Louisiana official: FEMA slow on housing

[sabra]

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyNCZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Njc2ODM0MyZ5cmlyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTI=

Louisiana official: FEMA slow on housing

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

BATON ROUGE, La. - President Bush visits the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast for the third time today, and he's expected to face more harsh words about the federal government's response to the disaster.

A top emergency official in Louisiana lodged a new complaint Sunday, saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been slow to provide temporary housing to evacuees living in shelters.

"We have raised the issue for days," said Col. Jeff Smith. "We do not feel that process is moving fast enough. We just feel like there should be trailers rolling and things happening."

Two weeks after Katrina struck, he said, more than 58,000 people are still living in Louisiana shelters. Smith blamed bureaucratic backlogs and said his agency had appealed to FEMA and Vice President Dick Cheney to bring in trailers and help find apartments for evacuees, without results.

[CottonBear]

1. I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

FEMA is busy rebuilding Trent Lott's house and front porch from the "rubbles."

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. We need homes now, La. Tells FEMA

September 12, 2005

We need homes now, La. Tells FEMA
Agency moving too slowly, State officials say

By Ed Anderson and Robert Travis Scott
Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is moving too slowly to bring temporary housing into Louisiana for displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, state officials said Sunday.
Col. Jeff Smith, deputy director of the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said that with tens of thousands of Louisiana residents in evacuation centers in the state and more dispersed around the country, FEMA has not moved swiftly enough to bring in trailers and mobile homes or find vacant apartments or homes for the displaced victims.

"We have a main concern with temporary housing,’’ Smith said. "We don’t feel that process is moving fast enough. There needs to be trailers rolling and things happening that just aren’t happening . . . This is truly a national issue.’’
In response, FEMA spokesman David Passey said Sunday that the agency is forming a housing task force and has provided travel trailers for 10 families in Patterson, a small town in St. Mary Parish. He said hundreds of trailers and manufactured homes are on the way.

"The effort is progressing quite well," Passey said.

To set up temporary housing, the agency must locate large sites capable of providing electricity, water and sewerage, Passey said.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_12.html


Same crap different day. LA officials are screaming for help and FEMA officials think everything is just peachy.

[TNDemo]

3. My daughter is in Baton Rouge and says there are for rent

signs all over the place and in the paper. I told her to rent out a room in her house to some of the media or something and make some money but she said there were too many other places to rent. She said things were selling well but she didn't see the renting going as well. ???

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. That will probably change

has more people come back to the region and all the rebuilders start moving in.

You couldn't find a place for love or money in Miami after Andrew hit for over a year. Too bad I had just sold my condo 3 months before the storm hit. I would have been able to double my money, easy.

[rodeodance]

5. "the agency is forming a housing task force"---says it all

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. That was Bush and HS/FEMA's first response to the storm

Oh yes we are going to form a task force. Oh great, that will be useful. The bad part is that this incompetence is on purpose and people are starting to admit it. HS/FEMA withheld services on purpose from NOLA. What the fuck is the purpose of HS/FEMA if they don't deliver services during and after an emergency? Uh?

[Divernan]

7. Bush/ Chertoff/Brown have left 900 job slots at FEMA unfilled,

as part of their long term effort to downgrade and ultimately destroy FEMA. FEMA has lost approximately 900,

THAT'S NINE HUNDRED ! ! ! !

in an agency w/ about 7,000 total employees. 900
professionals, who have chosen to take early retirement or find employment elsewhere. They have not been replaced. They left as a direct result of the hostile abuse they received from Allbaugh, Brown's more benign neglect , disgust at having to work for inept, inexperienced and arrogant political appointees - sometimes the adult children of Bush's mid-level donors and the budget cutting of natural disaster focus of agency to provide more $$$ for "counterterrorism" stuff.

The intended and expected result is that most of FEMA's standard responses to natural emergencies, such as finding temporary housing for victims, will be severely slowed. This is just fine with Bush. It saves money out of the national budget to provide his tax cuts, and MOST importantly, it gets people pissed off at FEMA, and makes it easier for him to say, Aw, shucks, this agency isn't that good anymore so let's just privatize the whole operation to my good friends at Halliburton.

[JPZenger]

8. Russia Offered Hundreds of Units

Russia offered to fly in hundreds of units of temporary emergency housing immediately after the storm hit. I assume Russia is still waiting for an answer.