JoKe is spelled F-E-M-A

[ohioguy06]

Originally Posted by ScubaDoo
It settled quickly after the brief negative press......things are still depressing back home as far as devestation, etc. My sister just went back home from here a few weeks ago as she found a job. She leved in the burbs and received little damage...but her employer was in new Orlleans and has no plans of reopening...the entire sign business was lost.
Im sorry to hear that scuba......will u ever go back?

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by Ohioguy06
Im sorry to hear that scuba......will u ever go back?
I'm going back for a visit in late May. It is and always will be my home. I have lived here for about 8 years now. I worked for the City of New Orleans for 3 years and I have many firends there still.
Ben Morris...now the mayor of Slidell and the speaker quotes I have posted here I also would like to visit with I met him when he was running for police cheif. I lived in Slidell for 9 years and consider Ben an honrable man. I plan on visiting with him if he is not too busy.
I'll be there for one week. I'll stop by City Hall in New Orleans to say hello to freinds and then move on through the region to view the damage and visit with other friends I have in the region.

 

[scubadoo]

White House, Chertoff Faulted Over Katrina
Congressional Investigators Blame White House, Chertoff for Lack of Decisive Action on Katrina
WASHINGTON Feb 1, 2006 — The White House and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff failed to provide decisive action when Hurricane Katrina struck, congressional investigators said Wednesday in a stinging assessment of slow federal relief efforts.
The White House had no clear chain of command in place, investigators with the Government Accountability Office said, laying much of the blame on President Bush for not designating a single official to coordinate federal decision-making for the Aug. 29 storm. Bush has accepted responsibility for the government's halting response, but for the most part then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, who quit days after the hurricane hit, has been the public face of the failures.
"That's up to the president of the United States," GAO Comptroller General David M. Walker told reporters after being asked whether Chertoff should have been the lead official during the emergency.
"It could have been Secretary Chertoff" or someone on the White House staff, Walker added. "That's up to the president."
The report, which the congressional agency said was preliminary, also singled out Chertoff for several shortcomings. Chertoff has largely escaped direct criticism for the government's poor preparations and slow rescue efforts.
The Homeland Security Department angrily responded to the GAO report, calling the preliminary findings a publicity stunt riddled with errors. Homeland Security oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency and issued a national plan last year for coordinating federal disaster response with state and local agencies.
In their nine-page report, investigators noted that they had urged the Clinton White House to appoint a single disaster coordinator more than a decade ago after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Andrew. Still, they said, the Bush administration continued the failure with the lack of a clear chain of command and that led to internal confusion when Katrina struck.
"In the absence of timely and decisive action and clear leadership responsibility and accountability, there were multiple chains of command," the report found.

 

[ohioguy06]

Who is really to blame here........... i would say the gov for not intervening enough...

 

[scubadoo]

Trailer problems: Man waits for weeks because of wheelchair ramp he doesn't need
05:10 PM CST on Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Bill Capo / WWL-TV Action Reporter
When Bob Graham's FEMA trailer was delivered to his home and hooked up, he had no idea it would take weeks just to get the key so he could move in.
"Right up there it says delivered 12/15/05,” said Graham. “I asked Santa for a trailer, but I didn't ask for the keys. So what I've been doing is every day calling Shaw, because that was the number I was told to call to get the keys to get into my trailer."
Bob is allergic to mold, and was forced to move in with friends on the Northshore while his water-damaged home was gutted and repaired. But after waiting five weeks to get into the trailer, he finally called the Action Line.
Bob's information was sent to FEMA, but after another week, Bob was still locked out.
"I had to break down and buy a toll tag going across the Causeway. “I was traveling that much. “I mean this is ridiculous."
So Eyewitness News went back to FEMA, and this time the agency's Deputy Operations Chief got involved personally, and discovered what the problem was.
"Our contractor was informed that they needed to put a ramp,” said Stephen DiBlasio, FEMA’s deputy operations chief. “It was an ADA compliant ramp on there for a wheelchair victim."
Graham said he doesn’t need a wheelchair, merely a way to get into his trailer.
DiBlasio said he would immediately call the contractor to fix the problem, which meant Graham was ready to move in, right? Not exactly.
“Sunday, I got a call from the contractor saying, ‘we're going to build a wheelchair ramp for you.’ And I'm like, ‘Why are you building a wheelchair ramp for me?’"
When Bob finally got the keys, he still could not live in the trailer because the hot water heater was broken, and repairing that took a few more days.
Even when he did move in, the story was not over.
A few days later a second FEMA crew showed up to hook up his trailer. Problem was, Graham was already living in it.

