La. to Get $75M for Katrina Cottages

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana will receive $75 million in federal funds to pay for the construction of "Katrina cottages" that can be quickly built and are more spacious and durable than the trailers many residents have lived in since Hurricane Katrina, Sen. Mary Landrieu said Thursday.

The sum is far less than the state had sought, though, and Louisiana officials are accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency of shortchanging the state after Sen. Trent Lott said his state, Mississippi, would receive $280 million of the $400 million allocated for the pilot program.

Landrieu said hurricanes had destroyed more than 205,000 homes in Louisiana compared to 61,000 homes in Mississippi.

"Under FEMA's upside down decision-making, Louisiana gets the short end of the stick for alternative housing programs by almost 4-to-1, despite suffering more than three times the housing loss," she said in a statement.

Landrieu said Alabama and Texas each will receive about $16 million.

A FEMA spokesman wouldn't confirm how much each Gulf Coast state will receive through the pilot program or how proposals were selected, saying those details would be outlined in a teleconference Friday.

More than 75,000 Louisiana residents are living in FEMA trailers, said Natalie Wyeth, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Blanco's Louisiana Recovery Authority.