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| 5/24 |
| 2005/9/1-3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39425 Activity:low |
9/1 "The question this hour is: How would you rate the response of the
federal government to Hurricane Katrina? ... we got 500-600 letters
before the show even went on the air. No one -- no one -- says the
federal government is doing a good job in handling one of the most
atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamitous things that
has come along in this country in my lifetime. I'm 62, I remember the
riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco. I remember
a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as badly bungled
and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is
the water for these people? Why can’t sandwiches be dropped to
those people who are in that Superdome down there? I mean, what is
going -- this is Thursday. This storm happened five days ago."
-Jack Cafferty, CNN
\_ Ok, good. Meanwhile, Fox News, the most watched news in the US
and trusted by more than 50% of the Americans, say that Louisiana
is the fault of the state. States should handle their own affairs.
Similarly, libertarians who usually side with the Bushies will
say that the disaster is the fault of the people. The smart ones
should have left long time ago, and the lazy/dumb ones should
have stocked up water, food, and weapons. No one can take care
of yourself better than yourself. That's the libertarian mentality
\_ Fox News says it's the state's fault?
\_ Yeah if yer smart you don't get pregnant or old or disabled when
you know a hurricane is on the way!
\_ And you don't let your national guard guys go and die in a
silly place like iraq. man. those LAites were just asking
for it.
\_ Worse, they commited the crime of being poor.
\_ Of course, in the other cases, the streets weren't flooded. It's
kind of hard to do rescue/recovery work when you can only use boats
and the majority of your response vehicles are wheeled.
\_ Which is what i would expect the BILLIONS for DHS would go toward
developing a plan for. But I guess that's too much to ask.
Yup. it is:
Yup. it is: http://csua.org/u/d8b (bestofneworleans.com)
\_ I should probably mention the speech I had to sit through at
a conference given by the lt. governor of Indiana, describing
how they were spending $5 BILLION to thwart agroterrorism
in Indiana. That's right, 5 billion. That's a lot of
blankets and water supplies. Now picture a room full of the
cream of US corporate IT security management, including some
FBI guys just burying their heads in their hands and groaning.
Just thought I should mention that, yes. -John
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story2.html
\_ I didn't know anyone cared about Indiana.
\_ "Why can't sandwiches be dropped"
\_ "Why can't po'boys be dropped" |
| 5/24 |
|
| csua.org/u/d8b -> www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story2.html Respond to this Story Homeland Insecurity Louisiana should have been high on the list for FEMA's biggest disaster m itigation grant program -- so why did the state get nothing? Eileen Loh Harrist In Jefferson Parish, a homeowner boards windows in advance of Hurricane I van. The parish has more "repetitive loss structures" than any other par ish or county in the nation -- but received no mitigation money from FEM A Photo by David Rae Morris The Federal Emergency Management Agency shook up its way of distributing disaster preparedness money when it introduced its Pre-Disaster Mitigati on (PDM) grant program in 2002. Given the program's criteria, Louisiana appeared to have been a shoo-in for federal dollars for 2003, the first year the program began awarding money. Tom Rodrigue, flood zone manager for the Jefferson Parish Office of Emerg ency Management, says that office had submitted three grant applications and expected to receive some money. "One of the number one priorities f or that PDM grant program is repetitive loss structures; "We felt sure we would get some fund ing out of that grant program, and we didn't." The PDM program largely replaced FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, an older system of awarding grant money to local governments. One of the ASFPM's main issues was the program's emphasis on structural f lood projects: for instance, shoring up levees and dams or raising build ings located in flood plains. The association fretted that by focusing o n such projects, FEMA would ignore other sound flood-prevention tactics. But the emphasis remained -- and that seemed to be good news to places su ch as Jefferson Parish, which has a disproportionate number of "repetiti ve loss structures." Those are structures that have suffered flood damag e two or more times over a 10-year period and the cost to repair the str ucture equals or exceeds 25 percent of its market value. Many of Jefferson Parish's homes were built before the mid-1970s, when fl ood insurance rate maps gave builders guidelines to elevate homes in flo od-prone areas. "They just basically built houses on the ground," Rodrig ue explains. PDM grants, he says, are designed to pay the costs of eleva ting these houses and other structures to avoid further damage. "Jefferson Parish, in total, has right now 5,700-plus repetitive loss str uctures; of that 5,700, we have approximately 1,300 that are on FEMA's t arget list," Rodrigue says. "When I say target