I had been reading about the FEMA payments made to Miami-Dade residents for relief after Hurricane Frances hit back in early September.
It seems that Miami-Dade took a minimal hit during that particular storm. People are outraged that FEMA has approved 9,801 grant appications, amounting to approx. $21.5 million while the area's hardest hit have only received approx. $12.5 million.
For some reason that really stuck in my head. FEMA is under the gun for accountability. And I believe they should be. They should be have to justify every grant, every approval.
However, we also need to keep things in perspective. People are filing claims on what they lost - the monetary value. Whether you lost your roof in a serious thunderstorm due to a hurricane, or you lost your roof while in the eye of the hurricane - you lost your roof. If your roof is a slate roof on a 3,000sq ft house, that costs a bit more than a shingle roof on a 1,200 sq ft farm house. Also - much of the area's hit the hardest were modular homes, some were lower income areas......the monetary value is lower - no matter the sentimental value (there is no price that can be attached to that).
Also - they are still processing the claims. Trust me folks - we still have the blue tarp roofs everywhere, there is still damage. I have a friend who lives in Central Florida, who lost most of his home during Charley, back in August. He, his wife and 3 children are living in one room of their home. One Room for Cooking, Sleeping, LIVING......they are still doing the paperwork shuffle and waiting for help, waiting for money - they were told it should all be taken care of (including the repairs) by March 2005. MARCH FOLKS!!! But....that area was also devastated. Wiped out. There is a lot to be done there, paperwork wise and manual labor wise. The less physical damage, the easier it is to get out, assess and complete the process. When you have that much devastation, it takes time - and it should. If they were flying through it I'd be more worried that things were skipped, missed, faked, etc. Again - they are still processing everything in some of the hardest hit areas. Those totals are no where near complete.
Some don't understand why Miami-Dade was even a part of the disaster zone. Well, Gov. Bush ask for the relief 2 days before Frances hit. We had just been slammed by Charley and he was being proactive. He was doing what he believed necessary to get the relief flowing as quickly as possible. If it's slow now, imagine how slow it would be if he hadn't been as proactive as he was. Is it perfect? Hell No. It's run by humans. Is FEMA making mistakes? Yep - it's also run by humans. Do we need to keep an eye on what's going on? Oh Yeah.....most definetly. But we also need to remember that it is still in process. That it is a flawed system, there will be errors - as long as they are corrected I'm understanding of that.
All in all - I'm glad that someone is keeping an eye on FEMA. We should. But I also think we need to be careful in pushing the panic button. Keep the heat on, but don't start boiling yet.
Hat Tip Florida Cracker and Michele Malkin