Sen. Landrieu, Rep. Richmond Announce $7.9M for Hurricane Recovery

Press Release

U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, and Representative Cedric Richmond, D-La., today announced $7.9 million in federal funding for hurricane recovery efforts in Louisiana. The funding will go toward the Orleans Parish Courthouse building and numerous projects under the Tulane Educational Fund. These grants are provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance Program.

"These grants will ensure that our students and city workers are living and working in safe and comfortable environments," Sen. Landrieu said. "As we go through this hurricane season, we have a heightened awareness of how critical it is that we improve our buildings and make them able to sustain future man-made and natural disasters."

"With every grant announced, we will continue our pledge to the proud residents who live, work, learn and who through it all, continue to call New Orleans home," said Congressman Richmond. "I am pleased with funding announced today to ensure our facilities are structurally sound."

The grants announced today include:

- $1.9 million to the administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund for measures to protect the Wilson Athletic Center Facility, located on Tulane's campus, from future flood damage. The grant will fund the hardening of the facility's exterior walls, implement self-activating vehicular and personnel flood gates, and add pumps that will work to remove any water accumulation due to leakage or rainfall.

- $3.3 million to the city of New Orleans for flood damage to the Orleans Parish Courthouse building. The money allocated from the grant will go toward the relocation and construction of a new Coroner's Office and Morgue, which will be situated at a higher elevation. The Coroner's Office and Morgue was located on the first and second floors of the courthouse and suffered flood damage during Hurricane Katrina. The vacated areas of the courthouse will serve as open space once stabilized.

- $2.7 million to the administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund to repair the power plant located on Tulane's campus that sustained up to two feet of floodwater destruction during Hurricane Katrina. The power plant is the source of electrical power distribution, emergency power generation and temperature control for Tulane's facilities.

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