The <em>T-P</em> digs Where the <em>WSJ</em> Didn't

In a fortuitous bit of timing, just two days after the Wall Street Journal glossed over the major story regarding the post-Katrina recovery of New Orleans, the dismal performance of and boiling frustration over the "road home" program designed to compensate homeowners for storm and flood damage, the Times-Picayune does an exhaustive report on the problem. Included are email messages from state officials to the private contractor, ICF International, and ICF's sometimes amusingly inept responses. It's not a hit piece on ICF, reporter Jeffrey Meitrodt shows some sympathy for the hugeness of the task, and the piece does fall short in investigating how and why ICF got the contract in the first place. But the report does fill in many of the blanks (and the Blancos) in what by any measure is the number-one story on the halting housing recovery of New Orleans.