Tarp trouble?

• By KORAN ADDO
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 15, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Parishes participating in the federal  Operation Blue Roof repair program after Hurricane Gustav slammed into Louisiana on Sept. 1 could be on the hook to pay back millions of dollars to the federal government, a cost many officials say caught them off guard.

The state government sent parishes cooperating in the Operation Blue Roof program e-mail messages only hours before a noon Sept. 26 deadline for them to reply, stating the program would be discontinued in any parishes unwilling to pay 25 percent of the costs related to the program.

Officials in parishes such as East Baton Rouge and West Baton Rouge reported that by the time they received the e-mail, Operation Blue Roof was all but over in their respective jurisdictions.

Under Operation Blue Roof, a program run by the Army Corps of Engineers and coordinated through FEMA, contractors hired by the corps installed blue roofing made of thicker and more durable material than the blue tarps intended for use in short-term repair jobs typically involving roofs that had lost shingles in the storm’s high winds.

The blue tarps to be installed mostly by homeowners themselves were handed out for free at point of distribution sites throughout Louisiana following Gustav’s Sept. 1 strike.

Both East and West Baton Rouge parishes decided to discontinue their involvement in Operation Blue Roof after Sept. 26.

On Thursday, West Baton Rouge Parish President Riley “Peewee” Berthelot said he was surprised by the Operation Blue Roof e-mail sent to him.

Berthelot said it was unclear whether his parish would be asked to pay for the temporary roofing that contractors had installed before the state informed the parish it would have to pay a quarter of the cost of the program.

At a cost of up to $3,000 per roof estimated by the state, West Baton Rouge Parish government could be asked to pay $503,000 as a result of Operation Blue Roof installations. The cost for East Baton Rouge Parish could reach as high as $1.1 million.

“All indications we got from FEMA and the state were that the program was free,” Berthelot said. “There was no mention of any costs.”

JoAnne Moreau, director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said East Baton Rouge Parish has to come up with an estimated $11 million to pay for other costs associated with the storm.

Adding on an unexpected $1.1 million is too much to ask, Moreau said, given the parish’s involvement in the program was limited to providing a site for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take blue roof requests from the public .

Officials of other parishes — among them Iberville, Pointe Coupee and Ascension — also said they opted to discontinue participation in the program because of the costs involved.