BATON ROUGE – Today, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) toured hurricane damage in Jefferson Parish. He also discussed with local officials what must happen for Southeast Louisiana to fully recover.
This follows Cassidy’s renewed demand for Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) supplemental assistance dating back to Hurricane Laura and Delta, over a year ago. This need was multiplied when Hurricane Ida struck the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm with winds as high as 150-mph, making it the fifth most powerful storm to ever hit the United States. Hurricane Laura was the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in 164 years until Hurricane Ida made landfall on August 29th, just a year later.
“The damage from Hurricane Ida is devastating, but Louisiana is resilient. We will work to ensure families are able to rebuild and recover,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This level of damage doesn’t have to be inevitable. We need to pass our infrastructure bill that improves highways and evacuation routes, strengthens our electric grid and invests in flood mitigation to protect our communities from future devastation.”
Cassidy first visited Lafitte, where he surveyed hurricane damage and met with local officials, including Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner, Jr., State Representative Tim Kerner and Parish Councilman Ricky Templet, Jr.
He later visited Pard Park in Marrero which has a distribution center for hurricane relief resources.
Finally, Cassidy visited with Mr. Carlton Dufrechou of the Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission, near the southern Causeway entrance in Metairie.
Background
In January of 2021, Louisiana requested $3 billion to meet unmet recovery needs after Hurricane Laura. Cassidy and Louisiana’s Congressional Delegation have previously called on the White House and Congress to support disaster relief for southwest Louisiana and continue to press their colleagues to approve the measure. Cassidy is determined to prevent similar delays from stalling Hurricane Ida relief.
On Sunday, Senators Cassidy and John Kennedy (R-LA), and U.S. Representatives Steve Scalise (R-LA-01), Garret Graves (R-LA-06), Mike Johnson (R-LA-04), Clay Higgins (R-LA-03), Julia Letlow (R-LA-05), and Troy Carter (D-LA-02) urged President Joe Biden to grant a major disaster declaration for Louisiana following Hurricane Ida. Following the letter, the major disaster declaration was approved which unlocks federal disaster relief for Louisiana to begin its recovery. With the magnitude of damage being reported, supplemental disaster assistance will assuredly be needed.
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