August 25, 2006
New
Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's comments about New York 's "hole in the
ground," referring to the World Trade Center site, have stirred up quite
the hornet's nest. The exact quote to CBS's "60 Minutes"
was: "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and
it's five years later. So let's be fair."
C. Ray's choice of words could've been a little more delicate but his point
is well taken, just not in the manner he intended. New Orleans
has been dealing with more rubble than was hauled away from the World Trade
Center site and it took the folks in New York two years to do it.
Everyone is complaining that the rebuilding effort on the Gulf Coast is taking
too long. I've even chimed in on that note a time or two. But
given the commonality between the two disasters, it's not that surprising. You
see, we not only had the enormous loss of life and destruction of property
in both cases, we also had the gargantuan bureaucracy of government involved
in the clean-up.
Time was when local governments were tasked with hiring demolition and clean-up
crews to clear debris in the wake of natural disasters. Because
of the advent of federal disaster aid, the wheels turn so much slower because
the unwieldy beast known as the federal government must sign-off on every
piece of paper - filed in triplicate, of course. Because of its
enormous size, however, the federal government is wholly unfit to ride herd
on such massive disasters as Katrina and a few little doggies slip past the
lasso - like FEMA cards used to by jewelry, TVs and strippers.
What C. Ray fails to acknowledge is the fundamental difference in how the
two situations were handled post-disaster. The clean-up of the
World Trade Center was overseen by New York 's Department of Investigation. The
DOI is one of the oldest law enforcement agencies in the country and was formed
in the wake of the Boss Tweed scandals of the 19th century. The
DOI set up several ‘Integrity Monitors' that answered directly to the DOI. These
Integrity Monitors made sure the clean-up effort was run by the book.
In July of 2006, Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the New York City Department
of Investigation, testified before a congressional subcommittee. She
laid out some of the specific investigative, auditing and monitoring activities
engaged in by the Integrity Monitors. They included: background
checks on companies and individuals participating in the clean-up; interviews
of employees on-site; reviewing payrolls to ensure that there were no fictitious
employees on the payroll; a GPS tracking system for trucks removing debris;
verifying that materials that were ordered were, in fact, delivered; verifying
that the costs of materials were not inflated.
Of course, the World Trade Center clean-up posed extraordinary problems not
found at typical natural disaster sites. It was, at once, a crime
scene and a burial ground for which great care had to be taken. However,
because of its sensitive nature, immense precautions were taken to ensure
that as little abuse as possible was taking place. Juxtapose the
World Trade Center clean-up with the Katrina clean-up: hordes of illegal aliens
being used; layers and layers of subcontractors added to the process, each
taking his cut of the endless stream of money from Washington; hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of equipment left unattended and, subsequently,
stolen.
New York may have a hole in the ground but Washington must have a hole in
its head for not demanding the same accountability in New Orleans
that they did in New York.