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The Port of New Orleans, which was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, has recovered most of its pre-storm cargo handling. GENERAL CARGO:
BULK CARGO:
TOTAL PORTWIDE CARGO:
Source: Port of New Orleans |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Port of New Orleans, which sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina, had regained nearly 94 percent of its pre-storm cargo by the end of May, according to figures released by the port Friday.
The port went through a dismal four-month stretch following Katrina's strike on Aug. 29 that included a 12-day shutdown, the loss of about one-third of its operating capacity and the rerouting of cargo to other ports by several shipping lines.
But figures compiled for the first four months of 2006, the latest available, showed that the tonnage of general cargo handled at the port was only 3.8 percent lower than the first four months of 2005. General cargo includes goods shipped in containers and breakbulk cargo, such as steel and rubber, that is transported on pallets.
Bulk cargo such as grain and oil and was off by 8 percent over the same period.
Overall cargo handled at the port for January through May totaled 12.4 million tons, off 6.5 percent from 13.3 tons for the first four months of 2005.
Port spokesman Chris Bonura said the general cargo figure was the best indicator of the port's health, since most of the bulk cargo is handled by private, rather than port-owned facilities.
“That tells us we have gone a long way to recover this economic engine,” Bonura said. “It all started two weeks after the storm with the first vessel after the storm. People had been saying that wouldn't happen for six months.”
A total of 683 ship calls were made at the port for the first four months of 2006, down 12 percent for January through May 2005.
A key to the recent recovery has been a 15 percent increase in the amount of iron and steel handled through the port. Bonura said foreign shipments peak on a cycle every three to four years and the latest crescendo came as the port worked back from the storm.
Container units handled by the port were down 36.2 percent to 45,075 from the year-ago figure of 70,650. A cargo operator, APM Terminal, decided to abandon one of the port's two container terminals following Katrina because of the uncertain future of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, which handles large oceangoing ships. The outlet has been blamed for the flooding that devastated St. Bernard Parish.
Negotiations with a possible replacement operator are under way, Bonura said.
In 2004, New Orleans ranked seventh among U.S. ports in tons of cargo handled, according to the latest figures available from the American Association of Port Authorities.
In the meantime, the port is lining up the return of cruise ships to New Orleans. Three cruise lines will base four ships in New Orleans by fall 2007, a return to the pre-Katrina level of operation.
Work is expected to be completed in September on a new $37 million cruise terminal that will enable the port to handle two large cruise ships at a time. In 2004, about 734,000 cruise passengers embarked and disembarked through the port, making New Orleans the fastest-growing U.S. cruise port before Katrina, according to port figures.
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On the Net:
Port of New Orleans: http://www.portno.com
Aug 20 15:00
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) -- Luminaries here to christen the 844-foot-long Makin Island said the ship is a Titan-sized tribute to the spirit of those who built it in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
The Makin Island on Saturday became the first ship since the storm to be christened at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, before a crowd of dignitaries and eight members of the Marine Corps unit that in 1942 raided the Pacific island for which the ship is named. The ceremony came on the 64th anniversary of that offensive against the Japanese.
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, whose father, Chester Lott, worked at the shipyard, said the Makin Island was under construction and endured Katrina's violent surge nearly a year ago. Now it stands as a symbol of South Mississippians' toughness.
“Like this ship, we have weathered the storm and we are looking forward,” Lott said.
Lott praised the workers who continued to build the mammoth craft while enduring much personal tragedy.
“They said 'we will go back to work, we will clean up this mess, and we will build these ships for the Coast Guard and the Navy', and they did it,” he said.
The Makin Island is a member of the Wasp class of multipurpose amphibious assault ships, which can carry some 1,000 sailors, 1,900 Marines, a squadron of Harrier II jets, and various Marine and Navy helicopters.
The Makin Island also has a 600-bed hospital. It can travel at just over 20 knots, or 23.5 miles per hour, and its two gas turbine engines are each rated at 35,000 horsepower.
Northrop Grumman executives said the plant is doing well following Katrina. Since the storm, workers have started 12 ship projects and three have been delivered.
Eight surviving members of the U.S. Marine Raider Companies A and B, who took control of Makin Island in 1942, sat solemnly peering at the huge ship. “Gung Ho,” which means “work together,” was their motto and it will also be the ship's motto.
