape in 

half and allow our State to invest some $700 million in CDBG 

funds and other critically needed recovery programs. 

Second, Congress needs to direct FEMA to approve our use of 

hazard mitigation funds in support of the Road Home Program that 

was required by Chairman Powell or transfer the funds to HUD 

where they can be directly used. The State did not want to use 

these monies in this way, but we were told that because of the law, 

because of the regulations, this was the only way that we could use 

that funding. As of today, FEMA, after exhaustive negotiation, has 

been unwilling to approve nearly $1.2 billion of funding that is desperately needed for the Road Home Program. If we cannot reach 

an appropriate agreement on this funding, there will be a tremendous shortfall. 

Finally—and I do mean finally—I would like to request that Congress take immediate action to address the disproportionate distribution of recovery aid. Our State received almost 80 percent of 

the damage, yet time and again, we have received less than our 

proportional allowance, and examples are numerous. They are in 

the written testimony. I can go through the numbers of colleges, 

schools, hospitals that were impacted because of the massive 

amount of space that we are dealing with, geographic region we are 

dealing with, and population. And that is why there is a difference 

between Louisiana and Mississippi. These are, as Chairman Powell 

said, very different storms that affected—the same storms affected 

different places in different ways. We have 64,000 people in the 

State of Louisiana still calling FEMA trailers ‘‘home’’ every night, 

yet FEMA has denied our repeated requests to take this into account. 

Louisiana must pay 10 percent of its cost share. We talked about 

the fact that in every other disaster it has been waived, including 

September 11, 2001. 

28

1The prepared statement of Mr. Longo appears in the Appendix on page 104. 

So, in closing, in order to truly realize and implement these citizen-driven long-term plans, we cannot afford letting bureaucratic 

road blocks stand in the way. We must identify these problems. We 

must address them immediately. And I ask you to seriously consider the solutions we have proposed to this Subcommittee today. 

Thank you so very much. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you very much. Mayor Longo. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN THOMAS LONGO,1 MAYOR, CITY OF 

WAVELAND, MISSISSIPPI 

Mr. LONGO. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for this 

opportunity to speak to this Subcommittee. I also want to take this 

opportunity to thank the House and the Senate as a whole for their 

support since Hurricane Katrina. Also, in all of your areas, the tremendous support we have received from faith-based foundations 

and groups from around this country. I don’t know what we would 

have done in Waveland and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast if it 

would not have been for the help, and we still to this day need 

their continued help. 

We had a coastwide charette that the governor sponsored to come 

up with a plan, and we had world-renowned architects and engineers that came to the coast. Waveland participated in that early 

on. We also brought those world-renowned architects and engineers 

and matched them with our own local architects and engineers and 

came up with our own local plan in Waveland. We brought them 

there for a week-long, intensive workshop with our community that 

was very well attended by our citizens that had returned home by 

that time. 

There have been many positives across the State because of the 

Federal support that we have received, but there are many areas 

such as Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, and Hancock 

County that are still critical, critical areas and still emergency disaster zones. We continue to need that declaration of emergency. 

A little over 50 percent of our population has been able to return 

home. Fifty percent of those individuals, those families, are still living in FEMA trailers. That creates problems in itself. We all know 

that those FEMA trailers were not meant to be called ‘‘home’’ for 

long. Being in there for going on 2 years has caused great problems 

and overloads for our law enforcement, our cities, our mental 

health infrastructure, our schools, our churches, and our families. 

It has just continued to cause problems, as it has been prolonged, 

and it is going to continue to build, and the problems are going to 

get worse before they get better, I am afraid. 

It was such a catastrophic event, and there is such total destruction. Everything seems to be tied together. We had such total loss 

in Waveland. The first 5 miles coming inland was just basically 

wiped off the map. We had 100 percent of our water and sewer infrastructure destroyed, 100 percent of our buildings were destroyed. In order to even bring families back to live in FEMA trailers, you had to have water, sewer, and power there. So we needed 

help just to be able to piece those systems together until we could 

come up with the Project Worksheets for the long term and get 

29

those done. Even the FEMA engineers in the field said that we 

would be lucky if we could piece those sewer and water systems together for 3 months. That was back in September 2005. We just 

got the first phase approved by FEMA to begin with the replacement of the 100-percent destroyed sewer system this month. And 

they have had it for almost 5 months. They already have the second phase in their hands to get that approved. 

