(Laguna Beach) Coastline Pilot: FEMA just plain wrong

[question everything]

Published September 2, 2005

EDITORIAL

FEMA just plain wrong

Now that the nation's attention is gripped by a disaster of epic proportions in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast -- devastated by a monster hurricane that may have killed hundreds -- Laguna's June 1 landslide may look like small potatoes.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision last week to reject disaster assistance based on the 100-year rains of last winter is still a colossal mistake.

State and federal geologists made their findings clear shortly after the slide: Rainfall that soaked the area in the first part of the year -- for which two official disaster declarations were made -- had seeped far down into the ground, collected there, and caused a 100-foot-deep earth movement that made the hillside collapse some four months later.

(snip)

How the FEMA officials could ignore their own geologists and common sense is a mystery.

(snip)

City officials estimate it will cost $7 million just to get the hillside in shape to last through the coming rainy season. The stabilization work "is not optional," as City Manager Ken Frank says.

(snip)

FEMA should do the right thing and open its purse strings to help out -- even if Laguna's disaster has gone off the national radar.


http://www.coastlinepilot.com/opinion/story/23035p-32783c.html

[tanyev]

1. "How the FEMA officials could ignore their own geologists...

and common sense is a mystery."

No mystery. This misadministration ignores scientists right and left. They are creating their own faith-based delusional reality. Only it's not working so good.

[sarcasmo]

2. We don't need Science, let's teach creationism.

Sarcasm of course.