I didn't realize Mike Brown was head of FEMA during the Fl. hurricanes

[napi21]

last year! Just heard it on Olberman. He did such a good job in Fl when four deadly storms hit Fl. Stood beside Jeb and said we have everything we need and we are ready!

Is this PROOF that the entire Fed bureaucracy is ONLY intent on saving Shrub country, and the rest of us can croak?

Sure sounds to me like Fl sure got more FAST attention than the Gulf Coast did!

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. Ding Ding Ding! We Have A Winner!

There's only about 100 Reasons why FL got a better response last year. They really had No Reason whatsoever to help New Orleans. We're lucky they even showed up for the photo op.

[MuseRider]

2. Oh yes

election year, shrub country and a good old thank you for 2000. Also to help make Jeb look oh so good for his up and coming run for POTUS.

[Lindacooks]

3. It was an election year and they were terrified of a repeat

of Poopy's mistake in 1992 when FEMA did a bad job after Hurricane Andrew; that was one of the factors that cost Poopy the presidency in 1992.

Now, they don't give a flying fuck. Bush won't ever run for election again, and as far as I can tell maybe they think they're going to pull martial law and never have elections here again.

This is their true face. This is their true heart. They don't care, and they don't have to, just like the AT&T telephone operator that Lily Tomlin so brilliantly portrayed.

[Connie_Corleone]

4. CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE!!

This was not incompetency. This was a crime, pure and simple.

[babylonsister]

5. Don't forget FL is still hurting. Katrina magnifed

LA, MS, and AL, but there are many people in FL who are still trying to get their lives back together. The really bad news is, hurricane season isn't over.

[napi21]

6. Well, I have to apologise to everyone here. I spend way too much time

on DU, and I should have remembered Brown from Fl, but I didn't! This criminal admin. even managed to convince ME that this was a new guy, and he probably shouldn't have been appointed to that position!

DAMN!!! If I thought that, what in the world is the rest of America thinking???

Somehow, we need to get this into into the MSM! Having it just here just ain't makin' it!

[riverwalker]

7. FEMA fraud in Florida

(also known as "looting" by the wealthy to get fed funds to resurface swimming pools in areas untouched by storm.)

Officials demand investigation into allegations of FEMA fraud

Sally Kestin and Megan O'Matz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

December 23, 2004

Concerned that the federal government has paid millions in fraudulent disaster relief claims nationwide, elected leaders in other states joined Florida politicians this week in calling for investigations and changes in the way aid is awarded.

"I think it's time to go and put this problem on the table and deal with it -- past time," said U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded disaster aid to largely unaffected areas, including $29.5 million to Mobile County, Ala., residents for storms last summer, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday in a continuing investigation. Mobile's emergency manager alerted officials as senior as FEMA Director Michael D. Brown that the county had no damage.

Sessions and U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, a Republican whose district includes the city of Mobile, said they intend to contact Brown for an explanation. Sessions also wants a plan from Brown to significantly reduce fraud.

"If he can't meet that challenge, maybe he's not the person for the job," Sessions said.

Brown was unavailable for comment Wednesday, and FEMA "will not respond to Sen. Sessions' comments in the press," said spokesman James McIntyre.

In North Carolina, U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Democrat from Raleigh, said he supports calls by South Florida legislators for congressional hearings into FEMA's payouts. Residents of three southeastern counties in that state have collected more than $6.7 million so far for Hurricane Frances, a storm that local emergency managers said caused few problems.

It appears "there's pretty serious fraud going on," Miller said.

In Florida, elected leaders said they had no idea the problem extended beyond Miami-Dade County, where FEMA has paid more than $29 million in Frances claims even though the Labor Day storm hit 100 miles away.

"What the Sun-Sentinel investigation shows is that not only has there been widespread fraud in Florida, but the entire FEMA payment process is infested with fraudulent payments," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton. "This necessitates a redrawing of the process from start to finish, because way too much money is being wasted."

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, plans to introduce legislation to modify how the government approves disaster claims.

"There's going to have to be a revision of FEMA regulations," said David Goldenberg, Hastings' legislative director.

When the newspaper first reported in October on millions going to Miami-Dade residents, FEMA officials said they had adequate controls to ensure claims paid are legitimate. But the agency has a pattern of approving large amounts in areas with minimal damage.

After severe storms moved through Michigan in May and June, FEMA teams identified 2,637 damaged homes statewide, records show.

By Aug. 26, FEMA had approved 30,722 claims totaling $33.9 million just in Wayne County, which includes Detroit.

Last year in Ohio, officials assessing the effects of severe storms in July and August identified 213 damaged residences in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland. In 206 of those, the damage was described as "minor," according to Ohio Emergency Management Agency records.

Yet FEMA paid $44.2 million to 30,446 Cuyahoga residents.

Early damage reports are based on a sampling in each county and do not "mean at the end of the day there won't be many more than that," said Ken Burris, director of FEMA's Southeast region based in Atlanta.

But legislators are calling for greater accountability.

"They need external oversight of and monitoring of their and constant review of who's getting money to see if it's justified," Sessions said.

Hastings' bill will focus in part on FEMA inspectors who visit homes to verify damage. The government awarded five-year contracts worth $150 million each to two private companies to do the inspections. Under the contracts, the companies check inspectors' work.

FEMA refuses to make the reviews public, but Burris said they do not "indicate that there's a problem."

Sessions still wants oversight by "an independent entity ... to eliminate any possible conflicts of interest," he said.

A former federal prosecutor in Mobile who investigated fraudulent disaster claims, Sessions said he has "always felt we needed tighter controls."

"People get in a frenzy, ... and everybody's claiming money, and money's pouring in," he said. "If you really don't watch it, you can get out of control."

The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's umbrella agency, is investigating fraud allegations in Miami-Dade and anticipates arrests soon. Investigators have briefed the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, "will continue to oversee this review," spokeswoman Elissa Davidson said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wrote to Collins two months ago and again this week about the FEMA disaster payouts.

"The squandering of disaster aid by FEMA may be widespread," Nelson wrote Tuesday.

FEMA's aid payments also will come under scrutiny by a House committee that oversees the agency.

"We are also concerned about this and expect we'll be looking very closely at it" when Congress convenes Jan. 20, said Dan Mathews, staff director of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.

FEMA will have to face "some very tough questioning because no agency, no department, should expect they come to the American taxpayer and get a blank check all in the name of emergency or national defense," Bonner said.