It has been a problem that we have run into with the Project 

Worksheets. We have over 151 to date in the city of Waveland. We 

have close to $200 million worth of Project Worksheets. And with 

the continued rotation of personnel every 3 months or so and there 

being nobody on the ground, as Mr. Powell mentioned earlier, that 

can make decisions, and we found out, unfortunately, in doing the 

Project Worksheets and asking questions or getting variances in 

those worksheets and having it signed off on paper, being told 6 

months later that we had to pay back the money we had received 

because it was not worth the paper it was written on, yet this was 

a person that was being called a specialist. So who do we—we have 

to listen to someone, and so we have been told time and time again 

to follow the CFR. We certainly do not have a problem with that. 

We understand the CFR very well, except that there are problems 

with the CFR that just do not match or do not meet a catastrophic 

event of this size. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Mayor, one more minute. 

Mr. LONGO. One of them has already been mentioned, the 10-percent match that we have to come up with. Ninety-eight percent of 

our residential structures and our commercial structures were substantially destroyed. We have no economy, so we had to build back 

an economy. In order to build back the economy, we needed to get 

the infrastructure in place. In order to do that, we needed to have 

labor and personnel come back. So, again, it is all tied together. So 

a waiver of that 10 percent. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Mr. Mayor, can you wrap up in 30 seconds? 

Mr. LONGO. Yes, ma’am. Also, on the mitigation grants, there is 

a 25-percent match that is needed there. All of the buildings—and 

we lost 100 percent of our buildings—need that 25-percent match 

so that there can be some help there. 

Finally, one of the areas that’s holding back the rebuilding, residents coming back and rebuilding, of course, is insurance and getting the CDBG grants into the hands of the personnel, the people 

that need it, the end users, the cities at the end. And there are numerous areas where we could use help. 

The community disaster loans, I know you have talked about 

that, the possibility of Federal forgiveness in that area, those are 

going to begin to come due for all the cities and communities in 

Mississippi and Louisiana. 

So I will go ahead and wrap up there. Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very 

much. 

And let me remind everyone that we are going to have a round 

of questions, so we will get to come back to some of these points 

and go over them. Dr. Blakely. 

30

1The prepared statement of Mr. Blakely appears in the Appendix on page 106. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD J. BLAKELY,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

RECOVERY MANAGEMENT, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS 

Mr. BLAKELY. Thank you, Senator Landrieu and Senator Stevens. It is really a pleasure to be here. It is unfortunate I have 

been in four such disasters, including riots, earthquakes, and fires, 

and terrorist attack. So I have seen it all, basically, and I think 

what I would like to focus on is some of the things Senator Stevens 

talked about: How do we prepared in advance rather than try to 

deal with it afterward? My testimony is fairly complete on what we 

have experienced. 

I think we have to understand here that we are not dealing with 

a disaster in a city. We are dealing with the total destruction of 

a city. We have not had to deal with that in this country. We certainly dealt with it in the Second World War overseas, and we used 

a very different process. 

It is important to understand that the rebuilding process is a rebuilding process and not a reconstruction process. It means you 

have to start over. And Donna Fraiche has already mentioned the 

fact that we have engaged in a planning process that has very different ways of doing business. And without the resources to do 

that, we cannot complete that task. 

We need the Stafford Act to understand that there is a difference 

between a disaster and a catastrophe, and I think you have mentioned that yourself, Senator. A catastrophic requires the restoration of all services, the redesign of your entire emergency network, 

and the development of different public assistance programs. These 

things should be thought of in advance, not at the time of the disaster, or your chances of recovery are much less. 

So I applaud Senator Stevens for having thought about this, and 

I think the States would be prepared to engage in that, but that 

will require some critical front-end funding. 

In addition to that, we have to look at what has been done and 

what lessons we can learn from that. In the case of the Corps of 

Engineers, we have to start looking at providing them with enough 

data, information, and dollars so they can do projections better 

than they have done in the past, and the systems have to be designed so they can meet those projections. 

We have to think about reforming, altering, or changing FEMA’s 

mission for rebuilding and perhaps even a different agency that 

might operate out of HUD, which is a building agency versus a disaster agency. 

