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PURPOSE

BACKGROUND

WITNESSES

This hearing is intended to provide Members of the Committee with an update on the progress of the repair, restoration, and replacement of highway and transit infrastructure and services along the Gulf Coast necessitated as a result of the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

On August 29, 2005, a category 4 hurricane named Katrina came ashore on the Gulf Coast in the vicinity of the Louisiana-Mississippi state borders. The consequences to those two states’ infrastructure, as well as Alabama’s infrastructure, were exceedingly destructive. Hurricane Katrina produced stunning destruction to the communities in its path, particularly those located between New Orleans, Louisiana and Biloxi, Mississippi.

On October 6, 2005, the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration briefed Committee Members on the status of transportation infrastructure in the impacted region. At that time, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama had made substantial progress towards reopening most major highways in the region to traffic. Significant roadways remained closed however, as the states worked to assess how best to repair, replace or reconstruct damaged roads and infrastructure.

Transit facilities were also significantly damaged or destroyed as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Most notably, the transit facilities in New Orleans suffered greatly. The Federal Transit Administration estimated that a substantial portion of the city’s rolling stock was affected, much of it potentially destroyed.

Because of the ongoing nature of the assessment of the effects of the hurricane on both highway and transit infrastructure, the complete picture is only slowing becoming apparent. Many roads were submerged for long periods, and require direct assessment to determine their condition. Similarly, buses, coaches and trolley cars stood in water for lengthy periods, requiring individual inspection one-by-one.

Work is currently underway on many of the area’s damaged highways and bridges, including: restoring two-lane traffic in each direction on the I-10 Pascagoula Bridge, providing one-lane traffic in each direction across Lake Ponchartrain on the I-10 Twin Span Bridge east of New Orleans, and completing a temporary US-90 along the Mississippi Gulf Coast between Pass Christian and Biloxi. A total of $48.4 million in emergency transportation funds has been released by FEMA to DOT as mission assignments for the purpose of funding bus routes and services in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and along the Mississippi Coast. These funds are managed by the Federal Transit Administration and are made available to transit agencies to move workers, commuters and families in the Gulf Coast regions directly affected by Hurricane Katrina. In Baton Rouge, the city’s population has doubled from 400,000 to 800,000 due to the influx of evacuees from New Orleans, overwhelming the local transit system’s capacity.

The Committee expects that assessing the full impact of the Hurricane will require several more weeks, and this hearing is intended to give Members an understanding of the current state of affairs. Additional hearings or briefings are expected as progress towards more final data is available.