I get mad.

[Nipples the Clown]

http://www.local10.com/news/5037401/detail.html

[Nipples the Clown]

I get mad when i read things like this

[Donna]

I agree with you. What a waste of money.

[jzt]

What's bad is that the cruise lines are getting more money from FEMA than if they were booked solid with normal cruises. That is just wrong. Any amount over what they could normally make is too much. The cruise ship idea might have been a good one to begin with, but price gouging is illegal in natural disasters.

[d-o-b]

What's bad is that the cruise lines are getting more money from FEMA than if they were booked solid with normal cruises. That is just wrong. Any amount over what they could normally make is too much. The cruise ship idea might have been a good one to begin with, but price gouging is illegal in natural disasters.
not only that but the fact that the ships they are using on the gulf are the old ones that they only use on short routes where they made no money.....

[jzt]

not only that but the fact that the ships they are using on the gulf are the old ones that they only use on short routes where they made no money.....

I'm sure that no one wants to live on that. What a trapped feeling. And I bet the service sucks.

[Nipples the Clown]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-fema20xoct20,0,6720719.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines


FEMA's waste continues as millions in extra payments given out for Katrina


Expedited aid unjustified, some say

By Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz
and John Maines Staff Writers
Posted October 20 2005


With hundreds of thousands forced from homes battered by Hurricane Katrina, the federal government cut red tape to rush $2,000 checks and debit cards to help victims pay for clothes, food, transportation and a place to live.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency intended the aid for displaced Gulf Coast families and limited it to one payment per household.

But in three Louisiana parishes, FEMA issued more checks than there are households, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $70 million, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found.

And in 36 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, FEMA awarded $102 million to at least 51,000 more applicants than local officials said were displaced by the storm.

The newspaper's findings are based on a review of $1.46 billion in FEMA claims paid through Sept. 22 and interviews with local officials from 54 counties and parishes.

Some of the same patterns of waste and fraud found after Florida's four hurricanes last year are occurring in the Gulf Coast states despite assurances by federal officials that steps have been taken to curb abuses.

In Mobile, Ala., residents coached each other on the right words to use when calling FEMA to get the $2,000. Many who received the money never had to leave their homes. Some had minor roof leaks. One said her furniture got wet because she kept opening her door to watch the storm.

"Unbelievable," said Mobile Police Lt. Christon Dorsey, a member of a hurricane fraud task force.

He estimated fewer than 300 Mobile County residents were displaced and in need of emergency aid, not the 17,050 who collected $34.1 million.

"That's unreal," he said. "That's extremely disproportionate to what it should be."

In Pike County, Miss., Katrina displaced 25 families, yet 2,494 collected nearly $5 million and "made a ton of money," said Civil Defense Director Richard Coghlan.

"I'll tell you, it was Christmas," Coghlan said. "We're talking plasma TVs. We're talking stereos. We're talking bicycles."

In Louisiana's Iberville Parish, 70 miles from Katrina's landfall in New Orleans, the storm knocked down trees and power lines but caused no major damage, said emergency manager Laurie Doiron. Still, 819 parish residents received $1.6 million from the federal government.

"I can't possibly fathom 819 people needing $2,000 in immediate assistance," she said. "What do I attribute that to? FEMA being free with the money, too free with the money."

The Sun-Sentinel previously reported that FEMA paid $31 million in Hurricane Frances aid to residents of Miami-Dade County, one of the few areas of Florida not hit by last year's four hurricanes. And, in a series of reports last month, the newspaper identified more than $330 million over five years going to applicants across the country who never suffered the devastating effects of disasters.

FEMA officials have assured Congress they have fixed many of the problems, but Richard Skinner, inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, told the Sun-Sentinel Wednesday "we have not validated" that.

Skinner said he is aware Katrina emergency aid payments far exceed the number of families local officials report as being displaced.

"This has been brought to our attention and we are looking into it," he wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper.

Asked to explain how FEMA could issue more checks than there are households in the three Louisiana parishes, Skinner wrote: "This is what we will find out through our ongoing work."

Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, has established an Office for Hurricane Katrina Oversight and dispatched teams of auditors and investigators to "ensure disaster assistance funds are being spent wisely." So far, 14 people have been charged with fraud in connection with the $2,000 aid payments, according to the department. "We expect many more," Skinner said.


FEMA began the $2,000 "expedited assistance'' a week after Katrina devastated coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, and as the government faced criticism for its slow response.

"Through FEMA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has dramatically streamlined its procedures to urgently expedite these payments of $2,000 per household," the government announced Sept. 10.

"We are committed to cutting red tape and getting help to people who need it," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "We are getting real assistance in record time."

FEMA waived its usual procedure of sending an inspector to an applicant's home to first verify damage. Instead, it approved payments based on a phone call or online application, which the agency said took 20 minutes.

Every four hours, FEMA sent information on those approved to the U.S. Department of Treasury, which then issued checks or deposited the money directly into the applicant's bank account. For two days, FEMA issued the $2,000 through debit cards to evacuees at Texas shelters.

