Katrina Two Years Later

AlterNet takes a look at our progress in the Gulf Coast two years after Katrina made landfall and finds that the shockingly inept response from Federal and Local officials continues:

• Washington set aside $16.7 billion for Community Development Block
  Grants, one of the two biggest sources of rebuilding funds, especially
  for housing. But as of March 2007, only $1 billion -- just 6 percent --
  had been spent, almost all of it in Mississippi. Following bad
  publicity, HUD spent another $3.8 billion on the program between March
  and July, leaving 70 percent of the funds still unused.
• The
  other major source of rebuilding help was supposed to be FEMA's Public
  Assistance Program. But of the $8.2 billion earmarked, only $3.4
  billion was meant for nonemergency projects like fixing up schools and
  hospitals.
• Louisiana officials recently testified that
  FEMA has also "low-balled" project costs, underestimating the true
  expenses by a factor of four or five. For example, for 11 Louisiana
  rebuilding projects, the lowest bids came to $5.5 million -- but FEMA
  approved only $1.9 million.
• After the failure of
  federal levees flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps
  of Engineers received $8.4 billion to restore storm defenses. But as of
  July 2007, less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent, even as
  the Corps admits that levee repair won't be completed until as late as
  2011.