FEMA's Next Crisis (wsj ) (homes for the people)

[mom cat]

FEMA's Next Crisis

Evacuees Line Up for Trailers
While Officials Debate Future;
Nagin: 'We Want You Back'
By CHAD TERHUNE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112856124832161274-66ZQ7tumHZU0u_wdKxuNhGsQ0DA_20061006.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

October 6, 2005; Page B1
DELISLE, Miss. -- More than a hundred small, white travel trailers are parked here at the A-1 Trade World Flea Market. Ira Bradley desperately wants one for his family.
Mr. Bradley, his wife Tina and their two teenage daughters have been living temporarily with relatives in nearby Gulfport, Miss., since losing their home to Katrina more than a month ago. They waited five hours in line under the blistering sun here to apply for a trailer shortly after the hurricane tore through this area. Now they're back this week waiting in line for the third time, looking for answers.
On the back porch of the flea market office, a Federal Emergency Management Agency representative tells Mr. Bradley he needs to get a county permit first before a trailer can be delivered to his property. "No one ever told me that," an exasperated Mr. Bradley shouts back. "The government can keep their damn trailer."
Ms. Bradley urges her husband to calm down. She wants to move back to their property so her two daughters can resume classes at their schools, which are slated to reopen soon. "I'm tired of crying and worrying about this," she says.

[CottonBear]

1. County permits should be waived. This is so wrong of FEMA. It's insane.

There may no longer be a permit office or county building dept. employees to issue permits.
:grr:

[mom cat]

2. And why didn't FEMA have a stack of the permits if they were really needed

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. According to a BBC report on the TV in the UK,

all the essential services, water, gas and electricity were already in place. They were just there empty, waiting for people to occupy them. Unless the reporter was talking about another such site in full readiness.

Brand new they may be, but they're still scant compensation for the government's dereliction of its sovereign duty to protect the homes and community of the survivors. Leaving aside the hideous deaths of the still less fortunate.

Any dilatory approach to providing services and the maintaining of FEMA's now infamously obstructive bureaucracy and red tape are a continuing outrage.

PS: Well, I've just read a post from someone who has been allocated a mobile home and is living it now. So, maybe they're beginning to speed things up.