Mount Carmel Academy Receives Funding For Repairs
Release Date: April 9, 2007
Release Number: 1603-620
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NEW ORLEANS, La. -- When Hurricane Katrina devastated much of Louisiana in the fall of 2005, hundreds of schools were damaged by high winds and extreme flooding. One of those schools, Mount Carmel Academy in New Orleans, is well on its way to a full recovery with help from recently obligated funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
When projects are obligated by FEMA, the funds are transferred to a Smartlink account. This allows the state to work with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness as quickly as possible to access the monies and distribute them to the local applicants. The state may require additional documentation from the applicant before disbursals are made.
Mount Carmel Academy, located on Milne Boulevard, is a 1,200-member Catholic girls’ school and is recognized as one of the top 50 Catholic High Schools in America. Hurricane Katrina inundated the school with over seven feet of floodwater that remained for more than three weeks. The entire school complex was severely damaged, but the school principal organized a team to do the clean-up and reconstruction necessary for classes to resume in January 2006.
“To have the funds obligated gives us great hope that we will complete the rebuilding,” said Sister Camille Campbell, principal at Mount Carmel. “I am extremely grateful to the president, congress, FEMA and all the people who left their families and their normal life styles to come to New Orleans to help us recover. With all this help and determination, faith and hard work of our team of Beth Ann Simno and me, we were able to reopen our school to our students. The students gave me a crown last year, ‘Queen FEMA,’ to acknowledge what FEMA will do for us while we wait for the state reimbursement to arrive.”
To date, more than $10 million has been obligated to Mount Carmel. This funding reimburses the school for repairs to the main building, which houses the classrooms and cafeteria, as well as a four-story building that contains the gymnasium. A central plant was also built to combine the air conditioning, heating and fire suppression systems of the complex. To provide this critical equipment with protection from future flooding, the plant was raised to an elevation above the flood of record.
The Public Assistance program works with state and local officials to fund recovery measures and the rebuilding of government and certain private nonprofit organizations’ buildings and recreation centers, as well as roads, bridges and water and sewer plants. In order for the process to be successful, federal, state and local partners coordinate to draw up project plans, fund these projects and oversee their completion.
FEMA coordinates the federal government’s role in preparing for, preventing, mitigating the effects of, responding to, and recovering from all domestic disasters, whether natural or man-made, including acts of terror.
Last Modified: Monday, 09-Apr-2007 09:26:27