Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,600 people in Mississippi and Louisiana. Officially, the post-Katrina death toll in New Orleans stands at about 1,100. However, 20 months after, many in the medical community think the devastating storm is still killing as people continue to die in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms and other medical facilities. Even a new state report on local deaths since Katrina did not dispel doubts of many who say the death rate is up.

"Look at all the things people are living with: tremendous stress, the dust and mold in houses and buildings, financial worries, fear of crime," Dr. John Thompson, director of forensic neuropsychiatry at Tulane University Health Sciences Center, recently told The Associated Press.

Amid disputes about how to rebuild health care in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, a state legislative spending panel signed off last month on plans to build a new $1.2 billion public hospital in the city. The hospital would have nearly as many beds as the Louisiana State University charity hospital facilities flooded by the storm, reports AP.

Yet overall reconstruction of the city remains obstructed.

"Lured by congressionally authorized tax credits and other financial incentives after Hurricane Katrina," many developers announced plans to build high-rises; but 20 months after the storm, many haven't gotten off the ground.

For one, construction and insurance costs have soared. But that's only part of it. New Orleans still has no comprehensive rebuilding blueprint, and funding is falling far short of planners' expectations.

The unveiling in late March of a targeted $1.1 billion redevelopment plan for New Orleans' neighborhoods was greeted with "guarded optimism," as ARCHITECT Magazine described it last month:

Edward Blakely, the city's head of recovery management, emphasized the inherent limits of the plan, which is intended to be more surgical than sweeping in its scope. The plan focuses on 17 hub sites around the city that are meant to act as magnets for private development by leveraging public money into them. Fifteen of the sites lie in neighborhoods that either were not hit hard by the flood or have begun to rebuild. Together, they are to see $161 million in public investment. But Blakely would direct about $145 million toward sites in two devastated neighborhoods, the Lower Ninth Ward and a section surrounding the Lake Forest Plaza shopping center.

Last week, backing off an ambitious timeline for the city's $1.1 billion rebuilding plan that called for financing to be in place by June, Blakely said that the city won't have enough cash to launch the program until later this year. The recovery czar said he canceled a meeting with private developers slated for last week because "he couldn't provide sufficient details about fiscal incentives the city eventually hopes to offer," reports The Times-Picayune:

The meeting will take place in the fall, when a financing plan should be firmed up, and "because the developers, you know, they take these long vacations," he said. When Blakely and [New Orleans Mayor Ray] Nagin unveiled their target zone redevelopment plan in March, the recovery chief said he intended to have a financing package in place by June, some cash in hand by summer and "cranes on the skyline" by September.

The plan calls for about $450 million to be spent in 17 zones in an effort to spur private investment. The rest would go to projects scattered across the remainder of the city.

At least one big plan is going ahead: a $400 million proposal by Donald Trump to construct the city's tallest building. However, "the only visible sign at the planned site of the 70-story Trump International Hotel & Tower is the tycoon's name painted on a brick-wall mural," according to AP.

Redevelopment proposals are rolling along, and Blakely hopes the pace of reconstruction will pick up by fall.

A $14.4 billion rebuilding blueprint passed its first regulatory hurdle last month, with the city planning commission approving the plan. Tucked inside the blueprint was a proposal for a monument on a grand, "Homeric" scale, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the idea being to honor Katrina's victims and the spirit of New Orleans, and create a tourist attraction.

While the memorial is a far lower priority than upgrading drainage and reconstructing neighborhoods over the next decade, it is still listed among the top projects.

Doubts about the strength of the city's flood-protection system also are weighing on developers' minds. When Katrina struck in August 2005, levees broke and flooded about 80 percent of New Orleans. The water extended well into the business district, and hurricane-force winds blew out windows in many high-rises.

The Army Corps of Engineers is pumping billions of dollars into flood-protection improvements. But the Corps itself acknowledges some levees are not up to federally mandated standards set before Katrina.

Other recent natural disasters, such as last month's tornado that ravaged parts of Kansas, have drawn concern away from the aftermath of Katrina. "You don't hear about us anymore. They say we're not news," Glenn Locklin, of the volunteer organization One House at a Time, recently told Reuters. "The one thing people don't realize is that we are just as bad as we were."

Under the revised schedule, officials will turn their attention this summer to making sure the plans of private developers, who are not part of the city's recovery agenda, move swiftly through the permitting process and receive needed support, such as repaved streets, according to The Times-Picayune. Many of the projects should be in motion by summer's end, Blakely said.

Earlier:

Re-engineering New Orleans

Of Hurricanes' Aftermath, N'Orleans' Levees, Engineers' Efforts

Another N. Orleans Black Eye for Corps of Engineers

Resources:

Associated Press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

ARCHITECT Magazine

Times-Picayune

Reuters