Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu to manage $1T infrastructure plan
President Joe Biden has chosen as supervisor of his $1 trillion infrastructure plan Mitch Landrieu, who, as New Orleans mayor, pushed the city into recovery after the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. Landrieu will be tasked with coordinating across federal agencies to work on roads, ports, bridges, and airports, the White House said Sunday. Biden is expected to sign the infrastructure bill into law on Monday. Landrieu, 61, was formerly the Louisiana lieutenant governor and took over as mayor of New Orleans in 2010, five years after Katrina swamped the city and as the area’s recovery stalled — and as a massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico polluted the state’s coastline. He secured billions in federal funding for roads, schools, parks, and infrastructure and turned New Orleans “into one of America’s great comeback stories,” the White House said in a statement. “I am thankful to the president and honored to be tasked with coordinating the largest infrastructure investment in generations,” Landrieu said in the statement. “Our work will require strong partnerships across the government and with state and local leaders, business and labor to create good-paying jobs and rebuild America for the middle class.” When Landrieu was mayor, he gained national recognition when he removed four Jim Crow-era monuments from the New Orleans landscape, including statues of three Confederate icons. Landrieu launched the E Pluribus Unum Fund in 2018, which aims to break barriers of race and class by cultivating leaders who can build common ground. The infrastructure package is a historic investment by any measure, one that Biden compares in its breadth to the building of the interstate highway system in the last century or the transcontinental railroad the century before. He called it a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuilding America.”
Money for station upgrades awarded for Gulf Coast train plan
Three Mississippi cities and Birmingham, Alabama have been awarded grants to improve their train stations ahead of the planned return of Amtrak service to the Gulf Coast. Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, and Pascagoula received a little more than $700,000 total, and another $250,000 went to Birmingham, the Biloxi Sun Herald reported. The newspaper said the grants were announced on Monday by the Southern Rail Commission. The money will fund improvements to amenities such as lighting, sidewalks, and parking areas. The grants require an equivalent matching contribution from local officials. Amtrak hopes to resume operating between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama in January. The region has been without passenger service since Hurricane Katrina badly damaged tracks and equipment in 2005. Before that, passenger trains ran between the two cities three times a week. The start of service is still pending a decision by the federal Surface Transportation Board on Amtrak’s right of access to freight lines. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid
Rescuers in boats, helicopters, and high-water trucks brought people trapped by Hurricane Ida’s floodwaters to safety Monday, and utility repair crews rushed in after the furious storm swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the stifling, late-summer heat. Residents living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated desperately to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them. More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday. The damage was so extensive that officials warned it could be weeks before the power grid was repaired. As the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression Monday afternoon and continued to make its way inland with torrential rain, it was blamed for at least two deaths — a motorist who drowned in New Orleans and a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge. But with many roads impassable and cellphone service out in places, the full extent of its fury was still coming into focus. Christina Stephens, a spokesperson for Gov. John Bel Edwards, said that given the level of destruction, “We’re going to have many more confirmed fatalities.” The governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic” — dispiriting news for those without refrigeration or air conditioning during the dog days of summer, with highs forecast in the mid-80s to near 90 by midweek. “There are certainly more questions than answers. I can’t tell you when the power is going to be restored. I can’t tell you when all the debris is going to be cleaned up and repairs made,” Edwards told a news conference. “But what I can tell you is we are going to work hard every day to deliver as much assistance as we can.” Debbie Greco, her husband, and her son rode out the storm in LaPlace with Greco’s parents. Water reached the first-floor windows, then knocked down the back door and filled the brick home with 4 feet of water. They retreated to the second floor, but then screaming winds collapsed the roof. They were finally rescued by boat after waiting in the only dry spot, five people sharing the landing on the stairs. “When I rebuild this, I’m out of here. I’m done with Louisiana,” said Greco’s father, 85-year-old Fred Carmouche, a lifelong resident. Elsewhere in LaPlace, people pulled pieces of chimneys, gutters, and other parts of their homes to the curb, and residents of a mobile home park waded through floodwaters. In just three parishes, 191 people and 27 pets had been rescued by Monday afternoon, Edwards said. The hurricane blew ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina, the 2005 storm that breached New Orleans’ levees, devastated the city, and was blamed for 1,800 deaths. This time, New