Katrina remains front-page news ... down here

Yesterday’s Time-Picayune included a front-page story about the report from the Corps of Engineers-sponsored Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) that was released Monday. According to the paper, the report cites “the failure to build New Orleans-area hurricane levees and levee walls as part of an integrated, well-fortified system" to have "doomed the region during Katrina.”

The paper reports that the IPET document estimates direct financial losses associated with the flooding from Katrina at $20 billion, with 77 percent in residential areas, and an additional $7 billion in losses to public property. IPET also counted 727 fatalities in the five parishes in and around New Orleans. The report also calls the long-lasting effects that go beyond economic losses “unprecedented in the United States.”

Business report
A related story in the same paper details the state of retail and other businesses located in an area about near U.S. Interstate 10 about one mile north of Bethlehem Volunteer Center. “It’s a classic Catch-22,” reports the paper. “The resumption of commerce offers a sense of optimism to homeowners as they make their own decisions about coming back. Reopened businesses are a promise of sorts that a neighborhood has a certain base level of services.

“But businesses need reassurances, too. They want to be certain there will be enough customers to sustain their operations once they reopen,” says the paper.