While portions of New Orleans have rebounded from Hurricane Katrina, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin said, other areas look as though they were hit “last week.”
“You see limbs that are down, trash, abandoned automobiles … boats in the middle of nowhere,” the Maryland Democrat told The Examiner on Tuesday. He made his comments after visiting New Orleans earlier this week for the first time since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Cardin said.
He toured the city and participated in a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee field hearing on methods for coastal wetlands restoration, hurricane and storm-damage protection and debris waste management. The senator said he visited communities that had only about 15 percent of their pre-hurricane population, no stores or services and “slabs where houses used to be.”
“There are numerous problems that are preventing the rebirth of these neighborhoods,” Cardin said. “We had a good chance to talk to people about that.”
On Sunday, Cardin said committee members met with about 150 community activists.
“There is too much bureaucracy in the path of people trying to return to neighborhoods,” Cardin said.
According to Cardin, some of the problems that require attention are obtaining funding and support for levies and pumps, restoring wetlands, dealing with a lack of contractors in the area and providing law enforcement and municipal services.
Cardin said about 10 witnesses attended the hearing Monday, including local elected officials, “state environmental people,” community members and others. To address the problems in New Orleans, Cardin said, the committee has worked to pass a bill to assist with wetlands restoration, among other things.
“There is a loss of wetlands equal to about 25 football fields every day, and obviously you can’t allow that to continue,” Cardin said.
Cardin said the committee will also play a role in oversight as revitalization efforts proceed.
“This was one of the national tragedies in America’s history,” he said. “It was made much worse because of the failure of government both before and after the storm.”
