The Continuing Chronicle of Katrina’s Tragic Aftermath
July 8th, 2008
By DAMOZEL
Sometimes you don’t know whether to cry or scream. There are many forms of corruption and waste in the government’s fulfillment of its functions, and most just make me furious. But the story of Katrina’s aftermath is one long chronicle of incompetence piled upon a degree of bureaucratic cluelessness that just boggles the mind. The waste here is of money and goods designed to alleviate the misery of our own people.
First, let’s review recent events. These illustrate one kind of problem: a tragic failure of communication between federal agencies and state agencies, and between state agencies and relief organizations that actually do the work of getting supplies to victims.
On June 12, CNN reported that FEMA had given $85 million in supplies designed for Katrina victims and subsequently designated surplus to federal and state agencies.
The material, from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities, sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s giveaway to federal and state agencies this year.
James McIntyre, FEMA’s acting press secretary, said that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them."
"Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA’s needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA’s inventory," McIntyre wrote in an e-mail….
Photos from one of the facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, show pallet after pallet of cots, cleansers, first-aid kits, coffee makers, camp stoves and other items stacked to the ceiling. (CNN)
In the meantime, the head of an agency that is still trying to care for the displaced ALMOST THREE YEARS LATER said that these were all items that they were desperately seeking.(CNN)
CNN invites those who wish to do so to ‘watch the dismay‘ over ‘out of touch FEMA.’
On June 13, 2007, Louisiana officials who’d previously, I suppose, had other things on their minds noticed the story and demanded that FEMA give back what it had given away — i.e., 121 truckloads of ’surplus property’ that FEMA (still doing a heckuva job) didn’t realize people still might need. FEMA officials eventually did send some of it back to Louisiana.
But — because it’s not fair to blame only FEMA —
FEMA Administrator David Paulison on Sunday defended the agency’s decision, telling CNN that Louisiana had been offered some of the stockpiles, but that state officials had declined the goods. (CNN)
Today CNN reports that articles destined for Mississippi victims were accepted by the state, but never distributed to the victims. Instead, loads of household goods went to state agencies, which were happy to receive new coffeemakers, pillowmakers, cleaning supplies, and other such basic items. (CNN)
CNN’s investigation showed that Mississippi was one of the 16 states that took the FEMA supplies, but it did not distribute them to Katrina victims.
Jim Marler, director of Mississippi’s surplus agency, failed to return repeated phone calls over several months to explain what happened.
Agency spokeswoman Kym Wiggins said, "There may be a need, but we were not notified that there was a great need for this particular property." (emphasis added)
As critic said, ‘"You would have to be living under a rock not to know there is still a need."’(CNN)
So how did the surplus agency fail to notice this?
Wiggins said that nonprofit organizations must meet federal guidelines and register with the state and that no such groups helping the needy or homeless were registered with Mississippi’s surplus agency.
"There is no specific designation outside of a disaster period that says we have to have sustained properties going to
the disaster area," Wiggins said. (emphasis added)CNN interviewed the leaders of eight nonprofits helping Katrina victims at a Biloxi, Mississippi, church used as a staging area for community groups. All said they had no idea these items were available, and most had no idea the surplus agency existed.(CNN)
Do you wonder if, after all this time, people who suffered loss during the hurricane really do still need these supplies? Look no further.
As I said, that’s one kind of problem.
A colleague of mine has been chronicling the bungling of Katrina off and on for quite some time. Here’s a sampling of pieces that address the ongoing, endless tragedy of Hurricane Katrina — the tragedy of the wealthiest nation in the world, populated mainly by generous people, tragically and massively failing to get the job done.
Some of the story is about communication failures as seen above, but there is also another angle: the struggle to get for-profit companies hired by the government to do its job to deliver the promised goods at the promised price.
It’s easy to get the impression, and some people have this impression, that there’s no point in any sort of government ’safety net’ or welfare because those programs never do any good anyway. I’d urge those who think this to look not at the outcome — which, as Katrina illustrates — is all too sadly true, but at how we get there.
The money is there and it doesn’t just disappear down a black hole. Contrary to belief, it’s not all lining the pockets of bureaucrats or lazy people who don’t want to work
Quite a lot of it is lining the vaults of a few companies who have had huge helpings of our — that is, your and my — tax dollars but who have not in fact delivered, or been compelled to deliver, on their promises. Some of them got these contracts as a result of their influence over certain officials who had a say in who and how many for-profit businesses get to feed at the government trough.
In addition, some of it is being spent by those administering the funds for inexplicable purposes or being used to pay ridiculous sums for goods and services that could be procured at much less cost to taxpayers.
And then there is just plain old inefficiency and red tape as well, often due to the fact that everyone hates ‘big government’, so the government doesn’t have enough competent people to administer its programs. Maybe the solution is fewer and better bureaucrats or maybe we really do need more people with contract management and oversight experience at management levels. .