The aid was intended for those "severely impacted" by the storm who did not "have the usual means of identifying damage to their property or are unable to provide the immediate documentation necessary," a Sept. 7 FEMA news release said.

"Nearly $690 million in assistance helping ... families displaced by Katrina," the government announced three days later. Money was in hand or on the way to thousands of storm victims "who are hurting, and in many cases, far from home," Chertoff said.

As the money flowed, local officials encountered confusion and anger by residents over why some got $2,000 and others didn't. FEMA did not answer the newspaper's questions about its criteria for awarding the money. One rule the government made clear: One payment per household.

Yet in Orleans Parish, ground zero for Katrina, FEMA gave $458 million to 224,008 applicants. That's 41,888 more than the estimate of households in the parish as of 2004, according to Claritas, a leading U.S. demographics research firm. The difference translates to $83.8 million.

In St. Bernard Parish, FEMA issued 3,929 more expedited payments than households -- $7.9 million -- and in Plaquemines Parish the difference was 1,876 payments, or $3.8 million.

Even after adding all those living in college dorms, nursing homes, military quarters and institutions, the number of recipients still exceeds possible applicants in the three parishes by nearly 35,000 -- for a total of $69.9 million.

FEMA did not explain the discrepancy and instead released a statement saying the government responded to the "largest natural disaster our nation has faced'' and had to help victims dispersed across the country, "many far from home with nothing but the clothes on their back.''

The statement also said, "While the system may not have been perfect, if any have taken advantage of it by lying to FEMA in order to make an easy buck, we will work with the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force to seek full prosecution."

Throughout the Gulf Coast, emergency managers contacted by the Sun-Sentinel said they believed many people took advantage of the money.

"My people suffered almost nothing," said Travis Prewitt, emergency manager in East Feliciana Parish, just north of Baton Rouge. "I didn't have a single structure, as far as I know, in the whole parish destroyed."

But 520 East Feliciana residents collected $1 million in expedited FEMA aid.

"It appears as though I've got about 520 cases of fraud," Prewitt said. "I did not have 520 individuals up here that suffered any losses."

About 130 miles west of New Orleans, in Vermilion Parish, La., Katrina was "just like a nice, breezy day," said Robert LeBlanc, emergency preparedness director. "We didn't get any damage to a piddly row of beans.

"You flabbergast me," LeBlanc said, when told 19 parish residents received FEMA expedited aid. "I can't fathom anybody had damage from Katrina in this parish."

FEMA issued $658,000 to 329 applicants in Scott County, Miss., where "we probably should have gotten about half that many," said Alvin Seaney, county civil defense director.

At least two farmers received money after they told FEMA that Katrina damaged their chicken coops. One planned to return the money.

"He got a check for $2,000 that said `for temporary housing,'" Seaney said. "He didn't need a house for himself; he needed a house for the chickens."

Money went to undeserving applicants in Copiah County, Miss., including a friend of the emergency management director, Donald Weathersby.

She lost $36 worth of insulin when power went out, and collected $2,000 from FEMA, he said.

"We'll give her $36 for her medicine, and $50 for gas to go pick it up, but $2,000 is ridiculous," Weathersby said. "She doesn't even live in the house. She rents it. And the house had no damage."

In Hinds County, Miss., which includes the city of Jackson, local officials "feel very sure there were illegal claims," said Emergency Management Director Larry Fisher.

At most, Katrina displaced 150 families in Hinds County, not the 5,756 who received $11.5 million in emergency assistance, Fisher said.

He said he warned a FEMA official briefing the Jackson City Council in mid-September about residents exaggerating claims.

"I told him, `I don't know what your criteria is, but we do not have that many people drastically impacted or not able to stay in their homes by any means,'" Fisher said. "He told me ... these claims had been filed and would be verified. My concern was I had not been called, nor any of my staff, to verify any damage."

All Harold Miller, Jr. had to do to collect the $2,000 was tell FEMA he lived in Baton Rouge in a home damaged by the storm, federal prosecutors say. Miller actually lived and worked in Portland, Ore., where he has been charged with fraud. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland is investigating others there who may have fraudulently obtained expedited aid from FEMA.

FEMA made "no effort before disbursing the money to verify anything," said Lance Caldwell, the federal prosecutor in Miller's case. "As far as I'm concerned, there may have been considerable losses to the government because of this type of fraud."

Across the country, authorities have arrested people who collected FEMA payments using false addresses, including a north Florida couple who claimed they lost homes in Slidell, La., and then spent some of their $4,000 on cocaine, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in western Louisiana.

Two inmates at the Avoyelles Women's Correctional Center in Cottonport, La., are under investigation for claiming to be Katrina victims in applications to FEMA.

"They couldn't have been displaced. They were incarcerated," said Harry Normand, chief criminal deputy of the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office.

Jailhouse workers intercepted their FEMA checks.

Some local officials said FEMA may have been motivated to hand out money without adequate controls to counter criticism. In the early days after the storm, the government was repeatedly accused of abandoning victims and waiting too long to send in troops and supplies.