The 10 percent, I will echo with everyone else, should be forgiven, but even waiving the 10 percent does not give you any 

money for a reimbursement program. A reimbursement program 

assumes you have an economy to reimburse something from. So in 

the cases of the two previous witnesses, I agree with them on the 

10 percent, but there should be a forward-funding program so that 

people can begin the process, rebuild their economy, and then be 

reimbursed. 

Finally, CDBG should be made far more flexible that programs 

should be funded and not projects, programs for rebuilding. A 

patchwork of projects will never lead to a full-fledged rebuilding. So 

31

1The prepared statement of Mr. Broussard appears in the Appendix on page 113. 

there has to be flexibility, there has to be strong will, and there has 

to be cooperation, and I applaud Don Powell for his attempts to 

bring those things, but legislation will be required so they happen. 

Thank you. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Dr. Blakely. Mr. Broussard. 

STATEMENT OF ERNEST BROUSSARD, JR., AICP/CEcD,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CAMERON PARISH PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Madam Chairman, Senator Stevens, it gives me 

great pleasure to be here and to speak on behalf of the general citizenry of Cameron Parish in southwest Louisiana. What we had 

prepared for you chronicles a somewhat stellar list of responses to 

your inquiries for our presentation today. I want to surmise, however, that in the spirit of time and brevity, you have heard our discussions on the 10-percent match. You have heard our discussions 

on the insurance, and on the inflexibility of some of our Federal 

agencies. 

I want to thank Senator Landrieu for a Herculean effort for 

keeping Rita on the agenda. We do not want to downplay the importance or the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina and what happened in southeast Louisiana. However, we had another Category 

5 event that will ultimately be surmised as magnitude in the history of the parish. Eighty percent of our industrial tax base, threequarters of the population, not to mention 25,000 head of livestock 

perished in that event. 

However, our parish is recovering. We are clean. We have removed debris, and we are energizing and re-gentrifying our parish, 

platform by platform, structure by structure. But we are, however, 

having significant challenges. 

Now, Cameron Parish has elected to engage in a strategic planning effort that is more deliberate and probably more profound 

than the recovery of the US–14 that envisioned. That is our challenge, Senator. We can ill afford to talk about recovery without 

looking at remodeling. The problem with our FEMA standards, the 

problem with working with CDBG—and I do not want to undermine the importance of having that money available to us. But the 

models that are necessary for full recovery, when you have a 

disenfranchised population, a disenfranchised socioeconomic structure, does not work in a typical application. Those are the things 

that we need to do, and we will chronicle those issues under the 

governance of our master plan, for Cameron Parish, Cameron 

Square, Calcasieu Pass, related bridgeworks, of course, regentrification of our housing, are being met first by the local community where we feel that tax increment financing packages, the 

restructuring of our budget, not to mention some advanced tax payment by local industry is what we are doing to help ourselves first, 

and I think Secretary Powell mentioned that is the first cornerstone in recovery when a community is willing to come up and commit itself. 

However, to partner with my colleagues at the podium, the current situation involving the design and implementation of a public 

32

assistance program and the PWs foundered miserably for us, 

whereas each PW represents anywhere from 30 to 50 percent below 

what it would have been to replace the structure as is. Most of us 

involved with recovery—and I think Dr. Blakely touched on that—

you did not rebuild as you were. You have to come up to currentday standards. You have to come up with present-day techniques. 

Our challenge is to encourage repopulation of our communities 

with the advent of increased elevations, increased insurance, some 

of which insurance claims have not been completed to date; increased building codes, and knowing full well that with the completion of that construction we will be looking at a 30-percent higher 

building cost as well as insurance premiums. 

Overall, we want to thank the Federal Government and, Senator, 

your involvement in our recovery. But knowing now that the mission of southwest Louisiana is very prominent in energy, homeland 

security, defense, and, of course, coastal restoration, we feel that 

modifications that we have chronicled in our written statements 

are going to be paramount to you in that regard. 

In closing, I would like to just remind everyone that Cameron 

Parish is still very much critical to southwest Louisiana. We are 

crucial to Louisiana, but we are essential to America because we 

represent significant energy, homeland security, and environmental 

status. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Broussard. 