Orleans appeared to escape the catastrophic flooding city officials had feared. Stephanie Blaise returned to her home with her father in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after evacuating. The neighborhood suffered devastating flooding in Katrina but only lost some shingles in Ida. However, with no idea when electricity would be restored, Blaise didn’t plan to stay long. “We don’t need to go through that. I’m going to have to convince him to leave. We got to go somewhere. Can’t stay in this heat,” she said. The city urged people who evacuated to stay away for at least a couple of days because of the lack of power and fuel. “There’s not a lot of reasons to come back,” said Collin Arnold, chief of emergency preparedness. Also, 18 water systems serving about 255,000 customers in Louisiana were knocked out of service, the state Health Department said. Four Louisiana hospitals were damaged, and 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. Officials said they were evacuating scores of patients to other cities. The governor’s office said over 2,200 evacuees were staying in 41 shelters, a number expected to rise as people were rescued or escaped flooded homes. The governor’s spokesperson said the state will work to move people to hotels as soon as possible so they can keep their distance from one another. “This is a COVID nightmare,” Stephens said, adding: “We do anticipate that we could see some COVID spikes related to this.” Preliminary measurements showed Slidell, Louisiana, got at least 15.7 inches of rain, while New Orleans received nearly 14 inches, forecasters said. Other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and Florida got 5 to 11 inches. The Louisiana National Guard said it activated 4,900 Guard personnel and lined up 195 high-water vehicles, 73 rescue boats, and 34 helicopters. Local and state agencies were adding hundreds more. Edwards said he decided not to tour hurricane damage by air Monday to add one more aircraft to the effort. On Grand Isle, the 40 people who stayed on the barrier island through the brunt of the hurricane gave aircraft checking on them Monday a thumbs-up, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said. The road to the island remained impassable, and rescuers would try to reach them as soon as they are able, the sheriff said. The hurricane twisted and collapsed a giant tower that carries key transmission lines over the Mississippi River to the New Orleans area, causing widespread outages, Entergy and local authorities said. The power company said more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service, along with 216 substations. The tower had survived Katrina. The storm also flattened utility poles, toppled trees onto power lines, and caused transformers to explode. The governor said 25,000 utility workers were in the state to help restore electricity, with more on the way. “We’re going to push Entergy to restore power just as soon as they can,” Edwards said. AT&T said its wireless network in Louisiana was reduced to
Hurricane Ida lashes Louisiana, knocks out New Orleans power
Hurricane Ida blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., knocking out power to all of New Orleans, blowing roofs off buildings, and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River as it rushed from the Louisiana coast into one of the nation’s most important industrial corridors. The power outage in New Orleans heightened the city’s vulnerability to flooding and left hundreds of thousands of people without air conditioning and refrigeration in the sweltering summer heat. Ida — a Category 4 storm — hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier, coming ashore about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of where Category 3 Katrina first struck land. Ida’s 150-mph (230 kph) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland U.S. It dropped hours later to a Category 2 storm with maximum winds of 110 mph (175 kph) as it crawled inland, its eye about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west-northwest of New Orleans. The rising ocean swamped the barrier island of Grand Isle as landfall came just to the west at Port Fourchon. Ida made a second landfall about two hours later near Galliano. The hurricane was churning through the far southern Louisiana wetlands, with more than 2 million people living in and around New Orleans and Baton Rouge under threat. “This is going to be much stronger than we usually see and, quite frankly, if you had to draw up the worst possible path for a hurricane in Louisiana, it would be something very, very close to what we’re seeing,” Gov. John Bel Edwards told The Associated Press. People in Louisiana woke up to a monster storm after Ida’s top winds grew by 45 mph (72 kph) in five hours as the hurricane moved through some of the warmest ocean water in the world in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The entire city of New Orleans late Sunday was without power, according to city officials. The city’s power supplier — Entergy — confirmed that the only power in the city was coming from generators, the city’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness said on Twitter. The message included a screenshot that cited “catastrophic transmission damage” for the power failure. The city relies on Entergy for backup power for the pumps that remove stormwater from city streets. Rain from Ida is expected to test that pump system. More than 1 million customers were without power in two Southern states impacted by Ida — more than 930,000 in Louisiana and 28,000 in Mississippi, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. In New Orleans, the wind tore at awnings and caused buildings to sway and water to spill out of Lake Ponchartrain. The Coast Guard office in New Orleans received more than a dozen reports of breakaway barges, said Petty Officer Gabriel Wisdom. In Lafitte, about 35 miles (55 km) south of New Orleans, a loose barge struck a bridge, according to Jefferson Parish officials. