Location: Louisiana, Mississippi, USA
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Earth Tech was there to help with the recovery process as a Technical Assistance Contractor to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security. As part of a joint venture with DMJM, Earth Tech supported FEMA’s Public Assistance (PA) Program by providing technical specialists and programmatic consultants to guide municipal, county and parish, and state agencies, as well as private not-for-profit organizations, through the PA Program’s administrative process. Compliance with this process was an essential part of the applicants’ requests for federal funding to reimburse disaster-related costs for emergency services and debris removal, to restore critical infrastructure to pre-disaster conditions, and secure temporary buildings.
Earth Tech employees developed scopes of work and cost estimates for each project and assisted the applicants with gathering the data they would need to support their claims. Earth Tech also monitored debris removal and demolition work. At the height of the recovery effort, Earth Tech had more than 150 employees deployed in support of FEMA’s PA disaster operations.
Among our many contributions to the recovery effort, Earth Tech employees prepared over 6,000 project worksheets worth in excess of $1.3 billion, for repairs to schools and installation of 400 temporary educational facilities in Louisiana. To date, Earth Tech has also monitored the removal of 47.5 million cubic yards of debris – enough to fill the Superdome stadium 10 times - while ensuring compliance with applicable Federal laws and regulations.
As a result of Earth Tech’s technical support, K-12 public schools throughout Louisiana, and an entire temporary campus for Southern University at New Orleans were fully operational for the fall 2006 semester. Other applicants Earth Tech supported included all of the affected counties, parishes, and municipalities in Louisiana and Mississippi, and in New Orleans, the City, the Port, the International Airport, and the Housing Authority.
