Deal yields $3.1 billion to strengthen levees

WASHINGTON - President Bush will request $1.5 billion more to help rebuild the levee system in New Orleans, the top federal official for reconstruction announced Thursday.

At a news briefing at the White House, officials dodged the question of whether the levees would be built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, using broader language instead to promise that the city’s citizens would be safe and the levees would be “stronger and better.”

“The federal government is committed to building the best levee system known in the world,” Donald Powell, the top U.S. official for reconstruction, told reporters. “It’s a complicated issue.”

The money the president is requesting is in addition to the $1.6 billion he has already committed to repair the breeches in the levees, correct the design and construction flaws and bring the levee to a height that was authorized before the hurricane, a Category 4 storm, hit on Aug. 29, killing more than 1,300 people.

“That work is being done as we speak,” Powell said.

Powell said the $1.5 billion that the president is requesting would pay to armor the levee system with concrete and stone, close three interior canals and provide state-of-the art pumping systems so that the water would flow out of the canals into Lake Pontchartrain.

‘Commitment ... for hurricane protection’
Levees will be rebuilt and will be as high as 17 feet in some areas, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said at the news conference.

“To all New Orleanians, it’s time for you to come home. It’s time for you to come back to the Big Easy,” Nagin said. “We now have the commitment and the funding for hurricane protection.”

The news came as a Senate panel released interviews that showed that local commissioners tasked with maintaining the levees did very little actual inspection of the floodwalls that failed.

Instead, Orleans Levee District commissioners “normally meet and get some beignets and coffee in the morning,” former commission President James P. Huey said in a partial deposition released at a hearing to examine who was responsible for overseeing the floodwalls.

‘How do you inspect levees?’
“You have commissioners,” Huey told investigators. “They have some news cameras following you around, and all of this stuff. And you have your little beignets, and then you have — you go do the tourist and that and you have a nice lunch somewhere or whatever. They have this stop-off thing or whatever. And that’s what the inspections are about.”

NBC VIDEO Levees inspectors scrutinized Dec. 15: Documents obtained by NBC News suggest inspections of New Orleans levees were little more than long drives followed by expensive lunches. Correspondent Chip Reid reports. Nightly News

Asked about other levee inspections that might be more thorough, Huey told investigators: “When you say inspections — and I don’t really know and I couldn’t even answer to tell you — how do you inspect levees other than if you see seepage?”

Huey resigned from the board in October amid questions about no-bid contracts to his relatives in the days after Katrina.

A work order also released by the Senate panel that was dated Aug. 16 — two weeks before Katrina hit — shows that inspection crews did check the levees but also cut nearby grass and green space.

MORE FROM KATRINA: THE LONG ROAD BACK

Katrina: The Long Road Back Section Front

Apologetic Nagin visits N.Y. Bush sees rebirth from ‘sadness’ of Katrina Special report: Rebuilding lives Katrina exodus felt far and wide A tangled tale of Katrina survival ‘New Orleans is still crying’ Brian Williams: We were witnesses Developers' past includes fraud Special report: Rising from Ruin Dateline video blogs: Covering Katrina Katrina: The Long Road Back Section Front   Add Katrina: The Long Road Back headlines to your news reader: