St. Tammany Parish, LA
July, 2009
Fourth & Forward

As the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, the St. Tammany Parish President and the Mayor of Slidell reflect on the recovery progress made in their communities.

Probably over the last year, is finalizing some of the FEMA projects we���ve had in place and they���ve started to proceed, such as our buildings here in St. Tammany Parish, our school buildings, our own public buildings that we own in parish government.  

Our school system is not under our direct supervision but we work very closely with them. We���ve seen great progress there.

Salmen High School, I graduated from. So it was refreshing to see the construction going on, the mitigation. They���d worked with FEMA on the rebuilding of that, so I live close to there, so I go by to check on it from time to time, and it���s looking very, very good.

Brock, same thing. Same problems and issues. Totally flooded, mitigation issues and they are in construction of that.

It was previously owned by private sector and they called it the Towers Building. It���s the only 6 story office building in the parish.

People see it and it���s a very positive sign for them in their own neighborhoods to see that the local government is rebuilding buildings of that magnitude, which we���ll have employees once we move in, in another 6 to 8 months, anywhere from 200 to 300, which is always good for the local economy in that general area.

We���ve been on a basically, a 4 year journey and since the change of regime at FEMA of the local authority that was here, I���ve seen huge progress. We have settled a lot of our former appeals in the favor of the city.

The city government has been in FEMA trailers for the last 4 years. So what we���re doing now, is we���re getting close to transitioning out of those trailers into new buildings.

Building number one is going to take about 25% of our employees that were displaced, and put them into permanent structures. Building 2 will take the remaining and we should be out for bid by the end of August, first of September.

The auditorium is the same way. March is when we���re looking at taking it down, and March of 2010 is the completion date there.

I would think and hope that bids would go out for the end of the month for the Senior Citizens Center. We also have to demolish that building.

We had a large population of seniors that utilized that facility and they���ve been displaced now for four years.

2010 should be Katrina���s final chapter, and I certainly look forward to that.