Word: fema
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...democracy actually seemed to work, when the powerful were forced to concede the limits of their own clout and spin. Katrina was the turning point, the moment when the extent of cronyism, incompetence and sheer smugness in Washington reached a level that even the White House couldn't ignore. FEMA's Michael Brown, the American people surmised with their wide-open eyes, was not doing a "heck of a job." And a President who could say such a thing obviously had no clue about what was going on in his own government...
...house is several thousand dollars and rising. For now she's living with her daughter Pamela Lewis in nearby Algiers, but Simon hates the loss of independence. "Inside, I'm hurt," she says. "I miss having things my way." Lewis is helping her complete Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) paperwork to get a trailer to place at the back of the lot in Algiers. "I believe there's a lesson and a blessing in everything. We just haven't found it yet," says Sharon Welch, another daughter who is visiting from Chicago, and the women laugh...
...FEMA continues to be a four-letter word in Louisiana. In Kenner and Metairie, suburbs west of New Orleans, blue tarps provided by FEMA dot the roofs of homes damaged by wind, but there are few in the worst-affected neighborhoods like Lakeview, the Ninth Ward and East New Orleans--a policy defended by the agency. "What's to protect?" asks FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews in Washington. She argues, like the insurance companies, that most of the damage east of New Orleans was from floodwaters, not wind. Tarps, she says, would be a waste of money. "There are still houses...
...FEMA trailers for temporary housing are a rare sight in East New Orleans, largely because there is no electricity and inundated city inspectors are behind on approving utility hookups. Entergy New Orleans, which filed for bankruptcy protection after Katrina, plans to double its repair work force so that most of the remaining 75,000 customers will have power by year's end, thus clearing the way for trailers to be installed. The move comes none too soon, since FEMA is cutting off payments for hotel rooms by Dec. 1 to encourage families to move into permanent homes, using money they...
...delays and squabbles mean that Congress's $62.3 billion largesse has mostly gone unspent. More than half--$37.5 billion--is sitting in FEMA's account, waiting for a purpose. Under fire for being slow to respond, the Bush Administration had rushed two emergency supplemental bills to Congress with little thought about how the money would be spent or how fast. Now FEMA is "awash in money," says a Democratic appropriations aide. Of the nearly $25 billion assigned to projects, checks totaling only about $6.2 billion have been cashed. As a result, a third supplemental-funding bill sent to Congress suggests...