Let me add to that testimony. I have recently visited Cameron 

Parish, Senator Stevens, and you will be particularly happy to 

know, because you are a leader on energy, that literally within 

about a 50-mile radius of Cameron, there are the largest liquefied 

natural gas facilities in the Nation, which would be in southeast 

Texas and southwest Louisiana, for a number of reasons. These 

parishes and counties are the only ones giving permits. People have 

the technology and the information to build them and the willingness to build them. So while this is a rural parish, it is not a nonimportant parish for our State or for the country. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Exactly, Senator. I would like to just close that 

statement. At the end of the day, when the water recedes, Cameron 

Parish will represent 25 percent of the Nation’s daily demand in 

liquefied natural gas. Between its four major LNG plants and the 

nine processors, pipeline processors that are there, clearly we have 

a platform in the energy theater of this Nation as well as we are 

the portal to a $300 billion petrochemical industry, and the barrier 

island to three major watersheds—the Mermentau, Sabine, and the 

Calcasieu. 

Thank you for your comments on that, Senator. 

Senator LANDRIEU. OK. And I have a few questions, and then I 

am going to turn to Senator Stevens, and then we will wrap up in 

just a few minutes. 

Each of you mentioned in your testimony these Project Worksheets. Would you each take 30 to 45 seconds, and talk about the 

weaknesses of this Project Worksheet relative to what you are each 

doing? One of you is rebuilding a small city, one of you is rebuilding a big one, one of you is rebuilding a parish. And, Ms. Fraiche, 

you are trying to rebuild the whole southern part of the State. 

33

So could you just give 45 seconds to these 23,000 Project Worksheets that we have? 

Ms. FRAICHE. Thank you so much. Well, without the global 

match, I can tell you, without the waiver of the FEMA matching 

cost, that paper keeps piling up, because with the Project Worksheets, there is a requirement from FEMA—and these have to be 

FEMA related projects, but with CDBG it is a different set of worksheets. So you have to decide which projects you are going to submit under the Project Worksheets, which projects you are going to 

submit under the CDBG project. 

The CDBG projects, it is at least 2,680 required documents that 

are needed for each specific project. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Would you repeat that? 

Ms. FRAICHE. It is 2,680 required documents. These are not just 

pages. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Documents for each? 

Ms. FRAICHE. Of 20 CDBG projects, which are Community Development Block Grant projects, like infrastructure projects. But if 

you are doing it on an individual project basis, a school or a utility 

system or a particular fire hydrant, as it were, it could take 

2,680,000 documents, not pages. So it is two separate submissions 

for the same project, just the paperwork. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Now, with that testimony, I would just like 

the audience to get in their mind trying to rebuild Europe with this 

system. I guess in our lifetime, rebuilding Europe after the Second 

World War comes closer to what we are tasked to do here. It might 

not be exact, and I realize it was a war, not a catastrophe. And it 

was international; this is one area. But it just gets us to really 

think beyond where we are. 

Mr. Mayor, your 45 seconds? 

Mr. LONGO. Yes, ma’am. There is also different breakdowns in 

the Project Worksheets. There are small projects; there are large 

projects. The large projects like for buildings tend not to be real 

close to what the real cost is. As a matter of fact, one of the other 

panelists alluded to that. Say it is a building that is going to cost 

$400,000, but the worksheet, they kind of figure that because we 

are dealing with slabs, figure it at $300,000. And the gentleman 

that we were working with that was overseeing it, the Public Assistance gentleman, did not understand why we wanted to be so—

why we were so insistent that they get us close to the real cost, 

because when that building is truly built, as they were mentioning 

earlier, it is 30 percent more. We are going to have to float that 

money. Somebody has got to pay the cost or the contractor is going 

to have to cover it or carry it over. But what is going to truly end 

up happening is the city is going to have to carry that difference. 

We do not have that difference to carry. We are already having 

a problem coming up with the 10 percent. To add another $100,000 

or $200,000 or $300,000, and then there is the PWs, and I will finish with this. The PWs for equipment, we lost every piece of equipment, and there is no benefit or anything to where if you maintained equipment very well, if you had a motor grader, that may 

cost $100,000 on the market today, but it was 5 years old, as an 

example that I have, and it was well maintained, it was well running. So you continue to use it, continue to get the best use out of 

34

taxpayer dollars. You probably are only going to get a couple hundred dollars for that piece of equipment. So we cannot replace 

equipment based on the Project Worksheet. 

