First the Flood, Now the Fight, Fema Impeding Gulf Coast Rebuilding

[cal04]

Critics Say FEMA Is Impeding Gulf Coast Rebuilding As Disputes Hold Up Nearly $1 Billion in Relief Funds
Someone had to pay to remove 3,000 dead trees in New Orleans. The trees, insisted the Federal Emergency Management Agency, couldn't have been killed by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters because they weren't toppled to a certain angle. New Orleans would have to pay.

Nonsense, city administrators argued. Brackish water swamped the city for weeks, killing the trees where they stood. Only after months of delay did FEMA relent, adding the trees' removal to the toll of the catastrophe.

Through hundreds of such disputes large and small, the most costly disaster in U.S. history is fast becoming its most contentious, with appeals and disputes worth nearly a billion dollars bogging down repairs of critical public systems and delaying the return of residents.

Current and former officials at all levels blame FEMA workers' inexperience with eligibility rules, weaknesses in U.S. disaster laws and inconsistent treatment by Congress for much of the wrangling. The huge scale of the storm and honest disagreement over whether federal or local taxpayers should pay the tab add to the conflict.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901289.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. good grief!

:baghead:

[texpatriot2004]

2. FEMA under the * Admin is worthless. * ruined it. nm