DAN K. THOMASSON FEMA: A disaster waiting to happen

WASHINGTON -- Making money out of someone else's tra-gedy is the American way, isn't it? There are a whole lot of recent examples to sustain that premise -- from 9/11 to the war in Iraq and now to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, where general government ineptness has been capped by more than $1.4 billion worth of fraudulent claims, according to congressional accountants.
Money went to pay for football tickets, vacations and even a divorce lawyer, congressional testimony and press reports made clear, setting off new demands for a revamping of the federal emergency system.
Is there any other reason to overhaul, perhaps even abolish, the Federal Emergency Management Agency?
It is bad enough that this ridiculous agency, now part of the Homeland Security Department, was so incompetent it couldn't even deliver bottled water to the right spot immediately after the storms, and is still floundering around trying to get things right nearly a year later. Now it turns out to have been a major sucker for bunko artists who weren't even all that clever, just brazen enough to provide an overwhelmed bureaucracy with false information and to then sit back and wait for the check.
Prison inmate
Among those whom the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, discovered as illegally benefiting from FEMA's bumbling were a prison inmate, a person who used a New Orleans cemetery as an address and a 70-day resident of an Hawaiian hotel. To prove its case for this fleecing of taxpayers, the GAO presented lawmakers with a copy of a government check sent to one of its undercover agents at a phony address. It amounted to $2,358. The money, press reports noted, was paid even after FEMA learned through one of its own inspectors that the recipient didn't live at the alleged address.
Fleecing the taxpayers at the expense of the less fortunate is a national pastime as old as the nation. Even though the government for the first time directly compensated survivors and the families of victims handsomely following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there were numerous cases of false claims, many of which were honored before discovery. The unprecedented victims' compensation fund has drawn fire for other reasons -- especially since the survivors of earlier incidents, including the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, received nothing like this from Uncle Sugar.
FEMA isn't the only agency clearly derelict in the handling of Katrina and Rita funds. Its parent department has to share some of the blame; any number of charitable enterprises -- chief among them the American Red Cross -- have had a difficult time accounting for billions of dollars contributed by sympathetic Americans in the aftermath of the storms and for the tsunami in Asia. The criticism of the Red Cross has brought about efforts to reorganize the nation's leading independent disaster-relief organization.
Aside from the outright swindling, the GAO also determined that a whopping 16 percent of the money FEMA doled out to individuals in storm aid was unwarranted. FEMA itself said it has identified some 1,500 cases of potential fraud, but the GAO indicated the abuse is far more extensive.
Defining events
Is it any wonder then that pollsters are finding that last year's hurricanes, more than 9/11, have become the defining events for a vast majority of Americans when assessing the government's ability to respond quickly and efficiently to any tragedy, including any future terrorist attacks? Their faith was badly shaken by the failure of the system they counted on. This has set off growing alarm and stimulated a general rethinking about the federal role in disaster relief. Pollsters are predicting that the glaring government errors will play a part in midterm elections.
Despite the general condemnation of its lack of preparation for the Gulf Coast horror, an agency spokesman told the press that FEMA considered getting help quickly to those in need as its highest priority. He added that the agency also takes very seriously its stewardship of funds and is careful to make sure they are distributed appropriately. Where in the world has this person been? How much more evidence is needed before Congress or the administration or someone in authority ... decides that enough is enough?
X Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.