New Orleans hires expert to tackle Katrina recovery
Source: Reuters
(adds quotes from expert, mayor) By Russell McCulley NEW ORLEANS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Fifteen months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his city, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Monday he has hired a disaster recovery expert amid widespread criticism that rebuilding has been too slow. Edward Blakely, who worked in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks and in northern California after the 1989 earthquake and 1991 wildfires, will head Nagin's newly created Mayor's Office of Recovery Management. Blakely, currently chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Sydney in Australia, has visited New Orleans several times since the deadly storm on Aug. 29, 2005. More than 80 percent of the city was flooded after water broke through the levees. "This is the first city that I've been in that was totally devastated," Blakely told reporters at City Hall. "All the others, there was only a portion of the city that was devastated." Blakely, 69, said he will coordinate all the pieces of the public bureaucracy and work with private plans for his long-term goal of bringing back those who want to return. "I want to do that as soon as possible, because I think that's the stumbling block right now," Blakely said. A Louisiana state survey released last week put New Orleans' population at 41 percent of its pre-Hurricane Katrina size of 484,000. The main problem for returnees is lack of housing. In most affected neighborhoods, properties rendered useless by flooding are still being gutted. Some 120,000 homeowners in Louisiana are awaiting state aid to rebuild and repair homes. Nagin justified the delay in the hiring by saying that only now did the city have the "momentum and clarity" to take advantage of the expertise of someone like Blakely. As the debate rages about which parts of the city, much of which is below sea level, should be rebuilt, Blakely said every piece of the city can be rebuilt, but they should all be equally safe and secure. Even as whole blocks remain vacant and abandoned homes and businesses are invaded by rats, snakes and overgrown grass, Blakely put a positive spin on his view of New Orleans. "...After being in (places like) the Congo and so forth, this looks great," he said.
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