WASHINGTON -- Gulf Coast officials came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday asking lawmakers for fast federal money for hurricane recovery and a minimum of bureaucratic red tape.

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Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008, before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on disaster recovery.

Texas is looking at a $11.4 billion price tag for Ike’s damages, including $16 million in damages to Houston, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. That doesn’t include costs for devastated Galveston, which the city’s mayor said suffered more than $2 billion in damages.

Louisiana is looking at $1 billion in damages from Ike and Gustav, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said. Later Tuesday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was expected to tell House lawmakers the $40 million cost of evacuating his city for Hurricane Gustav has led to hiring freezes and a halt of any new expenditures until disaster costs are reimbursed.

Houston Mayor Bill White asked that money be sent directly to the city for immediate use instead of the typical reimbursement processes in place for most of the recovery programs.

He asked that the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator be given the authority to come up with new, flexible recovery programs that would relieve the burden of the eight layers of federal review and second-guessing. For instance, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the federal government would not reimburse the city for all of its debris removal, “because we couldn’t prove that each log came from the storm,” White said.

Just more than a week ago, Hurricane Ike battered Galveston with 110 mph winds and a 12-foot storm surge and has been blamed for 61 deaths, including 26 in Texas. More than 1 million people evacuated the Texas coast, and about 45,000 residents fled Galveston Island, about 50 miles southeast of Houston.

Texas officials were telling Congress on Tuesday they want all available FEMA trailers that do not have dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

Galveston mayor Lyda Ann Thomas also testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday and praised FEMA for its performance during Ike. “Had it not been for FEMA, the city would not have recovered as well as it has.”

Still, she said Galveston needs lots of help as she pleaded for nearly $2.5 billion in emergency funds. She was accompanied by officials from the Port of Galveston and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston—the only hospital on the island city of about 57,000. Residents were being allowed to return Wednesday to a town still missing many basic services.

Other officials on Tuesday complained some FEMA supplies were late and some shelters were inadequate.

Louisiana State Sen. Reggie Dupre Jr. criticized the Army Corps of Engineers for not constructing levees in his district since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Dupre’s district, Terrebone Parish, experienced the worst flooding in its history. He said the federal government appropriated $30 million in 2006 to build nonfederal levees, but the Army Corps has not spent any of it in Terrebone Parish.

“Some levees are better than no levees,” Dupre said.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said the agency spent some of the