Hurricane Katrina is leaving one more big black
blotch on the reputation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
vilified in the Lowcountry since Hurricane Hugo and frustrating residents
as recently as Hurricane Gaston last year.
The nation has watched in horror as New Orleans has descended into
lawlessness and despair in the wake of Katrina. By most accounts, armed
looters now roam the streets, while tens of thousands of thirsty and tired
refugees wait in filthy conditions for transportation out of the flooded
city.
Meanwhile, the disaster agency is being criticized for being slow to
get help as basic as food and water to the victims that the media and
private help agencies already have reached.
Katrina is worse than what Charleston saw after Hugo, where FEMA's
response also trailed local efforts. Critics say the FEMA response for the
new storm is just as slow as it was for Gaston last year. Local residents
and officials watch it with reactions that range from disappointment to
disgust.
"To me, it's a reminder that our country can do much better," said
Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, who led Charleston's response to Hugo in 1989.
"We can do better."
After Hugo devastated the counties around Charleston, local officials
pleaded for emergency help and were told by agency officials strapped for
money and personnel to apply through the governor.
U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, now retired, used his political muscle to
move military support instead behind Riley's efforts.
Hollings publicly called FEMA at the time "the biggest bunch of
bureaucratic jackasses I've ever worked with." He is just as disappointed
in the response to Katrina.
"FEMA is better by far than what we had. We had nothing," Hollings said
Friday. But "it seems like they've fallen back into bureaucracy." He
agreed with Riley that military-style "tent cities" providing housing,
food and medicine are what's needed.
"The Army knows how to do it and could set it up overnight," Hollings
said. "(FEMA) hasn't been in the field. They don't even know what's going
on. Flying over and 'viewing with alarm,' that's garbage. FEMA gives out
loans. Who the hell can get a loan? They're all giving news interviews,
and nobody's getting anything done."
Frustration seems to follow the emergency agency. In 2004, Berkeley
County residents who asked for help after Hurricane Gaston were told there
hadn't been enough homes damaged to qualify, but $3 million in disaster
relief was being given out largely to local governments.
"FEMA is paying for them to pick up limbs off roads. That's just a
trivial thing," said St. Stephen resident Wendell Cross, whose home was
flooded. Katrina hit on the same date that Gaston flooded the Crosses'
home in 2004.
"I feel for these people, big time," said Sharon Cross, Wendell's wife.
"I told my husband, we didn't have it nearly as bad as these people do."
The Crosses and their neighbors eventually got small FEMA grants after the
agency's response was criticized. A low-interest loan FEMA steered to the
Crosses is helping them rebuild. "FEMA did help us out a little, finally."
In 2000, a FEMA audit of Sullivan's Island said the town owed the
agency $7,000 of $3.9 million in aid given out after the 1989 storm. The
town had already passed local, state and federal audits.
In frustration, local officials didn't apply for $25,000 in FEMA loans
they were eligible for after Hurricane Floyd in 2002.
FEMA also asked Charleston County to give back $5.2 million in debris
removal funds, five years after Hugo, saying the agency had made a
mistake. Ultimately, FEMA backed down on that claim.
"I have felt, since Hurricane Hugo, that that's the time when you need
resources on the spot, without assessment or reimbursement or red tape,"
Riley said. The time for worrying about contracts and budgets should come
later, during the recovery phase of a disaster led, he said.
For example, Riley told the New York Times New Service: "With the eye
of Hugo over my City Hall, literally, I said to a FEMA official, 'What's
the main bit of advice you can give me?' and he said, 'You need to make
sure you're accounting for all your expenses.' "
The recovery process does require a more careful assessment and
documentation of costs and bids, Riley said. "That's a different aspect of
the disaster recovery that FEMA does very well," he said.
"Senator Hollings likes to say there's no education in the second kick
of a mule," Riley said. "More and more of our country is at risk from
these hurricanes."
HURRICANE
KATRINA COVERAGE