AP reports that "The federal government is considering buying out as many as 17,000 homes along the Mississippi coast and remaking the land into a vast hurricane-protection zone, raising anxieties that it could destroy the waterfront lives many residents are struggling to rebuild after Katrina.

The Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program could cost $40 billion, including buying the homes, building levees and restoring barrier islands. The land could be converted into wetlands or other public uses, such as golf courses or bike trails, but could not be sold for private development.

The buyouts would be voluntary, and the Army Corps plan envisions allowing casinos, hotels and restaurants to continue operating on the coast from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi. But until the proposal becomes more focused, residents are concerned that it could spell the end of their Margaritaville-like communities, where a lifestyle of beaches and boiled shrimp has flourished for decades, and many houses are already built atop stilts."

AP Article

NEW ORLEANS - For proof that Hurricane Katrina is transforming the ethnic flavor of New Orleans — and creating altogether new tensions — look no further than the trucks serving tacos and other Latin American fare. The trucks are a common sight in barrios from Los Angeles to New York, but controversial in a city still adapting to a threefold increase in Hispanics since Katrina.

Read more at Yahoo

The government's repairs to New Orleans' hurricane-damaged levees may put the French Quarter in greater danger than it was before Hurricane Katrina, a weakness planners said couldn't be helped, at least for now, according to an AP report carried by Yahoo.

Experts say the stronger levees and flood walls could funnel storm water into the cul-de-sac of the Industrial Canal, only 2 miles from Bourbon Street, and overwhelm the waterway's 12-foot-high concrete flood walls that shield some of the city's most cherished neighborhoods.

Read the story

PBS will present a five-part series on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina starting Monday. "Right to Return: New Home Movies from the Lower 9th Ward," will be shown on Tavis Smiley's late-night program for five nights beginning Monday, May 28.

Full Story

Paul Vallas, 53, was hired to lead New Orleans' beleaguered district as it recovers from Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana officials said Friday. Vallas, an administrator with a reputation for shaping up big-city schools and now the head of Philadelphia's public schools, will take over as superintendent of the state-run Recovery School District on or after July 1, state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek said Friday.

Vallas said his biggest challenge will be improving conditions in a city where schools that survived Hurricane Katrina intact are hard to distinguish from those damaged by the storm.

Read more from AP at Yahoo

According to the Associated Press, Louisiana's $7.5 billion program to buy out homeowners or help them rebuild is going broke, the governor is warning in another crisis in the long-mired effort to rescue neighborhoods smashed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Road Home officials now say they expect a shortfall of up to $3 billion, mostly because the grants that have been doled out for rebuilding so far are running much higher than originally projected. Moreover, the state has yet to fully set up the nonprofit corporation that will take ownership of as many as 15,000 bought-out properties under Road Home. The corporation has no executive director or staff, and the rules for handling the wrecked houses and other ruined pieces of property have yet to be spelled out.

Some community activists worry that the disarray and the shortage of money? are going to hold up the rebuilding.

Read the full AP article at Yahoo

Over two centuries, engineers have restrained the Mississippi River's natural urge to wriggle disastrously out of its banks by building hundreds of miles of levees that work today like a riverine straitjacket. But it is time, Louisiana officials propose, to let the river loose, as reported by Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post.

To save the state from washing into the ocean at the astonishing rate of 24 square miles per year, Louisiana officials are developing an epic $50 billion plan that would rebuild the land by rerouting one of the world's biggest rivers. The proposal envisions enormous projects to provide flood protection and reclaim land-building sediment from the river, which now flows uselessly out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Full Story

AP and Yahoo report that doctors at a hospital at Marrero, outside New Orleans, sued the state Monday, seeking $100 million they say they are owed for providing free care to poor and uninsured patients following Hurricane Katrina.

The lawsuit, brought by 381 physicians at West Jefferson Medical Center, says the state failed to reimburse them for treating indigent patients since the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane closed the state-funded Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

Read the whole story at Yahoo news

Attorneys say a federal jury that awarded more than $2.8 million to a man who lost his home to Hurricane Katrina sends a strong message to insurers who refused to pay thousands of other homeowners for damage from the storm.

Full Story

NEW ORLEANS — An attorney centrally involved in suing the federal government over damage caused by levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina faces disbarment stemming from a case he handled 16 years ago, according to an article in The Advocate.

The Louisiana Supreme Court will hold a hearing next week on whether to debar Joseph Bruno over his violation of attorney-conduct rules during his handling of a lawsuit over an explosion at Shell Oil Co.’s Norco refinery in 1988. Disbarment would cut short a career in which Bruno figured prominently over the last 13 years in a string of headline-making cases that secured more than $600 million in settlements.

It was not clear how the decision would affect pending cases in the post-Katrina era.

Read the full story

Mardi Gras, not reconstruction, dominates this week's headlines in local news media. The following link is one example. Find other media in the KR Directory.

Daily Advertiser 2/20

Our News section has been renewed in web log format. We hope to have regular reports from all parts of the Delta, and as participation and diversity increase we will create sections.

You can join our team as a reporter. Information is in the Organization section. Submit news briefs through the web log (to get started, request a user ID from the editor); submit longer articles for consideration via the Send News form.

Volunteer!

Looking pretty and sounding good are very important for the Mardi Gras Indians. When they hit the streets on Mardi Gras mornings they are resplendent in suits that cost thousands of dollars and take a whole year to sew.

Story at The Advocate

Mount Zion Baptist in Seattle is collecting the following items to be sent to the hurricane zones:
- New or lightly used clothing for men, women, and children in all sizes
- Toiletries (toothbrushes/paste, shampoo, soap, etc.)
- New or lightly used shoes for men, women, and children in all sizes
- Women’s accessories (scarves, purses, hats, etc.
- Non-perishable food items
- Children’s Toys

Mount Zion BC, Seattle