By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – When FEMA announced in June of last year that they were awarding the city of Slidell over $60 million to repair infrastructure throughout the city that had been damaged by heavy flood waters sitting for days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it was such a big deal that the Region VI Recovery Director for FEMA came to the City Council meeting to break the news.
Since that time, the city has gotten even more FEMA grants thanks to the work being conducted by Stuart Consulting in New Orleans, the firm hired by the City Council to use its expertise to submit project worksheets for claims.
The total for Slidell to repair underground sewer and water lines, as well as city streets, is now a whopping $100 million and some change, according to Slidell Mayor Freddy Drennan.
Needless to say, city residents are anxious to know if their street will be on the list, but Drennan is urging patience since the exact streets to get repaired are still months from being determined.
Even though the city is already in the midst of a couple of FEMA-related repair projects, the major work to be conducted with the $100 million is months from getting underway, according to City Engineer Blaine Clancy.
Drennan explained that when Stuart Consulting took the data from Slidell’s infrastructure video work, viewing sewer and water lines from inside the pipes, they had to create a report claiming flood waters created cracked pipes, crushed water lines or sewer lines and caused other damage.
FEMA reviewed all the data and came to the conclusion the city would receive approximately $100 million—similar money to most of the Gulf Coast municipalities.
Now, Drennan said, the city has selected five design firms to draw the plans to repair exactly what FEMA has approved. Once their drawings are finished, the work will be put out to bid by contractors that should include some local firms.
Clancy said it will probably take “at least two years” to complete all the work, but does expect to finally see some of the projects start by the end of the year.
“We know we are going to be getting a lot of calls from residents wanting to know why their street is tore up,” Drennan said. “$100 million is a lot of work and there will be plenty going on as these projects get moving. But it will still take time to know exactly what is going to get repaired.”
As for which exact streets will be repaired, Drennan said he cannot answer that question at this time. And for that matter, some of that could change once each project gets started.
The closest Drennan could predict as to where the work will be done is to say “almost all of it will be south of Gause Boulevard and I would venture to say that no neighborhood south of Gause will be left untouched.”
The city is drawn into five different drainage basins and five different engineers were chosen to do the work for each basin, but for those who were here when Hurricane Katrina hit in August of 2005, they will remember the street flooding that sat for days was largely on the south side of town. Hence, that is where most of the money will be spent.
“Streets were not designed to hold the weight of water for days like they did,” Drennan said. “And what happened after the water went down? Huge trucks came into the area to clear away all the debris from so many trees that went down. There was a tremendous amount of weight on the streets and the underground pipes.
“It simply destroyed the infrastructure underneath,” he added.
The city received an early grant of $5.4 million for Katrina damage south of Old Spanish Trail and east of Pontchartrain Drive. That project involved the reconstruction of nearly 200 driveways.
A $20 million Hazard Mitigation grant was also awarded, which the city has been using in recent months. Slidell was able to purchase a brand new pump at their city barn that is increasing the pumping capacity of water from the Old Towne area from 400 cubic feet per second to 575 cubic feet per second.
Even when the city begins the different phases to utilize the rest of the FEMA money there could be surprises, Drennan said.
“We won’t be surprised to dig up an entire street, then see that a connecting street had damage that we might not have seen on the video camera—and it might be damage that was never originally submitted. Even though FEMA is trying to close the book on paying for Katraina damage we will still submit new claims if we think we find anything that might qualify,” Drennan said.
As devastating as Katrina was to all along the Gulf Coast, the city of Slidell has certainly reaped incredible benefits from the storm. Not only will they be spending over $100 million from the feds for infrastructure improvements, but Salmen High School, Brock Elementary, the Slidell Municipal Auditorium, the Senior Center, the Rufus Viner Center, City Hall and a new city administration building were all completely rebuilt from the ground up. Those construction projects were paid for with almost entirely federal money, with FEMA giving Slidell over $104 million for those buildings.