EDITORIAL: Feds must get rebuilding funds moving to Laura-struck region

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA)

Sep. 22--After hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, there were discussions -- well, call them bitter disputes -- among property owners, insurance companies and the government over what would be covered for repairs. It made a difference whether the damage came from wind or water.

Not with Hurricane Laura, or at least not nearly so much.

The winds of one of the most powerful storms ever to strike in North America devastated wide swaths of southwestern Louisiana, as well as up to the Arkansas line.

The tallies are starting to come in. About $300 million in damage was sustained by the Calcasieu Parish schools alone. That is 10 times the amount of damage inflicted by Hurricane Rita in 2005, that followed a very similar path starting on the coast at Cameron. Other school systems up the Sabine River corridor were also hit hard.

Local campuses, including McNeese State University and the SOWELA community college in Lake Charles, suffered severe damage.

State Sen. Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles, told a legislative committee that overall damages from Hurricane Laura are estimated to be about $12 billion, three times that of Hurricane Rita in 2005.

It was a monster storm, and the bill is huge. And that does not begin to express fully the difficulties of the people of the region, living without power for a long time. The emergency included boil-water advisories in Lake Charles and other cities.

The good news is that power has been restored in many areas, as thousands of crews from across the United States helped Entergy and other investor-owned utilities and rural electric cooperatives get poles and line into action.

Volunteers from across the nation are helping. More than $5.5 million has been contributed to the Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana, leading with $1 million gifts from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation and Walmart, to help families get basic services while they wield hammers and nails.

It is vital that, although this is hardly Louisiana's first rodeo with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that aid flows quickly and without the nitpicking bureaucracy that plagued the state 15 years ago after Katrina and Rita.

We believe FEMA has improved under the pressure of events. President Donald Trump has appointed professionals to top jobs in the agency. And constant pressure from Louisiana's delegation in Congress will be on FEMA, as well as other relevant sources of aid like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The pressure is needed because the scope of the damage is so great. Congress should act very soon to direct aid to the region and give the bureaucracy its marching orders.

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