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Hurricane car clean-up starts
20/06/2006 10:54 - (SA)
Mary Foster
New Orleans - A forklift raised a muddy and battered car from beneath an interstate overpass on Monday, marking the start of the clean-up of some 100 000 vehicles flooded by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The cars, trucks and boats are being trucked to staging areas, where owners will have 30 days to reclaim them. Unclaimed vehicles will be sold as scrap.
"We will eventually have four staging areas to receive cars from all over southern Louisiana," said Mark Stafford, chief operating officer of DRC Recovery Services.
DRC, based in Mobile, Alabama, has a $33.8m government contract to do the work. Chuck Brown, assistant secretary of the Louisiana department of environmental quality, said he hopes all the flooded vehicles can be removed from public rights of way by August 30.
Months of wrangling
The operation follows months of wrangling during which cost estimates varied widely and the state senate conducted a hearing into an initial towing deal.
That $62m plan fell apart amid questions over the bidder's ability to perform the work and its financial solvency.
The state, though, had already received $62m from the federal emergency management agency, and will now draw against that to pay DRC. What's left over will be returned to the federal government.
The estimate of 100 000 vehicles swamped by last year's storms includes about 20 000 in New Orleans.
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