Good news for New Orleans

CNN's Kyra Phillips had a good piece today on our "Mardi Gras Index" report. Stephen Perry of the New Orleans tourism bureau and I agreed that unless Washington leaders step up to the plate with resources and bold leadership, the city's future is grim.

It's taken six months, but it looks like Congressional leaders are finally waking up to the fact that New Orleans -- and many other places in the Gulf -- can't rebuild alone. House leaders wrapped up their tour of the area -- the first time many had gone, six months after the biggest natural disaster in our country's history.

It took a while for them to get there, but seeing the devastation first-hand is helping Washington leaders see the light, reports the NOLA Times-Picayune:

After touring storm-ravaged New Orleans last week with a bipartisan congressional delegation, the group's top Democrat [Nancy Pelosi, D-CA] on Saturday said she "absolutely" will support President Bush's recommendation to send an additional $4.2 billion in federal money to Louisiana to rebuild damaged housing.

Well, not all:

Meanwhile, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., remained noncommittal on the White House spending proposal.

But today did bring one big piece of good news for New Orleans: with just three months to go until hurricane season, the Army Corps of Engineers will likely shut down the despised "Mr. GO" -- the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, an environmentally-destructive project that played a direct role in flooding the city:

The shipping channel was completed in 1965 as a 76-mile shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to wharves along the Industrial Canal.

But during Katrina, the 36-feet deep MR-GO and a second channel, the Intracoastal Waterway, acted as a giant funnel that sent the storm's surge shooting into the Industrial Canal at breakneck speed, knocking down levees and leading to the deaths of hundreds of people, engineering and environmental experts say. The surge also toppled levees along the MR-GO, sending a second surge into St. Bernard from the north.

Now if we can just get the Army Corps and other federal leaders to commit to building Category 4-5 levees, and restoring wetlands that are a natural buffer against storms. As of today, neither project has funding.