 

[ohioguy06]

I had a choice to move into one of the fema trailers............................thats a big joke. i stayed at my house which a had several tree limbs through the roof and noo water nor electricity.......... i drove 45 mins daily to get a shower and get some water for the pets. gas for the generator was a whole different story. My point being yes i understand after a federal emergency it takes time to get things to the people and not everyone can be helped all at once but a month later after charley hit i was still liveing in my ravaged home tryng to get contractors to show up and repair the roof atleast....... 6 months later and couple of chainsaws and tarps they finally made it to me.

 

[ohioguy06]

I thought i might try to get this going again............im always so amused by learning information bout things like this......... Scuba would ya have any more info?

 

[scubadoo]

not at this time

 

[scubadoo]

Here ya go Ohio
Former FEMA Chief Michael Brown Blames Homeland Security Dept. for Failed Katrina Response
Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown defends his response to Hurricane Katrina on Capitol Hil in this Sept. 27, 2005 file photo, during testimony before a House select committee investigating preparation and response to the hurricane. Democrats say new documents raise questions about whether the government moved quickly enough to rescue storm victims from massive flooding. The material was released in advance of a Senate hearing Friday Feb. 10, 2006 at which Michael Brown was set to testify.
"I find it a little disingenuous," Brown, who at the time headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a Senate oversight committee. "For them to claim that we didn't have awareness of it is just baloney."
Brown also told senators that decisions and policies by the parent Homeland Security Department doomed FEMA to "a path to failure" that led to the government's slow response to the storm. He said that because of a focus on terrorism, natural disasters "had become the stepchild of the Department of Homeland Security."
Brown, who quit under fire as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency just days after the Aug. 29 storm devastated much of the Gulf Coast area, said that FEMA's mission was marginalized when it was swallowed by the newly created Homeland Security agency.
"There was a cultural clash that didn't recognize the absolute inherent science of preparing for a disaster," he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. "Any time you break that cycle ... you're doomed to failure."
He added: "The policies and decisions implemented by the DHS put FEMA on a path to failure."
Earlier, the chairwoman of the panel, Sen. Susan Collins, said that FEMA missed early warning signs that emergency response teams were unprepared to handle a catastrophic disaster like Hurricane Katrina.
A management audit prepared by Brown months before the Aug. 29 storm showed that the agency had a lack of adequate and consistent situational awareness to size up emergencies, and was unable to properly control inventory and track assets, she told fellow committee members. Collins said the audit also showed that FEMA misunderstood standard response procedures.
"Despite this study, key problems simply were not addressed and, as a result, opportunities to strengthen FEMA prior to Katrina were missed," she said.
Collins said Brown also told Senate investigators that the Bush administration's sluggish response to Katrina was blamed in part on what he called a clash of cultures between preventing terrorism and preparing for other disasters.
Brown's appearance in front of the Senate investigative panel came as new documents reveal that 28 federal, state and local agencies _ including the White House _ reported levee failures on Aug. 29, according to a timeline of e-mails, situation updates and weather reports.
That litany was at odds with the administration's contention that it didn't know the extent of the problem until much later. At the time, President Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

 

[ohioguy06]

