Helping New Orleans Rebuild Its Schools

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Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed schools throughout New Orleans. Since then, the state and city have worked together to make the city’s schools a model for school reform. New Orleans schools have made remarkable progress. They have been an inspiration to those of us who are working to provide a world-class education to all of America’s children.

Despite the progress, New Orleans still has a lot of work to do. More than 100 school buildings were devastated by the floods of Katrina. The city still needs to replace, rebuild and rehabilitate buildings that were destroyed by the floods. Working together, state and city leaders have produced a master plan to will rebuild and renovate its schools.

Today, I joined Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in announcing more than $1.8 billion in federal funds to support the rebuilding of New Orleans’ schools. This money will support the city in building the excellent learning environments that the children of New Orleans deserve.

In addition, the Department of Education continues to support schools throughout the Gulf Coast that suffered damage from Katrina and other hurricanes. Our staff is preparing to award $12 million in grants from the Gulf Coast Recovery Initiative. These grants will help districts replace instructional materials, renovate and repair schools buildings, and support afterschool and other initiatives to provide extended learning.

Over the past five years, the Department has provided nearly $2 billion for schools in the Gulf Coast region. The money helped schools re-open immediately after the hurricanes and supported schools that enrolled students displaced by the hurricanes. It also provided the $7 million to Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Mississippi to pay for mental health assessments for students, substitute teachers, and emergency transportation, and other needs shortly after the hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast.

Five years later, New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast are still recovering. President Obama and I are committed to doing our part to provide the students there with the world-class education they deserve.

Restoring the Gulf's Priceless Natural Resources

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I grew up in New Orleans. As a chemical engineering student at Tulane University, I worked and studied in the local environment, particularly the wetlands, marshes and swamps. I saw then that the wetlands were the beating heart of the region. The coastal waters support a multi-billion-dollar fishing industry that is a way of life for many families and communities. The rich sediment and marsh grasses help filter pollution and provide the home for a priceless and delicate ecosystem. And the abundant vegetation growing above the surface helps buffer storm surges during hurricanes – a vital function whose importance was all too apparent after Hurricane Katrina.

My mother was still living in New Orleans when Katrina struck. I happened to be visiting her at the time, and drove her to safety. But her house – the house where I grew up – was destroyed by the flooding. After the storm, she and many other Gulf residents learned that the flooding had been made worse because the marshes and wetlands had been destabilized by navigation channels, covered over by levee construction, and most damagingly, cut away for the placement of oil and gas lines.

Today my mother can make as compelling an argument for wetlands protection as any wetlands expert I’ve ever met – and in my line of work, I’ve met quite a few. She can tell you that every year almost 40 miles of wetlands outside New Orleans disappear. We’re losing them at the rate of an entire football field every 30 minutes. She can also tell you about the people hit hardest by this environmental degradation. Not just the people whose homes were flooded in the storms, but the local tribes and families whose lands are disappearing. They are finding it harder and harder to fish, trap, or catch the shrimp and shellfish that make up a major part of the local economy, and many of them are moving away.

In the years since Katrina, the EPA has made it a priority to better protect our nation’s vulnerable wetlands and coastal communities. Through grant programs we’ve helped to strengthen state and tribal restoration efforts and built partnerships between government, local groups and landowners. From restoring the Gulf’s New Cut Barrier Island and protecting Lake Borgne’s shoreline to creating the Bayou DuPont and Whiskey Island Back Barrier marshes, we’ve helped by investing more than $95 million in restoring and protecting the Gulf’s shores and wetlands.

While a clear priority for the EPA, this issue has also become a top priority for President Obama. In March, the administration released a roadmap for restoring the Gulf – outlining our work to build a better, more sustainable future for the region. Unfortunately, shortly after the release of the plan, yet another tragedy struck: the Deepwater BP oil spill.

Having learned valuable lessons from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we stepped up to defend the coastal communities and the wetlands that shield them from storms and oil alike. We mobilized in every way possible, from extensive skimming, booming and burning efforts, to dispersing the oil and speeding its degradation offshore, before it affected fragile wetlands.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, this administration remains committed to ensuring the vitality of the Gulf Coast, the prosperity of its economy, and the health of its residents. Our work continues today, and will carry on until the area is back on the path to prosperity. One of the valuable lessons we’ve learned is that building safe, healthy communities means re-building and revitalizing the wetlands that are at the heart of the Gulf Coast.

SBA Disaster Assistance: Then and Now

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Tommy and Maria DeLaune are a prime example of small business owners who suffered a one-two punch from Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater BP oil spill. They run Tommy’s Seafood, a New Orleans seafood processor and wholesaler that employs about 20 people.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, the business suffered major damage at its two facilities, including loss of equipment and inventory. They applied for an SBA disaster loan in October 2005 but didn’t get approved until May 2006 and the loan wasn’t fully disbursed until October 2006, a year later.

