Issues with FEMA
By montyortiz
@montyortiz (11)
United States
October 7, 2008 11:24am CST
Recently, the south east region of Texas was devastated by Hurricane Ike. Many thousands of homes were damaged, hundreds completely destroyed, dozens of people "confirmed" dead and hundreds "missing", the quotations notate my skepticism but that's a story for another post.
My issue here is with FEMA. I was not personally in need of their services but many people I know were. The lack of action by FEMA and the incompetence when they did act was and is deplorable.
For those of you aware of the layout of Houston and surrounding areas, you may have more input on this than others, but I welcome all to chime in if you have had the unfortunate opportunity to deal with FEMA or know someone who has.
It came to my attention that one of the first FEMA pods reported to be open was located outside of the Katy Mills Mall. For those of you unfamiliar with Katy, it is one of the most well-to-do communities in the area. The mall is HUGE, and it was open for business. But while thousands were sheltering with friends and family, blocked by flood water, fallen trees and debris and with no electricity or water service to their homes, FEMA was busy setting up in an area with minimal damage and power outage. It was disgusting to say the least.
Mayor White of Houston, was reported as saying "Get these f***ing trucks moving" or something to that extent, anyway he wasn't worried about being politically correct.
There were reports from FEMA that they would be providing apartment housing free of charge for a certain time to those in need, yet the story was published of a family of 16, 4 biological children, 2 parents and 10 adopted special needs children who's home was destroyed. Instead of giving them an apartment or hotel to stay in FEMA gave them tents to put on their property. This is not an isolated story either.
I want it to be known also that Hurricane Katrina victims, which was about 4 years ago in New Orleans, Louisiana, were still being given fully paid apartments, and apartment complexes were still collecting monthly checks from FEMA for Katrina evacuees that were not even living there anymore, and this report comes directly to me from a personal friend who was recently fired from her job as a leasing agent at one of these apartments.
But because the majority of Texans are not willing to just leave there home in ruin and live off the government we don't get any help. FEMA was reported to have thrown away hundreds or thousands of pounds of ice simply because the stores were selling it, what about the people who don't have jobs anymore, how are they supposed to buy it? Plus FEMA announced that they would not be issuing money directly to storm victims as they had after Katrina. The list goes on.
Any thoughts or stories?
1 person likes this
1 response
@palonghorn (5479)
• United States
7 Oct 08
My sister has been dealing with FEMA for weeks now, they are paying for their hotel (FEMA that is) and has helped them with whatever they could. They live on the Galveston Bay, their's is one of the few homes left on her street. From her experience, FEMA has been doing their job the best they can under the circumstances. I'm not sure that Katy wasn't a good place to set up, since they do need electricity for their computers, since all filings are done by computer. There was no where near Galveston that they could have set up, since for the most part it was without electricity. I gues they could have waited weeks to respond, waited til the electricity was restored in that area. Also FEMA has been the one to turn in hotels that are trying to commit fraud, like the one my sister was staying at. The hotel was being paid by FEMA, and yet tried to charge my sister for it too. Not only did they try to charge her, they had jacked up the price of the hotel room and was charging tax, which the Governor had said they could not charge taxes on those rooms. I'm not saying that everything runs smoothly, but when you take into consideration how many workers there are for FEMA and how many people were left without and seeking help.....well do the math, it's not going to all be taken care of in a day.
@montyortiz (11)
• United States
7 Oct 08
Well I'm glad your sister has had a good experience. I'm not trying to say it is all bad, but I want to get it out there that there are a lot of problems.
I don't expect it to all be taken care of right away either.
As for Katy, FEMA actually set up, from what I understand at Reliant. The Katy set up I was referring to was actually a POD (Point of Distribution) with ice, water and MRE's. I think it would have been better served to start in harder hit areas, this is just an opinion of course, they may have some logical reasoning behind everything, it's just hard to see from where I am standing.