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| Where is the Money? |
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Congress has appropriated $94.8 billion for recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. It gave the National Flood Insurance Program rights to borrow $17 billion from the government to cover deficits from Katrina claim payouts. The federal government also created a $16 billion Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone tax credit program. That all totaled some $140 billion.
That money was shared by the five Gulf states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Alabama. Louisiana got the bulk of the NFIP money, but initially it received only $3.5 billion of the recovery money (over the course of three years that number has risen to some $13 billion).
Until the recent Wall Street bailout, this was a staggering sum of money - double the total federal dollars dispersed for all U.S. natural disasters since 1989 and, after adjusting for inflation, even more than spending for the Marshall Plan to help post-WW II Europe recover.
Whatever happened to people during Katrina, there was one thing that determined whether they'd be able to rebuild: Money.
The first recourse was through the National Flood Insurance Program, which had incurred more than $20 billion in claims by the end of September. The NFIP paid out their claims immediately, but for most, that money wasn't enough to rebuild. Others may not have purchased enough coverage. For them, the states applied to HUD for Community Development Block Grant money. In Louisiana, this became known as the Road Home program. Separately, FEMA paid to rebuild schools, hospitals, state roads, and other local infrastructure through what is known as the Public Assistance program. But a total of 52 federal agencies are also rebuilding federal highways, working with schools, rebuilding levees, and conserving wetlands. Where is the money?
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