FEMA is constructing dozens of temporary communities out of mobile homes and trailers to house up to 300,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, as local business owners begin to return to assess the damage and possibly reopen.

The settlements would range from 2,000 to 25,000 units – mostly prefabricated houses and mobile homes – arranged in loose street grids. They will ideally be placed within a short drive of pre-existing shopping centers, grocery stores and gas stations to make life easier for evacuees.

It’s still unclear, though, where exactly the cities will be established and how the neighboring communities will cope with the thousands of extra people using their roads, schools and police forces overnight.

At least three major government contractors – one for each state – were scouting locations and negotiating with local officials. In Mississippi, several dozen engineers from Bechtel Corp. were at work this week and thousands of travel trailers were expected in the coming weeks, said Brenda Thompson, company spokeswoman.

Fluor Corp. has a $100 million contract to handle housing in Louisiana, while CH2M Hill is coordinating efforts in Alabama.

Federal officials stress that nothing will be done without the consent and support of local agencies. But experts in urban planning say tensions are inevitable – particularly racial and socio-economic tensions as evacuees from poor, urban areas move into outlying, more affluent communities.

Pendall, the Cornell professor, said existing infrastructures could be strained.

“You need to think about not only the cost of building what’s on site for those people, but also for all the infrastructure for those people who will be nearby,” he said. “That’s a very tall order and it’s probably a recipe for a lot of resentment and backlash pretty fast if the communities have infrastructure systems that break down.”

Some residents of Baton Rouge have complained to police about problems from the influx of evacuees that has nearly doubled that city’s population.

Experts say that paying attention to the evacuees’ emotional and social needs when the cities are laid out can go a long way toward easing such issues. Giving people a sense of control over their new lives can help do that, they said. — Associated Press

Yep, people only need to feel like they’re in control of their lives. Whether that control is real or an illusion is irrelevant, though one suspects the government will keep such a tight leash on people housed in these communities that any feeling of control is bound to be a carefully crafted illusion.

And of course, the companies doing the building are friends of Bush, with those nice no-bid contracts we all love.

And who’s going to pay for all this? The bill is at $60 billiion and expected to rise further. Bush says there will be no tax hikes to pay for the reconstruction of New Orleans, that it will be at least partially funded by spending cuts. But Tom DeLay says that the federal budget doesn’t have anything left to cut. That leaves borrowing, driving the national debt even higher.

Speaking of Bush’s speech, MSNBC notes that the power was turned on “for blocks on end” just before President Bush arrived, and turned back off right after he left.

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It’s enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it… jump to certain conclusions. — Brian Williams

And that reconstruction effort? Karl Rove is in charge. A job for which he is completely unqualified. What will he do? The only thing he can do: make Bush look good.

And for a bit of homeland stupidity, the military is now asking for help from the anarchists.

The situation in Algiers got a bit more surreal this week when the U.S. military asked the anarchists for help in providing basic services to local residents. A medical military clinic commander asked the folks running the Common Ground Clinic if they could lend a few medics and doctors to the military until the military sets up a “permanent� health clinic on Newton Avenue on Monday.

Infoshop News talked to Michael Kozart, a doctor at San Francisco General Hospital, who is volunteering at the Common Ground Clinic.

“Why aren’t you all [the military] helping us transport people to the medical center? Why don’t you provide us with some of the generic drugs that you are paying for with donations? Why doesn’t the military help us with funds? Why don’t your provide some of your personnel so we can train them is some basic medical care?�

“Why are you duplicating relief efforts? This is Bureaucracy 101. They are duplicating our service. We have it worked out. We just need a few resources to expand our service [around the city]. It’s like they are opening up a Starbucks to compete with an effective mom-and-pop operation.�

“The military has been sending military Humvees around our neighborhood, blasting amplified messages in front of the clinic telling people to go to different places for care. The locations change each day and they never give our location. They’ve finally decided to set up a permanent clinic after being so disorganized. We don’t need people in combat gear to provide medical care. Nobody wants to get care from people dressed up in military gear who drive around in shiny new Humvees. They are scaring the shit out of people.�

Residents and volunteers in the Algiers neighborhood focused on neighborhood clean-up on Thursday. Algiers was never flooded—it is across the river from downtown New Orleans and the clinic is in sight of the infamous Convention Center—but the streets are littered with broken glass, trash, and limbs from damaged trees. — Infoshop News

Utterly stupid.

There’s even a bit of humor to come out of all this. Check out Katrina: The Gathering.