In a letter to President Bush, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has criticized FEMA’s plan to move people living in travel trailers with possibly unsafe levels of formaldehyde into apartments and hotels. He said it could cause “a second great displacement” of New Orleanians and seriously harm the city’s economy. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A week after Hurricane Katrina, a FEMA official in charge of streamlining the flow of disaster aid issued a directive that would have cut through the red tape and expedited a staggering 1,029 rebuilding projects and $5.3 billion. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS - Air-quality tests on the government-issued trailers housing thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims are scheduled to begin by next Wednesday, nearly two months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency postponed them. Read More and Discuss

BATON ROUGE - Trailers and hotel rooms provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were supposed to be temporary housing until evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita could find more permanent places to live. Read More and Discuss

BATON ROUGE—A new government accountability report criticizes the way the Federal Emergency Management Agency handled a controversial alternative housing program, bolstering the claims of Louisiana elected officials who say the state was shortchanged. Read More and Discuss

Gov. Kathleen Blanco issued a state of emergency Thursday night that provides local emergency preparedness officials with additional powers, including the ability to require evacuations of areas threatened by flooding and of residents living in FEMA trailers. It also sets the stage for a request for federal assistance. Read More and Discuss

Louisiana’s legislative auditor has found that more than a third of a sample of Road Home grants he reviewed last spring were either too high or too low based on the program’s own data. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s “limited progress” in emergency preparedness and response since the hurricanes two years ago is “alarming and disappointing,” U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said Thursday. Read More and Discuss

Unlocking $200 million in federal money, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has given final approval to a state financing program designed to spur infrastructure improvements in hurricane-ravaged parishes. In authorizing the Long Term Community Recovery Program, HUD allowed the state to begin making payments on a project-by-project basis to parishes that submit rebuilding blueprints to the Louisiana… Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS—When he finally got his FEMA trailer in June 2006, Keith Mr. Craft felt like his life was about to take a turn for the better. A lifelong New Orleans resident whose house flooded to the ceiling following hurricane Katrina, Mr. Craft had spent 10 uncomfortable months living in cramped motels awaiting Federal Emergency Management Agency approval to place… Read More and Discuss

In a little-noticed memo issued in June, the Federal Emergency Management Agency changed the insurance requirements that local governments and nonprofits must meet to be eligible for public assistance in times of disaster, putting groups such as hospitals, schools and parish governments on the hook for millions of dollars should another storm strike the New Orleans area. The changes set… Read More and Discuss