Raider Julius Cotten of Crystal Springs said the weather conditions were rough when the elite unit went ashore in rubber boats and overwhelmed the Japanese defenders. “We were the forerunners of Special Forces,” he said. “We were their daddies.”
President Franklin Roosevelt's son, Maj. James Roosevelt, was among the raiders who stormed ashore that day.
Howard Young, a raider, said the Marines went in heavily armed and made quick work of the Japanese. “Very quickly we wiped them out,” Young said.
The surviving Marines came to Pascagoula from places like Kansas City, Mo., and Peoria, Ill. The christening was also attended by Donald Winter, secretary of the Navy; Gen. Michael Hagee, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps; and Ronald Sugar, chairman and chief executive officer of the Northrop Grumman Corp., among others.
Hagee's wife, Silke Hagee, was the ship's sponsor and broke the ceremonial bottle on its propeller.
“Ladies and gentlemen, take a good look behind me,” she said. “That's our ship, that's your ship. She's a beautiful ship.”
Aug 16 16:15
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Petroleum exploration companies made 541 bids on 381 western Gulf of Mexico tracts they believe could produce oil and natural gas, showing increased interest at a time of record oil prices.
Last year 422 bids were received on 346 tracts in a similar sale for offshore leases off the coasts of Texas and western Louisiana.
The sale went on despite questions over how a lawsuit filed by the state of Louisiana might affect the leases.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, as part of a campaign to get the state a bigger share of federal offshore royalty money, filed a lawsuit claiming that the federal Minerals Management Service has not done enough to protect Louisiana's wetlands from damage from drilling. As part of the suit, she sought an order blocking Wednesday's sale.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt on Monday refused to block the sale. But he also said the state would have a strong case when the dispute goes to trial in November.
That led Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to urge postponement of Wednesday's sale. But the bidding went on.
“This has been a tortuous path to this sale,” said Chris Oynes, regional director for MMS, the agency that handles the sale.
Tracts that were bid on included 107 in areas considered shallow -- 200 meters or less -- that could produce gas from deep beneath the floor of the outercontinental shelf.
Years ago gas that deep was left behind but new technology has made drilling for deep gas more cost efficient and higher gas prices have provided more incentive.
There also were bids received on 218 “ultra-deep” tracts, below 800 meters.
The state now receives less than 2 percent of the royalties from oil and natural gas produced in the Gulf. Blanco and Louisiana's congressional delegation are demanding more.
Both the Senate and House have passed bills that would give Louisiana and other Gulf states more -- 37.5 percent under the Senate bill, 50 percent to 75 percent under the House bill. The differences in the legislation still need to be worked out.
The MMS, an arm of the Interior Department, has said that only Congress can change the royalty formula.
Aug 18 14:43
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Federal approval of Mississippi's $100 million plan to rebuild public housing destroyed by Hurricane Katrina has done little to assuage concerns that the state is moving too slowly to help the working poor get affordable housing.
There are few, if any, development projects for affordable housing on the coast, and low-income homeowners are still waiting for Gov. Haley Barbour to provide federal grant assistance to them.
“People are in desperate straits. This is not the voices of a few organizations crying out in the dark. This is a widely acknowledged problem,” said Ashley Tsongas, policy adviser for Oxfam America, an international organization involved in the Gulf Coast recovery.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday approved Mississippi's plan to restore 2,500 public housing units destroyed by the Aug. 29 storm.
However, the public housing funding is separate from Barbour's $3.4 billion housing assistance grant program, which the governor says will involve a component to address the needs of low-income and working poor homeowners.
All of the money is part of the $5 billion the state has received from the federal Community Development Block Grant Program to respond the housing crisis created by Katrina.
Sharon Hanshaw, 52, of Biloxi, is among those waiting for money to reach her.
Hanshaw, who heads a nonprofit women's organization, still lives in a government trailer. She's receiving a modest salary through a grant to her Coastal Women for Change, but it's not enough to pay rent or purchase a home.
“Oh my God, it's crazy,” Hanshaw said Friday. “If your rent was $500 last year, it's going to be $850 this year. The power bill might have been $150 last year. It's $325 this year. The income hasn't changed, but everything is rising up.”
