[StBernard] FEMA advisories

[Westley Annis]

Some New Orleans residents, officials calling on FEMA to change rebuilding
guidelines


09:04 PM CDT on Monday, June 19, 2006

Dave McNamara / WWL-TV Eyewitness News Reporter 
  
Some New Orleans officials want FEMA to change its rebuilding guidelines,
and have argued that requiring homes to be elevated would hamper the city's
recovery. 
When Randy Bourgeois walked through his mother's kitchen on Tennessee Street
in the Lower Ninth Ward, he remembered what the family home was like before
Hurricane Katrina. 
 
Bourgeois and his neighbors have been trying to figure out if they can
rebuild, and if the city will require them to elevate their houses three
feet or more above ground. 
"It takes probably half of what the house is worth to elevate it," said
Bourgeois. 
The city's building and permits director Mike Centineo has urged the city
council to fight FEMA's new advisory base flood elevations.  
 
"This is FEMA again trying to tell us how to do things down here," said
Centineo. 
 
If the city adopts the new FEMA guidelines, any home that was damaged more
than 50 percent will have to comply with city flood maps, or be raised three
feet above the ground, whichever is higher. 
 
"If you have seven feet or if you had nine feet, the damage is the same
folks. So this just really doesn't seem to make sense," said Centineo. 
 
The higher base flood elevations may also be a problem for homeowners who
are counting on money from the Louisiana Recovery Authority. Those grants of
up to $150,000 can only be used on houses that are being rebuilt to the new
flood elevations. 
 
"Those recommendations work to the detriment and perform a disincentive to
the rebuilding," said city council member Cynthia Willard-Lewis. 
 
Paul Rainwater of the LRA said the state took that position to get billions
of federal dollars to pay for home reconstruction. 
 
"The three foot is the advisory that FEMA has issued, and we have to follow
that advisory if we as a state want to continue to receive federal funds,"
said Rainwater. 
For Randy Bourgeois, having to raise his house would make it difficult for
his family to return. 
 
"It takes a lot of money to do it, and that's the problem, the money"