After Charlie hit Punta Gorda FEMA gave out 1000's of $'s w/Jeb standing..

[JanMichael]

...at every news conference praising his brother and FEMA.

I know of several examples of people who were renting property that were cut a $7,000 check, some up to $14,000, because the house they rented was damaged. Better yet FEMA payed the payroll for three months of a construction company that never had to close their doors, other than about 4 weeks, and has made a "killing" off of the re-construction and building BOOM that's resumed.

One family that I know personally lived in a house not so badly damaged so they just cashed the check and kept living there as if nothing happened except the voted for the Chimp because his brother gave them money. These are POOR people who've lived off of SS Disability their entire lives. No irony there :eyes: Admittedly they're both mentally challenged...

Of course this was right before the 2004 sElection.

I wonder how many $7,000 checks will be cut in New Orleans after Katrina hits?

No sElection coming up, and the demografics are not exactly the same as mosty white Charlotte County Forida and PG, so I imagine they'll say they're tapped out so tough shit.

What do you think?

[AX10]

1. ....with K Blanco in every shot.

We'll see soon enough.

[lpbk2713]

2. The house across the street from me is a rental.

The owner got a FEMA check for roof damage and promptly put the house up for sale. The house is still unoccupied and unrepaired at this time.

[Divernan]

3. Bush originally planned to scrap FEMA, but 911 forced him to keep it.

So then he put it under his puppet Ridge at DHS. When the 4 hurricanes hit Florida, FEMA people were pulled from regions all around the country and sent to Florida. They were told by Bush's political appointee/head of FEMA that FEMA's only priority was taking care of Floridians. Normally, all the FEMA regions would send people to assist any region suffering natural disaster, but it would be up to the Region Directors to choose who would go and make arrangements to cover their existing work load in their home region. Last year, FEMA/Washington took over and usurped the authority of all the Regions. There were natural disasters being dealt with by FEMA in other parts of the country at the time, including flooding. But the word from DC was screw the rest of the country; make Florida voters happy before the election or FEMA is history.

If people choose to lie and say they own the property which they only rent, or say that they have no homeowners' insurance when they do, and if the President of the US is saying give them money and make it fast, then mistakes will be made and fraud will be perpetrated by the "victims". Why don't you report these people to FEMA as having lied on their applications for assistance or lied after the fact by claiming longer lasting damages to their businesses?

I have read of people complaining that FEMA has asked for money back because the people also had insurance and were double dipping. These people were SOOOOO outraged. Well, take a look at the forms they filled out. In FOUR different areas, they were asked if they had homeowners' insurance and told they would be responsible to return to FEMA any moneys they were later compensated by their insurers.

FEMA employees have worked themselves to absolute exhaustion in Florida - leaving their own families and lives behind for a year - some of them living in tents for gods sake.
They are on the whole great warm hearted people - the antithesis of Bush and his heartless crowd.

Bush has eff'd over FEMA just the way he has every other federal agency.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. N.O.went for Kerry, big time..and it is considered the Sodom of the

Mississippi by the Fundies. Bush probably won't even do a flyover.

[cyberpj]

5. Not many, since these articles describe the FEMA cuts by Bush:

Bush has slashed Clinton's Disaster Mitigation Program.
"...Among emergency specialists, 'mitigation' -- the measures taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters -- is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half. Communities across the country must now compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.

As a result, some state and local emergency managers say, it's become more difficult to get the equipment and funds they need to most effectively deal with disasters. In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer. (See sidebar.) In North Carolina, a state also regularly threatened by hurricanes and floods, FEMA recently refused the state's request to buy backup generators for emergency support facilities. And the budget cuts have halved the funding for a mitigation program that saved an estimated $8.8 million in recovery costs in three eastern North Carolina communities alone after 1999's Hurricane Floyd.

Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-prone states will find the government less able to help them when help is needed most, and both states and the federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery costs after disasters strike.

In addition, the White House has pushed for privatization of essential government services, including disaster management, and merged FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security -- where, critics say, natural disaster programs are often sidelined by counter-terrorism programs. Along the way, morale at FEMA has plummeted, and many of the agency's most experienced personnel have left for work in other government agencies or private corporations..."
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html

=====================================================
From a followup article:

"Before FEMA was condensed into Homeland Security Š it responded much more quickly," says Walter Maestri, director of Jefferson Parish's Office of Emergency Management. Maestri has worked with FEMA for eight years. "Truthfully, you had access to the individuals who were the decision-makers. The FEMA administrator had Cabinet status. Now, you have another layer of bureaucracy. FEMA is headed by an assistant secretary who now has to compete with other assistant secretaries of Homeland Security for available funds. And elevating houses is not as sexy as providing gas masks."

Maestri is still awaiting word from FEMA officials as to why Louisiana, despite being called the "floodplain of the nation" in a 2002 FEMA report, received no disaster mitigation grant money from FEMA in 2003 ("Homeland Insecurity," Sept. 28). Maestri says the rejection left emergency officials around the state "flabbergasted."
...
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-10-05/commentary.html