205,000 houses were severely damaged by last year’s Gulf Coast hurricanes. As of May, 60% remained unoccupied.
Displaced families have moved an average of 3.5 times since the storms.
In March, the New York Times found that more than 1 in 10 New Orleans evacuees were homeless or had no permanent place to live.
Fewer than 35% of New Orleans’ 462,000 residents had returned to the city as of March. Only half are expected to return by September 2008.
State Farm and Allstate will no longer sell homeowners insurance in New Orleans.
Eight months after Katrina, fewer than 1 in 10 New Orleans businesses had reopened.
The Small Business Administration has rejected nearly 70% of the 2.4 million loan applications received from hurricane victims.
36 countries and international organizations donated $126 million to federal rebuilding efforts, half of which remained undistributed six months after Katrina.
FEMA spent $431 million on 11,000 trailer homes that were never used, $3 million for 4,000 unused cots, and $10 million to fix up 240 rooms in Alabama that housed only six people.
Carnival Cruise Lines got a six-month, $236 million contract to house evacuees on three of its ships, which sat half empty off the Gulf Coast for weeks.
The GAO found that there was insufficient oversight on 13 reconstruction contracts, including $100 million to Bechtel.
Experts predict there is a nearly 50% chance that a Category 3 or greater hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast this season.
On a scale of 1 to 10, FEMA director R. David Paulison gave the agency an 8 in terms of preparedness for this year’s hurricane season.
More than 100,000 families in Louisiana and Mississippi live in FEMA trailers that Paulison said “should not, or could not, ride out even a Category 1 storm.”
