Noteworthy

Recovery center at library closing
Friday, December 29, 2006
From staff reports

The Disaster Recovery Center inside the New Orleans Public Library on Loyola Avenue will close its doors for good today.

It will be replaced, beginning Tuesday, with a Welcome Home Center on the 14th floor of the building at 1250 Poydras St., the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a news release.

FEMA runs the recovery centers and will run the Welcome Home Center as well.

The Jefferson Parish Disaster Recovery Center at 15 West Bank Expressway in the Westbank Shopping Center will be closed Monday for New Year's. It will reopen Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Representatives of state, federal and volunteer agencies, as well as customer service representatives from the U.S. Small Business Administration are on hand at the centers to answer questions and provide recovery information, FEMA's news release said.

Normal operating hours for the centers are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Opening the main library building to FEMA last year helped get the building put on the city's priority list for restoring utilities and data lines. But I think we all agree it's time to once again allow patrons to enter the library without the obligatory Blackwater Security pat down.