Three Years after Hurricane Katrina, Rebuilding Continues on the Gulf Coast
Feature Story by David Schraub - 8/28/2008
It has been three years since Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and causing billions of dollars in damages. Yet despite the $126 billion dollars the government has spent in relief efforts over the past three years, the effects of the disaster are still front and center throughout the region.
Certainly, some progress has been made. An August 2008 Brookings Institute analysis found that the greater New Orleans area had rebounded to nearly pre-disaster levels of population, jobs, and tax revenue. But these gains have not trickled down to the working class, which is straining under the weight of higher prices and stagnant wages.
A major problem lies in the realm of housing. Federal disaster housing is scheduled to end in March, but many residents still have not been able to find new homes. More than 35,000 people still are living in temporary FEMA trailers, and federal officials plan to replace less than a third of the affordable housing units that were destroyed in the hurricane. The market rate for apartments has soared since 2005, with the rent for an average 2-bedroom apartment rising 47 percent since 2005.
Those residents who have been able to return to New Orleans have also found it difficult to get steady employment: only 45 percent of white evacuees and 12 percent of black evacuees were able to find work in the area.
As for the sentiments of New Orleans residents themselves, opinions are mixed. While six in ten hurricane survivors say that their lives have largely returned to normal, more than seven in ten have seen little progress in the city's efforts at getting housing prices or crime under control. Moreover, more than half of those surveyed were dissatisfied or angry with the pace of progress in rebuilding the city.
Nonetheless, President Bush has said he sees “hopeful signs of progress” in the rebuilding efforts. The President, who was heavily criticized in the wake of Katrina for his seemingly unprepared and inadequate response, recently embarked on his 11th trip to New Orleans since the hurricane. But Sen. Mary Landrieu, D. La., said that the federal response remains insufficient and dismissed the latest presidential visit as insubstantial. “It’s not the quantity of the visits; it’s the quality of the visits,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press.