Thought i might add a little ive been doing some reading....
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Former federal disaster chief Michael Brown, the face of the government's listless response to Hurricane Katrina, said Friday he told top Bush officials the day the storm howled ashore of massive flooding in New Orleans and warned "we were realizing our worst nightmare."
More defiant than defensive, Brown told senators he dealt directly with White House officials the day of the Aug. 29 storm, including chief of staff Andrew Card and deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin.
He also said officials from the Department of Homeland Security were getting regular briefings that day. Administration officials have said they did not realize the severe damage Katrina had caused until after the storm had passed.
Under oath, Brown told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he could not explain why his appeals failed to produce a faster response.
"I expected them to cut every piece of red tape, do everything they could ... that I didn't want to hear anybody say that we couldn't do everything they humanly could to respond to this," Brown said about a video conference with administration officials — in which President Bush briefly participated — the day before Katrina hit. "Because I knew in my gut this was the bad one."
In the end, the storm claimed more than 1,300 lives, uprooted hundreds of thousands more and caused tens of billions in damage. The devastation in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities left Americans with enduring images of their countrymen dying in flooded nursing homes and pleading for rescue from rooftops.
Brown, in his second Capitol Hill appearance since Katrina, told his side to the senators five months after he quit under fire as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He agreed with some senators who characterized him as a scapegoat for government failures.
"I feel somewhat abandoned," said Brown,
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said he did not know that New Orleans' levees were breached until Aug. 30. Bush at the time said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
At an occasionally contentious White House briefing Friday, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said there were conflicting reports about the levees in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
"We knew of the flooding that was going on," McClellan said. "That's why our top priority was focused on saving lives. ... The cause of the flooding was secondary to that top priority and that's the way it should be."
After three hours of testimony, Brown was handed a subpoena ordering him to reappear in front of a House panel investigating the storm response. Brown is expected to be questioned by House investigators this weekend — days before the panel is expected to release its findings on the storm.
Recounting conference calls that described initial damage reports the day Katrina hit, Brown scoffed at claims that Homeland Security didn't know about the devastation's scope until the next day. He called those claims "just baloney."
Some senators suggested Brown look inward before pointing the finger elsewhere.
"You're not prepared to put a mirror in front of your face and recognize your own inadequacies," said Norm Coleman, R-Minn. "Perhaps you may get a more sympathetic hearing if you had a willingness to confess your own sins in this."
Brown responded: "That's very easy for you to say sitting behind that dais and not being there in the middle of that disaster watching that human suffering and watching those people dying and trying to deal with those structural dysfunctionalities, even within the federal government."
The disjointed federal response, Brown said, was in part the result of FEMA being swallowed in 2003 by the newly created Homeland Security Department, which he said was focused on fighting terrorism.
Natural disasters "had become the stepchild of the Department of Homeland Security," he said. Had there been a report that "a terrorist had blown up the 17th Street Canal levee, then everybody would have jumped all over that," he added.

 

[ohioguy06]

Some senators attempted to trace the failures back to the White House.
"You quite appropriately and admirably wanted to get the word to the president as quickly as you could," said Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., asking about Brown's conversation with Hagin on the evening of Aug. 29. "Did you tell Mr. Hagin in that phone call that New Orleans was flooding?"
Brown answered: "I think I told him that we were realizing our worst nightmare, that everything we had planned about, worried about, that FEMA, frankly, had worried about for 10 years was coming true."
Sen. Robert Bennett (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah, suggested Brown may have delayed the federal response by cutting Homeland Security out of the loop about the levee failures and going straight to the White House.
"I think I now understand why Secretary Chertoff says he didn't know," Bennett said. "The reason he didn't know is because you didn't think it important to tell him."
Brown said he communicated directly with the White House instead of Homeland Security because FEMA's parent agency "just bogged things down."

 

[scubadoo]

Brown was not qualified to run FEMA. That being said, his point regarding FEMA being under Homeland Security....and the main focus of the orgnaization being shifted is nothing new. ...a non-issue for this event.
if you want some interesting reading type in FEMA Exective orders in your seach engine and see the braod powers this agency has. Responding to disasters never was the primary function of this agency. The main function is to keep the governemnt in power during times of emergencey.
I encourage you to do as I said and read the information.
While I support the current president on many issues...this is one where he has fialed and the situation needs to improve so that on a federal level we are prepared for the next disaster

