On Thursday, President Bush
announced that $2000 in immediate disaster relief would be made available to eligible households impacted by Katrina. He encouraged citizens to obtain information by calling an 800 number or by logging on to www.fema.gov. News of the debit card snafu prompted me to explore www.fema.gov in search of the latest news on the program. I was unable to locate any information on the President's promised $2000 disaster relief at the FEMA web site. However, in exploring FEMA and Homeland Security's Katrina related web pages, I did find several surprising errors and inconsistencies.
It appears that the FEMA web site was updated since the President's announcement on Thursday, September 8. The opening Katrina aid application page includes this rather confounding statement regarding the last update date:
The FEMA web site could benefit from a little proofreading. For example, the Q & A section on the opening aid application page begins:
A few random attempts on Saturday to access the application form consistently resulted in the following error message:
Late in the evening I was able follow the application form screens through to the end and confirm that no information was provided on the $2000 in immediate relief.
If one is unable to access the web site, one may use the convenient 800 number. The 800 number appears to be the only option for obtaining information on the newly announced relief program. However, the web site provides this caution to prospective callers:
Currently the lines are quite congested and the best time to call is 2a.m. to 6a.m. EDT.
What Government is Doing
The FEMA web site links to What Government is Doing at the main Homeland Security site. One would hope that the recent careful scrutiny of Homeland Security's performance would have prompted the department to take extra care in its written statements summarizing its Katrina related activaties. Unfortunately, this page offers a wide array of seemingly contradictory facts and figures. It begins with an alleged summary of what everyone is doing that is followed by alternative statistics organized by department and organization.
Transporting Supplies
For example, the opening summary indicates that the government has delivered 1.7 million pounds of ice. It is unclear how this total quantity relates to the 19 million pounds delivered by Department of Transportation secured trucks, the 67 million pounds delivered by the Department of Defense or the unspecified "millions of commodities of...ice" moved by FEMA. Similarly varying statistics are available for both water and MRE's.
Shelters in How Many States?
The first paragraph describing American Red Cross assistance states:
Shelters [sic] more than 250 American Red Cross shelters are open in nine states: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida and Georgia, with more on standby.
You may note that only eight state names are actually listed.
In contrast, the third paragraph states:
More than 485 Red Cross shelters have been opened in 18 states - including Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Mo., Miss., N.C., Okla., SC., Texas, Tenn, Utah, Va. and W.Va. - with more on standby.
Here only 17 states are listed.
Finally, the opening summary states:
248,431 people have been evacuated and safely housed in shelters in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
Red Cross Meal Preparation
I am confident that Red Cross kitchens are far better organized than this description:
More than 3.3 hot million [sic] meals and more than 3.9 million snacks have been served to-date by the Red Cross in coordination with the Southern Baptist Convention, the Adventists and Second Harvest. The Red Cross served more than 500,000 meals working closely with several partners, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Adventists and Second Harvest to provide emergency food to survivors and responders. In coordination with the Southern Baptists, preparations are underway to serve nearly 500,000 hot meals each day.
It All Depends on the Meaning of 'Provided'
The Homeland Security summary does include a statement regarding the $2000 emergency relief program -- the subject that originally brought me to these two web sites:
FEMA has provided nearly $460 million in expedited aid to individuals in the 48 hours since the agency activated the expedited assistance program. More than 230,000 eligible households are receiving these payments of $2,000 to help pay for their emergency needs of food, shelter, clothing, personal necessities and medical needs.
Provided suggests to me that a transfer of funds has taken place. Unfortunately, I believe this statement is probably rather misleading. Relatively few households obtained the debit cards. I expect it will be days or weeks until the actually relief is received by the applicants.
Accounting for $62 Billion
Let's hope that that the accounting and attention to detail demonstrated in Homeland Security's What Government is Doing summary is not representative of how the department will be keeping track of the expenditure of the billions recently authorized by Congress.
Also posted at scoop.epluribusmedia.org.