NEW ORLEANS — 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.
The official issued a memo that said that once local and regional Federal Emergency Management Agency officials approve a project, Washington must release the money within three days. But FEMA higher- ups countermanded the order.
Instead, the rebuilding of schools, roads, hospitals, firehouses and other desperately needed infrastructure was held up for months of interagency reviews that ended at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Gil Jamieson, FEMA’s head of Gulf Coast recovery and one of the officials who countermanded the directive of Nancy Ward, said her order would have given federal agencies too little time to review requests for funding.
However, not a single rebuilding project was amended, declared ineligible or kicked back for further scrutiny, federal officials acknowledge.
