[StBernard] Obama cabinet members check Gulf Coast recovery

[Westley Annis]

Obama cabinet members check Gulf Coast recovery

Posted: March 5, 2009 11:11 AM CST 

Updated: March 5, 2009 11:11 AM CST 

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Two members of President Barack Obama's cabinet got a
firsthand look of the progress that's been made in the New Orleans area
since Hurricane Katrina - and the work that remains 3 1/2 years later. 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Shaun Donovan began a two-day tour of the Gulf Coast
on Thursday, their first visit to the region since Obama was sworn into
office in January. They were joined by the newly nominated head of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate. 

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who joined the federal, state and local
officials on a bus tour, welcomed the visit and what he sees as "more of a
willingness to do a fix" of FEMA. In the past, he told WVUE Thursday
morning, "it was just like, blame the locals; they're the problem and we
don't have to spend as much money as we should." 

A consistent complaint from the city and others in Louisiana is that they're
not getting all they're due for rebuilding work from FEMA. FEMA has
contended that many buildings across the state suffered from years of
deferred maintenance and that the agency is only obligated to pay to bring
infrastructure back to the condition in which it existed before the storm. 

The bus tour has stopped at Southern University of New Orleans and in
suburban St. Bernard Parish, which was virtually wiped out by the August
2005 storm. It was also expected to stop at a public housing complex in a
neighborhood devastated by Katrina. 

In St. Bernard, where just over half the pre-storm population is estimated
to be back, 79-year-old Bill Gross snapped pictures of the visiting
officials. He said he rebuilt his house in Chalmette without a rebuilding
grant from the state-run Road Home program and that he doesn't need anything
from the government now. 

"Everything I did, I always did for myself," he said. 

Walter Leger, vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said he
almost wished officials had seen how devastated things were before, to
realize how far people have come in the 3 1/2 years since Katrina. 

"What I hope they take away is how much government assistance helps, but
also how much work needs to be done," he said. 

The work that remains was obvious; a hand-painted sign on a house in New
Orleans' sparsely repopulated Lower 9th Ward read: "Please help our
community." 

On Friday, Napolitano is scheduled to take a helicopter tour of
Mississippi's Gulf Coast. 

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)