Senator LANDRIEU. The cities cannot even re-buy work trucks, 

pick-up trucks, or tractors. 

Mr. LONGO. Fire trucks. 

Senator LANDRIEU. To start building their cities if they wanted 

to. Dr. Blakely. 

Mr. BLAKELY. Well, I just wanted to comment on that, that if a 

piece of equipment is old, it has been depreciated to almost nothing, but it is still in a working state. So you have really got a problem if you get $25 for an automobile. What can you buy? 

I just want to mention some other things here. One of them is 

the turnover of FEMA staff. Since I have been in the city, in 4 

months we have had three turnovers of essential staff. So even 

though Don Powell helped us very much, some of the projects he 

helped us get in have been turned over, de-obligated, by new people. So even his work is undermined by FEMA’s turnover. I think 

it is very important that the person who starts the job finishes the 

job. 

Second, we have many FEMA worksheets prepared on four stories of a five-story building. The first story was underwater when 

the worksheet was prepared. As a consequence, we have underestimated—not just underestimated. We have underestimated the essential infrastructure. 

Finally, sometimes the power system was in the basement. 

FEMA will pay to put it back in the basement, but not on the roof. 

It does not make much sense, does it? 

Senator LANDRIEU. No, it does not. Mr. Broussard. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Madam Chairman, I want to thank you for giving me 45 seconds that I could speak the rest of the afternoon on. 

[Laughter.] 

But I would like to tell you, out of our 434 Project Worksheets 

that are active today—and that is for equipment, infrastructure, 

and, of course, buildings—our PWs are running anywhere from 30 

to 40 to even sometimes 50 percent underwritten by the original 

FEMA staff. Regrettably, there is no one to hold accountable because of the changeover that Dr. Blakely mentioned. 

Now, you take a facility that already has a PW that is underwritten, then you add the insurance penalties and the increased 

construction costs, which in an area of recovery runs anywhere 

from 25 to 40 percent because of the difficulty to get materials and 

contractors. Then to add to the 10 percent that you have to find 

to augment that, it puts communities that are already distressed 

in a foundered position. And until we are able to monitor that and 

change some of the socioeconomic standards that are identified in 

both HUD and FEMA regulations, cities will continue to founder 

as they try to recover. 

Senator LANDRIEU. Senator Stevens, do you have some final 

questions? 

Senator STEVENS. Madam Chairman, I was just sitting here 

thinking about some of the things that we have done, and I appreciate your comments, Dr. Blakely. When we had a gigantic flood in 

the central part of Alaska, Fairbanks, about 50 square miles floodVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:52 Feb 27, 2008 Jkt 035524 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\35524.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
35

ed. We and the State Legislature had to figure out what to do, and 

we decided we would pay the community the taxes for every facility 

that had been harmed, they were substantially destroyed. And they 

used that money to start the restoration of the streets and the sewers and waterways. And we agreed that anyone that would sign 

their contracts to start rebuilding their place before a specific date, 

the money the State paid would be equivalent of them paying their 

taxes 2 years in advance. 

The net result was that the infrastructure for rebuilding the local 

community, the streets, the highways, streets and sidewalks and 

sewers and whatnot, that equipment came in to meet those contracts, and with the local people it enabled them, through loans to 

buy that equipment, and it all started rolling because one thing 

started working. 

I get the feeling that the area I saw, as I said, which is more 

damage than anything I have ever seen, except for China during 

World War II, the impact of what I am hearing is there has not 

been any starter dollars. 

Mr. BLAKELY. That is right. 

Senator STEVENS. You have not had the ability to start somewhere. 

Mr. BLAKELY. We have not had start-up dollars. 

Senator STEVENS. To restore the private enterprise, get the local 

contractors, get the housing people, get the money for the people 

to start bringing in building material, etc., but do it in on a private 

sector basis and find a way to stimulate the restoration of the private sector in order to start the rebuilding process from within 

your own community. 