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Ricky Boyette said engineers detected a “negative flow” on the Mississippi River as a result of storm surge. And Edwards said he watched a live video feed from around Port Fourchon as Ida came ashore that showed that roofs had been blown off buildings in “many places.” “The storm surge is just tremendous,” Edwards told the AP. Officials said Ida’s swift intensification from a few thunderstorms to a massive hurricane in just three days left no time to organize a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans’ 390,000 residents. Mayor LaToya Cantrell urged residents remaining in the city on Sunday to “hunker down.” Marco Apostolico said he felt confident riding out the storm at his home in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, one of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, when levees failed and released a torrent of floodwater during Katrina. His home was among those rebuilt with the help of actor Brad Pitt to withstand hurricane-force winds. But the memory of Katrina still hung over the latest storm. “It’s obviously a lot of heavy feelings,” he said. “And yeah, potentially scary and dangerous.” The region getting Ida’s worst includes petrochemical sites and major ports, which could sustain significant damage. It is also an area that is already reeling from a resurgence of COVID-19 infections due to low vaccination rates and the highly contagious delta variant. New Orleans hospitals planned to ride out the storm with their beds nearly full, as similarly stressed hospitals elsewhere had little room for evacuated patients. And shelters for those fleeing their homes carried an added risk of becoming flashpoints for new infections. Forecasters warned winds stronger than 115 mph (185 kph) threatened Houma, a city of 33,000 that supports oil platforms in the Gulf. The hurricane was also threatening neighboring Mississippi, where Katrina demolished oceanfront homes. With Ida approaching, Claudette Jones evacuated her home east of Gulfport, Mississippi, as waves started pounding the shore. “I’m praying I can go back to a normal home like I left,” she said. “That’s what I’m praying for. But I’m not sure at this point.” Comparisons to the August 29, 2005, landfall of Katrina weighed heavily on residents bracing for Ida. Katrina was blamed for 1,800 deaths as it caused levee breaches and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans. Ida’s hurricane-force winds stretched 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the storm’s eye, or about half the size of Katrina, and a New Orleans’ infrastructure official emphasized that the city is in a “very different place than it was 16 years ago.” The levee system has been massively overhauled since Katrina, Ramsey Green, deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, said before the worst of the storm hit. While water may not penetrate levees, Green said if forecasts of up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain prove true, the city’s underfunded and neglected network of pumps, underground pipes, and surface canals likely won’t be able to keep up. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality was in contact with more than 1,500 oil refineries, chemical
Alabama balks at funding for restored coastal Amtrak service
Alabama is balking at pledging millions of dollars to help restart passenger train service along the northern Gulf Coast for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi must commit almost $35 million altogether over three years by Thursday to be eligible for the same amount in federal funds that would enable Amtrak trains to run from New Orleans eastward to Mobile, Alabama. Louisiana has agreed to supply about $9.5 million, while Mississippi agreed to $3 million and is considering much more, said Knox Ross of the Southern Rail Commission, which is promoting the project. But Alabama hasn’t promised any money toward the project, he said, and time is running out. “If we don’t do it we’ve left money on the table, which would be very unfortunate,” said Ross. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office issued a statement saying she supports efforts to restore passenger rail service on the coast but isn’t committing state funding. An Alabama representative on the Southern Rail Commission, Jerry Gehman, said Ivey’s words don’t do anything to move the project forward. “That’s good for the ink and paper it’s written on. But it does nothing … to make it a reality,” said Gehman. Amtrak suspended service east of New Orleans along the Gulf Coast after Katrina, which heavily damaged rails, crossings and other infrastructure in 2006. Ross said the current effort is the most serious one yet to revive passenger rail in the region. Supporters see the New Orleans-to-Mobile proposal as a first step toward expanding Amtrak service elsewhere on the coast, Ross said. The proposed train would run twice a day each way, stopping at cities on the Mississippi coast, he said. Mississippi’s costs for the project are higher than those of the other states because “that’s where the tracks are,” he said. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is considering a request for $14.7 million over three years for capital costs, but a spokesman said no decision has been made. The project can move forward if Alabama doesn’t contribute, Ross said, and actual costs could be less. The eastbound train would simply stop at Pascagoula, Mississippi, rather than continuing into Alabama, he said. “If we get Mississippi to commit we can move forward without Alabama,” said Ross. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