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by ScubaDoo
Brown was not qualified to run FEMA. That being said, his point regarding FEMA being under Homeland Security....and the main focus of the orgnaization being shifted is nothing new. ...a non-issue for this event.
if you want some interesting reading type in FEMA Exective orders in your seach engine and see the braod powers this agency has. Responding to disasters never was the primary function of this agency. The main function is to keep the governemnt in power during times of emergencey.
I encourage you to do as I said and read the information.
While I support the current president on many issues...this is one where he has fialed and the situation needs to improve so that on a federal level we are prepared for the next disaster
I forgot to mention this is why I feel this agency is a Joke. It is held out to be something it is not. The excutive orders seem to be well kept secrets surrounding this agency. it is no surprise to me that they were unprerpared on the federal level.
While they have done some good work and not all is bad......their main function should be communicated to the Amreican people....as opposed to the dog and pony show.
They were criticized for a horrible response under Clinton after Andrew in the early 90's. So, one cannot say this is a Dem or Rep problem. It is a problem of focus and main funtion......disaster relief is not the main role of the agency.
JMO

 

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by ScubaDoo
They were criticized for a horrible response under Clinton after Andrew in the early 90's. So, one cannot say this is a Dem or Rep problem.
umm,
This caught my eye.
You say you dont want to make it a Dem. or Rep. thing, yet, you mention Clinton, as if he was responsible for the after math of Andrew.
Andrew hit August 1992 and Bush One was the president. I was there and remember well.
Gone fishin'
Many feel that Bush 1 was NOT re-elected because of HIS and FEMA's lack of consern and efforts after Andrew, yet your attempt to implant into peoples heads that it was Clinton's fault is obvious to me, or, thats what I think your doing anyway. Good try.
Clinton took office in 03' and elevated FEMA to a cabinet level position and made many reforms to try and make them better. Not saying he made them perfect by no means here but I am not trying to mislead anyone either.
Bush2 and co. after 9/11 buried FEMA deep into HLS ( see photo of rich old white guys ) and we all seen the results of HIS actions. Just as he seen them himself from AF1.

 

[ohioguy06]

Millions of Katrina aid wasted, review finds
$438 a night paid for New York hotel rooms
Monday, February 13, 2006; Posted: 11:16 a.m. EST (16:16 GMT)
The reports found that FEMA overpaid for many hotel rooms intended for Katrina evacuees.
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Manage Alerts | What Is This? WASHINGTON (AP) -- In its rush to provide Katrina disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted millions of dollars and overpaid for hotel rooms, including $438-a-day lodging in New York City, government investigators said Monday.
Two reports released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud or mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent.
The two audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid under FEMA's emergency cash assistance program -- which included the $2,000 debit cards given to evacuees -- were based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names.
Separately, the Justice Department said Monday that federal prosecutors have filed fraud, theft and other charges against 212 people accused of scams related to Gulf Coast hurricanes. Forty people have pleaded guilty so far, the latest report by the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force said. Many defendants were accused of trying to obtain emergency aid, typically a $2,000 debit card, issued to hurricane victims by FEMA and the American Red Cross.
Thousands of additional dollars appear to have been squandered on hotel rooms for evacuees that were paid at retail rather than the contractor's lower estimated cost. They included $438 rooms in New York City and beachfront condominiums in Panama City, Florida, at $375 a night, according to the audits.
The two audits were released by the Senate Homeland Security Committee as the panel wrapped up its investigation into the federal government's preparation and response to the disaster.

 

[ohioguy06]

