BATON ROUGE, La., Sep 08, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The Shaw Group Inc. (SGR) today that is has been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to aid in the recovery and rebuilding efforts. Shaw will provide supervision, equipment, materials, labor, logistics, and all means necessary to provide the Corps of Engineers an immediate response for construction contract capability. The contract will provide construction and related services including program planning, scheduling, design, engineering, transportation, construction management, and quality control. Under this contract, Shaw has received its first task of pumping floodwater from the city of New Orleans out and over the levees. Shaw is using temporary pumps and is repairing and restarting the existing pump stations. The $100 million contract has a base period of one-year, with an additional one-year option. Shaw announced earlier today a $100 million ID/IQ contract award by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide support services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including housing assistance for displaced residents.

All that's missing from the Katrina story is an expensive reconstruction effort, with lucrative deals for politically connected companies, that fails to deliver essential services. But give it time - they're working on that, too.