8/19/07 New Orleans Times-Picayune: Group keeps track of Katrina recovery Group keeps track of Katrina recovery

ON THE HILL:News from the Louisiana delegation in the nation’s capital

New Orleans Times-Picayune – Sunday, August 19, 2007

By Bruce Alpert and Bill Walsh

Ben Smilowitz, who channeled his anger over the Hurricane Katrina response into a political organization last year, is back working as a watchdog over the recovery. Smilowitz, 26, last week launched the Disaster Accountability Project to track the progress of the many recommendations that came after the Katrina debacle. On the Web site disasteraccountability.org, Smilowitz has posted about 500 recommendations from government agencies and private nonprofit groups, some of which have been implemented and many that haven’t. “We’re not passing judgment on the content or endorsing them, we’re just tracking to see what happened,” said Smilowitz, a second-year law student at the University of Connecticut. “There are so many gaps.” The Web site encourages users to track the progress of changes. Smilowitz also has set up a hotline, 1-(866)-984-7327. Shortly after Katrina, Smilowitz was a Red Cross volunteer in Gulfport, Miss., but was asked to leave a month later because of his outspoken criticisms of the disaster response. He set up a 527 political group to target members of Congress over the federal government’s performance. His new group is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, he says.