Speed vs. accountability
"FEMA has a substantial challenge in balancing the need to get the money out quickly to those who are actually in need and sustaining public confidence in disaster programs by taking all possible steps to minimize fraud and abuse," the GAO audit by Gregory Kutz states.
FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said Monday the audits were still preliminary. The agency is working closely with auditors to make sure money is wisely spent and is committed to helping disaster victims, she said.
Offering the $2,000 emergency aid "was a calculated risk taken in a catastrophic situation where many people were forced from their homes, often without any identification or basic necessities," she said. "It was the right thing to do."
On the plus side, an initial review by Homeland Security inspector general Richard Skinner found that FEMA's decision to sign a contract with Carnival Cruise Lines for Hurricane Katrina housing shortly after the August 29 storm "was reasonable under the urgent circumstances."
The six-month, $236 million deal with Carnival for three full-service cruise ships -- which initially sat half empty for several weeks on the Gulf Coast -- had been criticized by lawmakers of both parties as a prime example of wasted spending in Hurricane Katrina-related contracts.
However, Skinner said the decision to use cruise ships appeared to be a wise economical choice "in a high-cost area such as New Orleans so long as occupancy remains high." A review of the contract's specific terms was continuing.
"While we have found many instances where contractors performed their work efficiently and in good faith, we have also found instances where there were problems," Skinner said. "In some cases, the government will have little legal recourse to recoup payments to contractors for payments under questionable contracts."

 

[ohioguy06]

California fraud case
In the Justice Department probe, the largest investigation centered on a Red Cross call center in Bakersfield, California, in which some employees schemed to steal the emergency money for themselves and others, prosecutors said. Fifty-three people have been charged in this probe.
The prosecutions and a public education campaign appear to have persuaded some people to return money to which they may not have been entitled, the Justice Department report said. FEMA and the Red Cross reported receiving more than $8 million in returned funds, along with letters confessing to fraud or seeking to arrange installment plans to pay back the money, the report said.
Five dozen Web sites that either asked for money or sought to harvest personal information for identity theft also have been shut down, the report said.

 

[scubadoo]

Yet more shame for this agency...and you tax dollars at work...
FEMA spokesman doesn't see work going slowly
12:04 PM CST on Thursday, February 16, 2006
Associated Press
HOPE, AR -- While the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina again came under attack in Washington on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency defended the process of getting trailer homes to homeless Gulf Coast residents.
Nearly 11,000 mobile homes sit at the Hope Municipal Airport, where they've been not long after Katrina hit the New Orleans area Aug. 29, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. More than 1,300 people died in the disaster and tens of billions of dollars in damage was caused.
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said Thursday he spoke by telephone with acting FEMA chief R. David Paulison and suggested a way to speed delivery of the trailers.
Ross said the trailers could be offered to local officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and could be installed on government land or on property the governments buy. Ross said the trailers could serve as transitional housing and after 18 months the mobile homes could be auctioned or the occupants could enter into a rent-to-own program.
Ross said Paulison told him he'd consider the idea.
"All I can do is heighten awareness and offer a solution," Ross said.
The trailers were ordered before Paulison took over for ousted FEMA director Michael Brown and Ross said Paulison told him that ordering so many trailers was a mistake.
Travel trailers that storm victims have been able to park in their driveways have proved much more practical, Ross said.
Ross also said that an inspector general report that said some of the trailers at the Hope airport were sinking in mud was incorrect.
"That's just not true," Ross said. "We've just finished the worst drought in 50 years." But if the trailers aren't moved, eventually some likely will become bogged down, he said.
Ross said FEMA has proposed spending up to $8 million to put gravel down at the airport.
"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of," Ross said. The trailers should be sent to the Gulf Coast, instead, he said.
Ross and other members of Congress have asked why the trailers sit idle months after the storm when so thousands of people remain without adequate housing.
Taking news reporters on a tour of the area Wednesday, FEMA spokesman John McDermott said he wouldn't characterize the process as slow.
"The trailers will be moved out when there is space available for them on private and commercial lots in Louisiana and Mississippi," McDermott said, adding that there is alot of paperwork involved.
He disagreed with reports that delivery of the mobile homes has been delayed because the trailers cannot be placed in flood plains.
"We can put them in flood plains if we elevate them, if we elevate them according to the rules and regulations," McDermott said, adding that FEMA must get approval from cities, counties and states.
In his monthly television program, Gov. Mike Huckabee, a native of Hope, said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told him that FEMA considers the trailers temporary housing that can't be placed on sites where permanent residences once stood.
"This is one of those ridiculous bureaucratic rules," Huckabee said Wednesday on the Arkansas Educational Television Network. "The craziest thing in the world is to see those things sit down there (at Hope)."