Tsongas chided Barbour's office for not already having a comprehensive plan in place to provide affordable housing. She said much of the housing was privately owned and there isn't a plan to bring it back.
Tsongas said the housing plan in neighboring Louisiana isn't ideal, but it includes a component to leverage federal funding in a way to allow private affordable housing units to be restored.
But Mississippi officials say the delay can't be helped. The plan to assist the low-income and working poor must first be developed, said Scott Hamilton, spokesman for the Mississippi Development Authority, an agency helping to implement the grant program.
Hamilton said after the proposed low-income phase is complete, the plan still has to be approved by HUD and then opened for public comment. Hamilton said he didn't want to elaborate on specifics “until we have something that is possibly workable.”
The state has begun taking registrations for the low-income grants. So far, it has received about 8,000. Once the plan is approved, people who haven't registered can still submit applications. The yearly income limits can range from $44,300 for a single-person household to $63,300 for a family of four.
Some 17,000 Mississippians are still waiting for their checks after being approved for the first phase of the grant program that provided up to $150,000 each to homeowners who lived outside the federal flood plain but lost their houses to Katrina's water.
There were about 150,000 housing units in the three southernmost counties of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson. People in 66 percent of those homes made below the U.S. median household income, according to a study published by the Rand Corporation.
The study said 81,000 housing units were exposed to Katrina's flooding or storm surge and estimated that 27,000 affordable housing units will have to be replaced.
Meanwhile, people are “surviving the best they can,” said Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
“They're living in trailers, living with friends and family. These individuals are not people on public assistance. They work in casinos and serve the food we eat on the coast,” Johnson said.
The situation could be further exacerbated if the Mississippi Regional Housing Authority VIII goes forward with a proposal to divest itself of at least 400 public housing units, said Tsongas.
The housing authority sent letters to tenants earlier this month, saying it can no longer maintain the properties as public housing because of a lack of insurance and HUD funding. The move could send hundreds of people scrambling for a place to live.
“Given that it has happened in a context where low- and moderate-income people haven't been addressed is just inexcusable,” Tsongas said.
Aug 17 14:18
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco met with insurance industry executives on Thursday, seeking ways to keep insurers writing homeowners policies in Louisiana after the twin punches of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The private meeting produced no agreements or revelations that would lead to new legislation or policy changes, Blanco said afterward.
The governor and a State Farm Insurance Co. spokesman agreed that all involved are looking at long-term changes in how insurance policies are written in Louisiana -- nothing that could go into effect before the end of the 2006 hurricane season in November.
“There is no silver bullet,” Blanco said.
In all, about 25 insurance industry executives attended the two-hour meeting at the Capitol, including officials from Louisiana's two largest insurers, State Farm and Allstate Corp.
Blanco and State Farm spokesman Morris Anderson said the state and the industry must figure out how to keep homeowners insurance affordable and readily available, while protecting insurers from excessive risk if the state is hit by more storms.
Statewide, homeowners policies have gone up an average of 12 percent since the storms, including decreases in some northern parishes and spikes of over 50 percent in coastal parishes, Insurance Commissioner James Donelon said.
Louisiana must get through hurricane season without more storm damage before any significant changes in policy or law can be implemented, Donelon said.
“If we can get through this hurricane season ... I think we'll see a softening of the market,” Donelon said.
Some lawmakers have suggested that Blanco should call the Legislature into special session -- its third since the storms -- to change state insurance law. Otherwise, the Legislature is not scheduled for its next regular session until April 2007.
Blanco repeated on Thursday that she has no plans for another special session.
Also Thursday, a federal judge ruled against Allstate in the company's legal challenge to two new state laws giving policyholders more time to sue their insurers over hurricane coverage.
Allstate lawyers argued before U.S. District Judge James Brady that the case should be heard in federal court, while attorneys for the state said it belonged in a state court. Allstate argued that the state laws are unconstitutional because they would interfere with existing contracts between the insurer and its customers -- an issue that the company claimed could only be heard in federal court.
Brady ruled against Allstate, saying the challenges should be heard by a state judge because the Legislature spelled out the process under which the statutes should be challenged.
An Allstate lawyer said the company would probably not appeal.
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