Louisiana Says Hurricanes Did $100B In Damage, And $34B Hasn't Been Covered By Feds, Insurance

Thursday, August 23rd 2007, 9:31 pm

By: News On 6

NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were a roughly $100 billion blow to Louisiana buildings and infrastructure, and federal rebuilding aid and insurance payments fall about $34 billion short of making up for the losses, a state agency says.

The $100 billion estimate, in a Louisiana Recovery Authority report set to be released Friday, includes levees, public buildings and infrastructure, businesses, houses and personal property lost or damaged in the 2005 hurricanes. Of that, insurance has covered $40 billion and federal aid $26 billion, the report says.

The damage estimate was compiled using property loss estimates from various sectors, LRA spokeswoman Melissa Landry said.

Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, said he isn't suggesting that the federal government or insurers write a $34 billion check. But he said people shouldn't be surprised if Louisiana continues to ask Congress for help rebuilding, something he expects to happen over the next decade.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office noted the difficulty in assessing damages from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, saying the exact costs may never be known but that overall they would likely ``far surpass'' those of the three other costliest disasters in recent memory _ the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks; Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and California's Northridge earthquake in 1994.

Since the 2005 hurricanes, the federal government has committed more than $110 billion in grants, loans and other aid toward Gulf Coast recovery. Much of that has been for short-term or emergency projects, such as debris removal, levee work and housing assistance, not long-term rebuilding.

Louisiana's share was about $60 billion but only $26 billion of that was for permanent, long-term rebuilding, Kopplin said.

Louisiana's most pressing needs include federal help filling a projected $5 billion shortfall in the state-run Road Home program, which is designed to help victims rebuild or relocate, and full funding of levee work in the New Orleans area, Kopplin said.

He is among state and local officials pushing reforms to the law governing disaster recovery, the Stafford Act, which he said is not amenable to creating a ``safer, stronger, smarter'' state. Kopplin said the recovery has been mired in bureaucracy.

Gil Jamieson, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's associate deputy administrator for Gulf Coast recovery, said that while sections of the law could be streamlined, Stafford itself isn't standing in the way of Louisiana rebuilding.

``I think Andy needs to focus on the Road Home program and making it more efficient,'' Jamieson said of Kopplin. The state program has been criticized as being too slow to compensate homeowners, and there's disagreement between state and federal officials over how awards were calculated.

Under federal law, FEMA says it only has to pay to bring infrastructure to pre-storm ``function and capacity'' _ not cover wholesale replacement of buildings that may have been old or in prior need of improvements.