FEMA Calls Rebuilding Complete As New Orleans Restored To Former Squalor

NEW ORLEANS—After an unprecedented 18-month cleanup and repair effort supervised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and several state and local government bureaus, Undersecretary for Federal Emergency Management R. David Paulison announced Monday that the city of New Orleans has been successfully returned to its pre–Hurricane Katrina state of decay and deterioration.

Our job here is done," said Paulison, who was joined by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco in a ceremony along the banks of the Industrial Canal. "Our beloved Big Easy has its soul back. The downtown shops are open and in full violation of code, the nightlife is alive with the sound of violence, and the streets are once again safe for poverty and vice."

The $41 billion restoration of the city's hallmark abandoned buildings, shacks, vacant lots, and standing trash piles was among the most complex and painstaking ever undertaken. Starting just four weeks after the August 2005 hurricane, workers recovered millions of pieces of flood-damaged debris, cleaned them of sediments and chemicals, and then replaced them where they were originally found.

The work, however, did not proceed without controversy, often grinding to a halt as preservationists quarreled in court over which sections of rot, toxic chemical compounds, PCBs, bacteria, and pathogens predated Katrina.

Despite the bitter disputes, Blanco declared the restoration project an "unqualified success," and invited the estimated 200,000 New Orleanians who still reside outside the city to return.

"We've done our best to ensure the city is as well off as it was before Katrina hit," Blanco said. "It's all back—the same abandoned cars, the broken bottles, the spent shotgun shells, the rat colonies, even the used diapers on the front lawns. People of New Orleans, welcome home."

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*The Onion