I ran across this article while reading the news this morning and reflected on the recent outrage with Mike Brown's governance of FEMA. Not only was his efforts judge unacceptable with Katrina, but he was criticized roundly for the waste in last year's hurricane efforts.
Where was the outrage over this in 2000?
Posted on Sat, Sep. 17, 2005
FEMA distributes $168.5 million after Detroit thunderstorms
BY JON BURSTEIN South Florida Sun-Sentinel
[/align] DETROIT - (KRT) - A band of thunderstorms in 2000 flooded thousands of homes in the suburbs but caused no reported problems in the Motor City.
State emergency managers kept asking their counterparts in Detroit if "they were sure that no damage had occurred in the city," said Anthony Katarsky, assistant commander of the state police Emergency Management Division.
"Their response was that they had received no calls about damage as a result of the storm from city residents." But once the Federal Emergency Management Agency included Detroit in the disaster declaration for the Sept. 10-11 storms, claims began pouring in from residents reporting basement flooding. During the next few months, FEMA gave checks to 87,624 Detroit residents.
The total payout of $168.5 million is more than FEMA awarded in Florida last year for Hurricane Ivan, a storm that devastated the Panhandle and left 29 people dead.
"Something is obviously wrong," attorney Steven Liddle said of the Detroit claims. His Detroit office is filled with boxes of documents from class-action lawsuits he filed on behalf of residents in the suburbs whose homes were flooded in the storm. "There was no widespread flooding in the city of Detroit," Liddle said.
Then-Mayor Dennis Archer and other Detroit officials have trouble even remembering the storm. "Detroit sustained very little damage," said City Councilman Ken Cockrel.
Yet residents of the city told FEMA the storm ruined more than 70,000 washers and dryers and $25.1 million in clothing. FEMA awarded rental assistance intended for disaster victims forced from their homes to almost 16,300 Detroit residents. In the initial weeks after the Oct. 17 declaration, claims trickled in, but as FEMA promoted assistance and residents began getting checks, applications skyrocketed.
In January 2001, four months after the storm, FEMA approved 58,073 claims, 85 percent of them in Detroit. In poor neighborhoods on the city's east side, landlord Jeff Cusimano said none of his 150 properties sustained damage. But at least 10 of his tenants came to him for copies of their leases to prove residency to FEMA for claims they filed. "A lot of tenants said they lost stuff they didn't have," he said. "A lot of the stuff they were going to throw out - televisions that didn't work, clothes that didn't fit. Everybody was trying to get big bucks. Some people did. Some people didn't."
Mark Fuga, another east side landlord, said he heard of residents throwing old or junked items in their basements after hosing them down. Word of windfalls spread through the community.
"People were saying it was easy money," Fuga said. Alarmed by the large number of claims coming from Detroit in light of official assessments identifying no damage, Lt. Walter Davis of the state police Emergency Management Division was assigned to investigate. "Do I think some of the reports were fraudulent?" Davis told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "Yes, I do."
Davis and officials of the agency declined to discuss details of his findings or the outcome. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said no one was charged with FEMA fraud.
Four years later, FEMA returned to Michigan after more thunderstorms swept over the southern and lower central parts of the state from May 20-24, 2004. Detroit emergency management records show 200 homes damaged. The Detroit Water & Sewerage Department logged 150 complaints of basement flooding. "We kept on saying how well the city came out of it," said department spokesman George W. Ellenwood.
FEMA paid 27,783 Detroit residents another $30.3 million. ---
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,133
RE: Where was the FEMA outrage???
Corruption and poor management at all levels of FEMA. What does it take to get things right? Picture FEMA as a business. They couldn't stay in business long.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
I don't think that the govt. should come to the aid of anybody because of these storms.It is mother nature.If you have insurance,good for you.If you don't ,it is your loss.I had a car accident in 1999 and lost my house and car and the govt. didn't come to my aid.My tax money shouldn't be spent to help people that had a tragedy as I could use that money more than they can.Now the cost of things are going up while my SS disability is not.I am in a losing battle and can't afford to help out others.
My point is that the performance of FEMA in Katrina was not significantly different from that of any other tragedy it has handled. Perhaps better so far as promptness. The criticism comes from the Bush haters and their incessant attempts to connect him with any negative incident in the universe.
Some might recall the heat wave in 1995 that killed over 700 people in Chicago, mostly poor elderly black people. At the time 'America's first black President' Bill Clinton was in office. He did nothing. FEMA never even went in during the week of hell-like temperatures when the weak and elderly were falling like flies. I don't recall any criticism or blame.
FEMA has a history of being free with money to avoid any criticism of being insensitive to those in need. Was that way long before Bush came along and will be after. Too many fingers pointing at the rather temporary resident of the WH and not enough at the systemic failures caused by decades of poor performance by career and corrupt politicians in Congress.
Bush, FEMA, and the rest of the Fed's already have a plan for this next hurricane. They are going to start pointing fingers and blaming state andlocal officials NOW!
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You may beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride!
Location: The place that Harry Henderson calls home....
Posts: 1,672
RE: Where was the FEMA outrage???
Actually, any federally funded agency often performs internal audits. One, it's cheaper...the employees are already on the dime. Two, it's inclusive, hence their are no confidentiality rights. The employees are already sanctioned, and hence they can be trusted with secure/confidential documents. Three, the results are open to the public.
We often criticize these internal audits, but in actuality they are an efficient process to diagnose a problem. I mean, you wouldn't want a plumber to diagnose a problem with your car, would you?
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"The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight." Theodore Roosevelt
I agree. I don't see why I need to subsidize others for the foolishness of building in hurricane-prone areas, below sea level, protected by poorly constructed levees. I think it is a big mistake to task the federal governmentwith providing a fix for every malady that may occur. The result is that people will engage in such risky behavior -- build in hurricane prone areas below sea level -- because the risk is absorbed not by them or their home insurance company but by the federal government. "Who the hell cares! I won't have to pay for it! My insurance company won't go bankrupt paying astronomical rebuilding costs, the federal government will pay for it!"
An interesting follow-on to this is the question, how prudent is it to rebuild in such exposed areas and who should absorb this risk? Again, I don't want to have my home insurance to go up to cover the hurricane risk of coastal home building.
Where was the FEMA outrage???