list, those are structure s that the claims have either equaled or exceeded the fair market value ... those are the ones FEMA wants to see mitigated," he says. "Nationwide, there are about 11,000 target repetitive loss structures, an d Jefferson Parish has 1,300, so we've got roughly one-tenth of the enti re national total for repetitive loss structures," Rodrigue says. "In Lo uisiana, there's roughly 3,000 (target structures) ... "If that was the number one priority -- repetitive loss structures -- and we've got the most in the country, how could we not get any money?" In 2002, Louisiana did receive a $250,000 PDM planning grant, the only PD M money it has received. Fifteen parishes applied for 2003 grants, a FEM A spokesman said. But last year, the nearly $60 million pot of federal P DM money went to 31 other states and Puerto Rico. After Jefferson Parish emergency management officials received notice in June that they, and everyone else in Louisiana, had been rejected for PD M money, emergency management director Walter Maestri wrote to the state Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the conduit for FEMA dollars in Louisiana. After complaining about the lack of direction his office received from DH S and the FEMA regional office that covers Louisiana -- Region VI, based in Texas -- Maestri outlined the lengths to which Jefferson Parish had gone to provide information to FEMA "It is therefore difficult for me to understand how this parish, as well as any other parish in the State of Louisiana, was not approved for any PDM funding for (fiscal year) 03," he wrote, adding that FEMA's stated r easons for declining funds to Louisiana were vague. "I can only simply state that FEMA has missed a golden opportunity to ass ist in furthering the process for resolving one of the most costly probl ems facing the National Flood Insurance Program, Repetitive Loss,'" Mae stri concluded, "and would hope that you forward the contents of this le tter to FEMA Region VI with a request that they be conveyed to FEMA Head quarters." He copied the letter to both of Louisiana's senators and thre e congressmen. A state DHS official wrote back, saying FEMA's headquarte rs would review Maestri's complaints. Maestri was unavailable for comment for this article, and Gambit Weekly c alls to FEMA's national headquarters seeking comment about Louisiana's e xclusion were not returned. Rodrigue says that emergency management offi cials speculated as to why Louisiana may have been declined, but they al so haven't yet heard back from FEMA's national headquarters. One possible reason for the non-selection, Rodrigue hypothesizes, was tha t early in 2004, FEMA auditors discovered that a private consultant hire d by the state to administer FEMA money had misallocated funds in Slidel l, Mandeville and other places in St. "I think it was co nnected to the fact that there was an ongoing investigation," Rodrigue s ays, although he noted that other parishes, including Jefferson, were au dited by both FEMA and the state during the investigation and came out c lean. Rodrigue also said FEMA's method of distributing PDM money was flawed, an d may have contributed to Louisiana getting nothing. In the new system, grants are decided by FEMA regional offices that do not govern the grant applicants; in other words, "the team from Region VI could not review R egion VI's grants -- they could only review Region IV's grants, and vice versa. From (FEMA's) standpoint, that was to assure that everything was on the up-and-up, and one region wouldn't favor certain parishes," he s ays. a team in another FEMA region has no idea of the pr oblems we have here. So their unfamiliarity might be the reason why we d idn't get any grants," he says. "They don't deal with tropical storms an d hurricanes as often as we do." It looks like Jefferson Parish, and pos sibly other Louisiana parishes, likely won't get a chance for any PDM mo ney for 2004 either, Rodrigue says. "We haven't heard anything about PDM in fiscal year 2004. We haven't been notified that we can even compete for PDM money, and fiscal year 2004 is over at the end of this month." |
| www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story2.html Respond to this Story Homeland Insecurity Louisiana should have been high on the list for FEMA's biggest disaster m itigation grant program -- so why did the state get nothing? Eileen Loh Harrist In Jefferson Parish, a homeowner boards windows in advance of Hurricane I van. The parish has more "repetitive loss structures" than any other par ish or county in the nation -- but received no mitigation money from FEM A Photo by David Rae Morris The Federal Emergency Management Agency shook up its way of distributing disaster preparedness money when it introduced its Pre-Disaster Mitigati on (PDM) grant program in 2002. Given the program's criteria, Louisiana appeared to have been a shoo-in for federal dollars for 2003, the first year the program began awarding money. Tom Rodrigue, flood zone manager for the Jefferson Parish Office of Emerg ency Management, says that office had submitted three grant applications and expected to receive some money. "One of the number one priorities f or that PDM grant program is repetitive loss structures; "We felt sure we would get some fund ing out of that grant program, and we didn't." The PDM program largely replaced FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, an