According to this story in The Washington Post, a few days ago FEMA displaced dozens of families from a mobile home park in Hammond, La., with just 48 hours' notice, scattering them far from jobs and schools and creating more unnecessary upheaval for them.
Why "unnecessary"? The FEMA bureaucrats who made this decision claim they were concerned about power outages at the park, even though the power was on when the evictions occurred. There had been three outages in the park, the most recent because the bill hadn't been paid. The park's owners blame FEMA for not paying the contracted rent quickly enough. Apparently the finger-pointing made local FEMA officials angry.
The money quote:
"Quite frankly, we received press earlier that week that pointed the finger at FEMA for not paying the bills. We were getting beaten up," said Jim Stark, director of FEMA's Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office. "At this point, we said, 'Enough is enough.' "
The park would be evacuated, and quickly, FEMA officials decided. Officials began telling tenants to pack up even before the agency had decided where they would go.
So a bureaucrat gets his feelings hurt by a contractor and takes it out on the residents of the park by clearing them out and disrupting their lives further.
How long before Jim Stark gets a medal or a promotion?