Texas got $1.4 billion Homeland $$--still messes up evac and recovery

[rainbow4321]

And there are still East Texans living outdoors, washing their clothes in creek water (post-Rita) and 107 Texans dead from the evac..not the Hurricane, but the evac!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/100205dnmethomeland.28040be.html


First responders may have more trucks and trailers, radios and laptop computers, hazmat suits and bomb robots. But state officials aren't certain recipients know how to properly use the equipment. And everyone in the field can't communicate with one another – a problem officials say they are addressing.

Three funding streams have delivered more than $11 billion in grants to U.S. cities and counties, a small part of the more than $175 billion spent so far to secure the home front. Texas has received more than $1.4 billion, including about $625 million for responders –the nation's third-highest total.

Mr. McCraw, a former FBI agent and Texas state trooper, won't discuss specific terrorism risks or vulnerabilities. But he and others say the state's petrochemical complexes, ports, sprawling agricultural industry and places with ties to President Bush are prime marks. "I can guarantee you there will be another attack on U.S. soil," he said. "We've got too many targets, too many terrorists, too little time."

In the rush to secure grants, the North Texas council of governments deferred development of a regional disaster plan, Mr. Dawson said. Ideally, he said, such a plan would have guided equipment purchases.

[MisterP]

1. heck, Wyo. gets 7x more HS dough per capita than N.Y.

voting for venal brutes has its rewards--although the price is one's soul

[Skink]

2. San Antonio is still waiting to be reimbursed....

But we are still very hospitabal.

[MisterP]

3. and blue, don't forget

wanna bet a square foot of oil plain that's never seen a Louisianan foot gets 20 times the $$$ that Houston does--not to mention the additional kickbacks to Carlyle and Co.?

[rainbow4321]

4. I live in a very red TX county

and I STILL feel a need to do Y2K disaster-like shopping trips when it comes down to stuff like this...there is no way in hell I would assume that I would see a FEMA person anytime soon. Especially since I have a 'blue person in a red state' bumper sticker, they'd leave me in the dust as they zoomed past my house!

What is up with the stuff in the article about TX getting the $$ but never having an actual disaster PLAN.."in a rush to get the grants" they never made one up. And with the locals NOT knowing how to USE the equipment that Homeland has bought for them??

A FEMA person was quoted in the Dallas paper as being relieved that TX was getting a "cool front" and he was glad for the people still living out in their yards and parking lots that it would notbe so hot anymore. If this asswipe thinks TX weather is a safety net, he must not have spent a whole lot of time in TX--the cool front, as usual, lasted a day and then it shot right back up to 90+ the next.