older system of awarding grant money to local governments. One of the ASFPM's main issues was the program's emphasis on structural f lood projects: for instance, shoring up levees and dams or raising build ings located in flood plains. The association fretted that by focusing o n such projects, FEMA would ignore other sound flood-prevention tactics. But the emphasis remained -- and that seemed to be good news to places su ch as Jefferson Parish, which has a disproportionate number of "repetiti ve loss structures." Those are structures that have suffered flood damag e two or more times over a 10-year period and the cost to repair the str ucture equals or exceeds 25 percent of its market value. Many of Jefferson Parish's homes were built before the mid-1970s, when fl ood insurance rate maps gave builders guidelines to elevate homes in flo od-prone areas. "They just basically built houses on the ground," Rodrig ue explains. PDM grants, he says, are designed to pay the costs of eleva ting these houses and other structures to avoid further damage. "Jefferson Parish, in total, has right now 5,700-plus repetitive loss str uctures; of that 5,700, we have approximately 1,300 that are on FEMA's t arget list," Rodrigue says. "When I say target list, those are structure s that the claims have either equaled or exceeded the fair market value ... those are the ones FEMA wants to see mitigated," he says. "Nationwide, there are about 11,000 target repetitive loss structures, an d Jefferson Parish has 1,300, so we've got roughly one-tenth of the enti re national total for repetitive loss structures," Rodrigue says. "In Lo uisiana, there's roughly 3,000 (target structures) ... "If that was the number one priority -- repetitive loss structures -- and we've got the most in the country, how could we not get any money?" In 2002, Louisiana did receive a $250,000 PDM planning grant, the only PD M money it has received. Fifteen parishes applied for 2003 grants, a FEM A spokesman said. But last year, the nearly $60 million pot of federal P DM money went to 31 other states and Puerto Rico. After Jefferson Parish emergency management officials received notice in June that they, and everyone else in Louisiana, had been rejected for PD M money, emergency management director Walter Maestri wrote to the state Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the conduit for FEMA dollars in Louisiana. After complaining about the lack of direction his office received from DH S and the FEMA regional office that covers Louisiana -- Region VI, based in Texas -- Maestri outlined the lengths to which Jefferson Parish had gone to provide information to FEMA "It is therefore difficult for me to understand how this parish, as well as any other parish in the State of Louisiana, was not approved for any PDM funding for (fiscal year) 03," he wrote, adding that FEMA's stated r easons for declining funds to Louisiana were vague. "I can only simply state that FEMA has missed a golden opportunity to ass ist in furthering the process for resolving one of the most costly probl ems facing the National Flood Insurance Program, Repetitive Loss,'" Mae stri concluded, "and would hope that you forward the contents of this le tter to FEMA Region VI with a request that they be conveyed to FEMA Head quarters." He copied the letter to both of Louisiana's senators and thre e congressmen. A state DHS official wrote back, saying FEMA's headquarte rs would review Maestri's complaints. Maestri was unavailable for comment for this article, and Gambit Weekly c alls to FEMA's national headquarters seeking comment about Louisiana's e xclusion were not returned. Rodrigue says that emergency management offi cials speculated as to why Louisiana may have been declined, but they al so haven't yet heard back from FEMA's national headquarters. One possible reason for the non-selection, Rodrigue hypothesizes, was tha t early in 2004, FEMA auditors discovered that a private consultant hire d by the state to administer FEMA money had misallocated funds in Slidel l, Mandeville and other places in St. "I think it was co nnected to the fact that there was an ongoing investigation," Rodrigue s ays, although he noted that other parishes, including Jefferson, were au dited by both FEMA and the state during the investigation and came out c lean. Rodrigue also said FEMA's method of distributing PDM money was flawed, an d may have contributed to Louisiana getting nothing. In the new system, grants are decided by FEMA regional offices that do not govern the grant applicants; in other words, "the team from Region VI could not review R egion VI's grants -- they could only review Region IV's grants, and vice versa. From (FEMA's) standpoint, that was to assure that everything was on the up-and-up, and one region wouldn't favor certain parishes," he s ays. a team in another FEMA region has no idea of the pr oblems we have here. So their unfamiliarity might be the reason why we d idn't get any grants," he says. "They don't deal with tropical storms an d hurricanes as often as we do." It looks like Jefferson Parish, and pos sibly other Louisiana parishes, likely won't get a chance for any PDM mo ney for 2004 either, Rodrigue says. "We haven't heard anything about PDM in fiscal year 2004. We haven't been notified that we can even compete for PDM money, and fiscal year 2004 is over at the end of this month." |