Here are some of the low points of Katrina’s aftermath, as chronicled by my colleague:
New Orleans Still Suffering After 2 Years & Billions of Tax Dollars (August 15. 2007) Yes, where did all those tax dollars go and why didn’t they make anything better?
Katrina Tax Breaks Go Toward Luxury Condos in Alabama (August 20, 2007)
She wrote:
Last week, we learned about slow progress in rebuilding New Orleans and protecting the city from future storms (Time and BN-Politics).
Today, I found an article (Aug. 13) about abuse of tax incentives by investors seeking to give college football fans luxurious places to crash during ‘Bama games:
Hurricane Katrina’s Second Anniversary Compels Cynicism (August 30, 2007)
Cynicism is understandable, given the current state affairs in the Big Easy:
"Only two-thirds of the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans has returned to the city, and storm damage remains visible. Only 40 percent of the city’s public school students have returned, although sales tax receipts have climbed to 84 percent of pre-storm levels" (WaPo).
Last week, we learned that not enough money was alloted to rebuilding the gulf region and that much of what was alloted hasn’t even been spent yet — i.e., the money hasn’t made it to the people who really need it.. ..
Post-Katrina Aid: Not Enough, Not Going Where Needed (August 24, 2007):
Last week, we learned that investors are using tax breaks meant to encourage post-Hurricane-Katrina rebuilding to provide luxury condos for ‘Bama Tide football fans. A week before that, Time Magazine ran a series of articles indicating that two years and billions of dollars after Katrina, New Orleans is still not ready for another hurricane.
Today, Alternet cited an Institute for Southern Studies report indicating that not enough money was budgeted for post-Katrina rebuilding, and some of the money is sitting somewhere but not getting to the people who need it.
FEMA: Poor Management or Corruption? (November 16, 2007)
Judge for yourself. Not that the two are mutually exclusive. My colleague wrote:
In one case, FEMA spent $229,000 on contracts to support one family in a single trailer for one year. Wouldn’t it have been more cost effective to build a modest house? Today’sWashington Post reports:
"By not awarding work to contractors with the lowest bids, FEMA misspent $16 million, said the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s [non-partisan] audit arm. The agency misspent an additional $15 million on inspections that it could not prove were performed, preventive maintenance for which contractors falsified documents, and emergency repairs on trailers that FEMA did not own….
"The GAO report listed numerous examples of rigged bids and overpayments. In one case, FEMA could have spent $32.5 million instead of $48.2 million if it had awarded maintenance work to the five low-bid vendors instead of to all 10 pre-selected contractors, according to the report…."
"After FEMA paid a company $1.8 million to clean septic systems for a 61-trailer site, the contractor pocketed $1.5 million in profit and paid $300,000 to a subcontractor to do the work. FEMA did not exercise an option it had to reassign the work to a cheaper company.
"FEMA also awarded maintenance contracts to two companies that falsified bid proposals, shared pricing information, and had the same people serving as president and operating officer. In another case, a FEMA officer awarded a $4 million contract for paving a trailer site, which GAO said could have been done for $800,000, one-fifth the cost." (Washington Post)
Supreme Court Backs Insurance Companies Against Katrina Victims (Feb. 20, 2008)
Bush Administration Still Bungling the Katrina-Rebuilding Effort (March 31, 2008)
A note on this Newsday story.
Katrina Contractor Indicted (May 18, 2007)
It’s the only case of criminal wrongdoing that the Justice Department has prosecuted so far relating to New Orleans levee work. I wonder why. Given the confluence of motives and opportunity, surely the rebuilding of levees in New Orleans is rife with illegal acts….
Naturally, this story is a reminder of other abuses (or crimes) stemming from the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding of the Gulf states. Remember when FEMA rushed to buy 150,000 trailers via no-bid contracts to house Hurricane Katrina victims? Many of those trailers were uninhabitable: some were tainted with formaldehyde….
Back in November, we learned of the following abuses (or crimes):
- FEMA spent $229,00 on contracts to support one family in a trailer
- FEMA mis-spent $16 million by engaging in rigged bids for contractors
- FEMA didn’t bother overseeing contractors to prevent waste or fraud….
In 2006, the House Oversight Committee produced a report stating that 19 contracts worth $9 billion were "plagued by waste, fraud, abuse or mismangement." Some examples from the report:
- FEMA paid $3 million for 4,000 "camp beds" that were never used
- Employees used FEMA credit cards for odd purchases like:
$8,000 for a 63-inch plasma TV
* $63,000 for 20,000 pairs of dog booties
* $??? for 20 boats at twice retail price, only 8 are in FEMA’s records.
To see blogger commentary on this subject, check out memeorandum.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under Natural Disasters, Corruption, FEMA, Government Contractors, Bush Administration, State Politics, Society, Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush, Domestic Programs. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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