They got hit again when the oil spill forced closures on fishing waters in the Gulf of Mexico, where their suppliers work. Tommy and his wife Maria had to look 500 miles away to find more seafood to process, so they had higher expenses and lower profit margins. This time around, however, their experience with SBA was “amazing,” according to Maria. Their disaster loan was approved in just 16 days and it was fully disbursed just a month later. Additionally, SBA deferred their existing Katrina loan for 12 months so they can use more of their resources to deal with the financial strain caused by the oil spill.

Right now, hundreds of SBA staff are on the ground providing assistance through loans to business owners, homeowners, and renters in more than 40 locations across the country that have been hit by disasters. SBA’s disaster loan programs are a critical piece of the federal government’s overall response in the wake of disasters, and we are providing these loans more quickly and effectively than ever before.

As we approach the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it is important to look back and take note of the agency’s performance at that time. SBA was not prepared, nor fully equipped to effectively provide assistance in the wake of that disaster. But we’ve learned from our mistakes and, today, we have a much better disaster assistance program in place with increased staff, improved technology and training, and a streamlined loan process.

What does that mean in real terms?

• It means we reduced the average processing time for disaster loans from over 70 days to just 10 days.
• It means we created a way for disaster victims to apply online for loans, and now 30% of applicants choose to use this method.
• It means we dramatically increased the capacity of our disaster loan processing centers (from 366 to 1,750 workstations) and our disaster credit management system (from 800 up to 10,000 users at the same time).
• It means we increased the number of SBA disaster staff from 800 to 1,200. Additionally, we have more than 1,500 active reserve and 500 ready reserve on call when needed. And, it’s important to note that in our last annual survey, 83 percent of the active reservists and 63 percent of the ready reservists said they were available to be deployed with 48 hours notice.

The overhaul of the SBA disaster assistance program since Katrina has resulted in vast improvements that are helping us and our federal partners meet the needs of disaster victims more quickly than ever – helping people like Tommy and Maria DeLaune. Everyone at SBA remains committed to continuing to improve and strengthen this critical program. We know that it can – and is – making the difference in local communities across the country, helping families get back in their homes and helping businesses put employees back to work.

Hurricane Katrina: Five Years of Remembering & Rebuilding

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This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and provides an opportunity to remember what was lost, celebrate what has been regained, and restate our commitment to the Gulf region and to all those still working to rebuild lives and communities. The Obama Administration remains deeply committed to serving the needs of Gulf Coast residents. Since taking office, President Obama has made it clear that he will stand with the people in Gulf through this restoration process and on Sunday, the President and several members of the Cabinet will travel to New Orleans as a continued demonstration of that support (you can watch the event live on Sunday).

The storm and its tragic aftermath took more than a thousand lives, displaced more than a million residents, inflicted major damage to nearly 300,000 homes, and wiped out hundreds of square miles of coastal land. Since the hurricanes hit, the people of the Gulf Coast have never stopped working to rebuild their communities, but their resilience and determination were sometimes challenged by unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. Since taking office, the Administration has eliminated bureaucratic red tape that has delayed assistance, including obligating nearly $2.42 billion in Public Assistance funds for recovery in Louisiana and Mississippi that had been stalled for years, and supported the Federal agencies and state and local partners who continue to provide assistance to the region. President Obama has also worked to improve disaster preparedness, response, and recovery nationwide, so that the Gulf Coast and all other regions of the country will be more resilient and better prepared in the face of future disasters.

By continuing to support local restoration efforts, provide assistance to businesses, schools and residents, and prepare for future events, the Administration’s efforts have been improving the functioning of government so that it works for all people. Government agencies have worked together in a collaborative manner to strengthen Federal emergency programs; enhance emergency communications; improve disaster housing; and work with state and local governments, community stakeholders, and individuals, to improve preparedness and capacity for long-term recovery from disasters.

In the five years since the storm, families have returned to area, houses have gone up, schools have reopened, and businesses have been rebuilt. But there is more work to do – and this Administration is committed to working with the people of the Gulf region to get the job done. This week, we will be featuring a series of blog posts on WhiteHouse.gov from government agencies that have been working with local communities to restore the region.

For more information about ongoing activities, read the fact sheet on Gulf Coast hurricane recovery and nationwide disaster preparedness and response efforts.

Read more posts from the Hurricane Katrina: 5 Years of Remembering & Rebuilding series:

• On the Road from Recovery to Revitalization by Secretary Shaun Donovan
• Five Years After Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, USDA Continues to Assist Gulf Residents by Dallas Tonsager