I am worried about the 10 percent match. That obviously should 

have been waived a long time ago. And it should be waived. But 

it should be waived conditioned upon some commitment of the people who are going to have their homes and buildings, etc., restored 

entering into some agreement to pay back something. That does 

not seem to be a key here in terms of getting these things going, 

and I do not know whether it is a failure of our Federal system or 

a failure of the process we are dealing with. But the New Orleans 

I saw was really a series of associated small areas that were united 

into New Orleans. They were just like Los Angeles, several different cities just absorbed by the metropolis that continued to expand. 

I do hope there is some way to divide this and get some areas 

going so that the basic systems can start rebuilding, and from that 

will flow a lot more cooperation with the Federal assistance if it 

can be done. But we do have to do a lot to find some way to get 

a key to this area and have it rejuvenate much faster than previously from the testimony we heard this afternoon it is going to 

happen. I do not know what it is. I do think we ought to have some 

sort of a meeting sitting around a table here with some of these 

people from the area and the Federal assistance to see if we cannot 

find some ways to start the process working again. 

I hope that we can work together. 

Mr. BLAKELY. Could I just mention two keys to what you just 

suggested? Because I think it is important. I was in two rich 

States—California and New York—where the money was available 

36

to kick-start the process. And Alaska is a relatively rich State. Louisiana is not. And let’s just be frank. We did not have that kind 

of money available to kick-start our own recovery. 

It could be that we did much like the disaster loans, make a loan 

to the State, a significant loan to the State, requiring us to pay it 

back over some period of time to kick-start our recovery rather 

than a reimbursement program, which depresses our economy. 

Senator LANDRIEU. That is an excellent idea, and, unfortunately, 

our time is short because, as Mr. Broussard said, we could spend 

all afternoon on these and hundreds—go ahead. Senator Stevens is 

going to run. We thank him very much. 

As we conclude this first hearing, please rest assured that this 

Subcommittee is committed to work week after week after week, 

month after month, year after year, until we get this right. It is 

not working in Waveland, it is not working in New Orleans, it is 

not working in Cameron—and not because the people at this table 

are not putting their best foot forward, and it is not because some 

people up here are not putting their best foot forward. It is the system that we are operating under is not flexible, bold, strong, or 

large enough to get the job done. And despite all of the good work 

of individuals, of the faith-based community, and of the government acting within these constraints, obviously we have a problem 

if 18 months after a storm in the city of Waveland, which is not 

a big place but it is an important place—it is your place, Mr. 

Mayor. It is a place a lot of us know well—cannot get their sewage 

system established 18 months after a storm. 

So I ask you, if you do not have a sewer and water system, how 

do you have houses, schools, hospitals, businesses—large, small—

or manufacturers? Now, this is America in 2007. I think we need 

to think about how we get a sewer system up faster than 18 

months after one is destroyed. And if we can do that, then maybe 

we can rebuild New Orleans, Cameron, America’s energy coast. 

But I challenge those listening to this hearing and the staff here. 

We can pat ourselves on the back all day long, talk about what 

great work we do. But the system is not working for the people 

that we are elected and appointed to serve. And we have got to 

change it. This Chairman is committed to that reform and change. 

I thank you all for joining me today, and the meeting is adjourned—oh, I am sorry. Ernie, you wanted to—Ernie wants to 

make a presentation. We will stop for one minute. Ernie, come on. 

You can make a presentation to me. You all better hold on because 

you want to see this. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Senator, can they hear us? 

Senator LANDRIEU. They can hear us, I think. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Ladies and gentlemen, in the spirit of southwest 

Louisiana and our recovery efforts, we have a very unique and very 

embryonic community. We are very heavy in coastal restoration, 

marsh recovery, and, of course, wetland maritime. But to commemorate the return of our citizenry back to southwest Louisiana, 

we put on an inaugural cattle drive. We lost about 20,000 head of 

cattle throughout the storm, but we brought them back. And with 

the cattle we brought back our leaders in both Washington and 

Baton Rouge. Our governor was there. Quite frankly, our Senator 

is a very accomplished rider. 

37

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you. I did not fall off. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. To assist her in not only dealing with FEMA, 

Homeland Security, and our other legislators, we wanted to install 

a memorial set of spurs for the Senator. 

[Applause.] 

Senator LANDRIEU. For FEMA, right. We are going to spur them 

on to better work. Thank you all very much. 

Mr. BROUSSARD. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator LANDRIEU. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:54 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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