"I suspect after the bad publicity that they just started throwing money out," said Ronnie Hughes, president of Ascension, La. Parish, where 1,552 residents collected $3.1 million. "We did not have 1,500 families displaced in Ascension Parish, I can tell you that."

At a news conference earlier this month, President George W. Bush praised the expedited aid program.

"We've done a good job of getting $2,000 to people," Bush said. "I think that the notion of helping people immediately worked pretty good. It worked good because the government responded with the checks

[Donna]

It doesn't surprise me. Kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about human nature. (sarcasm).

[Toad]

I already have coconuts off my tree from Wilma so I have my FEMA application all ready to send in on Monday. I'm requesting a new addition to my house from my possible damage. Do you think that is asking for too much?;)

[jzt]

I already have coconuts off my tree from Wilma so I have my FEMA application all ready to send in on Monday. I'm requesting a new addition to my house from my possible damage. Do you think that is asking for too much?;)

I'm trying to figure out how to have my furniture damaged so that I can get new stuff that isn't trashed by my kids or dogs. :D

[jzt]

I already have coconuts off my tree from Wilma so I have my FEMA application all ready to send in on Monday. I'm requesting a new addition to my house from my possible damage. Do you think that is asking for too much?;)

I'm trying to figure out how to have my furniture damaged so that I can get new stuff that isn't trashed by my kids or dogs. :D

[Best Teach]

I'm trying to figure out how to have my furniture damaged so that I can get new stuff that isn't trashed by my kids or dogs. :D


I remember A LOT of people doing that after Hurricane Andrew.

[Nipples the Clown]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-hyde21oct21,0,674137.column?coll=sfla-home-headlines

Published October 21, 2005


OK, let's see how ready you really are for Hurricane Wilma:

Bottled water? Check.

Extra batteries? Check.

A doctor's note documenting your high level of hurricane stress so FEMA will cover funeral expenses if you die of anything -- cancer, alcohol, anything -- within the next six months or so?

Well?

You see, once again, we arrive at the fault line between those simply preparing for a damaging hurricane and those thinking low enough to make a buck off it.

This was the warning after a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation detailed how $102 million in FEMA money was awarded to at least 51,000 more applicants in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama than officials said were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Two things were at work there, here and in every hurricane of late: There are people intent on milking the government like Farmer Brown, and compassionate conservatives at FEMA capable of feeling the pain of people who don't even exist.

And let's repeat the pertinent words about Katrina: Louisiana. Mississippi. Alabama.

You think their scam artists can hold a phony insurance claim next to our state's scam artists? Especially with President George W. Bush's mission-accomplished taunt after Katrina that, "We've done a good job of getting $2,000 to people"?

No doubt he meant well. But those words must sound like a dinner bell to some of our upwardly mobile scammers, even if this doesn't become a Wilma of Mass Destruction.

Just look at the imagination in recent Florida hurricanes: The family of a Palm Bay man who died from lung cancer six days before Hurricane Frances got $5,000 from FEMA for his burial. The family of a Pensacola man got $2,500 from FEMA when he drank himself to death six weeks after Hurricane Ivan. (Maybe they mixed hurricane-relief forms with those for a Finnish winter?)

In Miami-Dade County, the Sun-Sentinel reported that residents received $31 million after Frances -- and its residents got hit as hard by that hurricane as Steubenville, Ohio.

How could this happen? Could it happen again? And, most important, can you sell FEMA the story that the year-old dent in your car door actually was caused by hurricane-catapulted coconuts?

You can bet that, in fine Florida tradition, thousands of residents already are refining their FEMA applications this week in what's surpassing Texas Hold 'Em as the hottest get-rich fad.

FEMA, be forewarned, is trying to grow into the role. For one, Brownie is still gone despite the heckuva job he did in Katrina. For another, after what happened following Frances, you're going to have to present a death certificate in asking for funeral expenses.

That's because two people received FEMA money for funerals despite no proof they had died.

You know who you are. And don't even try to get FEMA dollars for dying this time without a note from a doctor saying you felt chest pains every time you heard Max Mayfield talk.

[Tubby]

I already have coconuts off my tree from Wilma so I have my FEMA application all ready to send in on Monday. I'm requesting a new addition to my house from my possible damage. Do you think that is asking for too much?;)

your application might be returned...... Nono

Former FEMA official charged with taking kickbacks in Miami-Dade

By Jon Burstein, Staff Writer

A former Federal Emergency Management Agency inspector was arrested Thursday on charges she took kickbacks to sign off on false damage claims filed by Miami-Dade County residents after Hurricane Frances last year.

Tywanishia Preston artificially inflated four applicants' disaster claims in return for money, according to federal authorities. A Miami-Dade federal grand jury indicted her on four counts of making a false claim and four counts of receipt of bribes by a public official.

The indictment made available Thursday night did not detail how much money authorities believe Preston received as part of the arrangements. In addition, the four applicants who allegedly benefited weren't named in the indictment.

Preston is the first FEMA inspector to be arrested as part of a continuing federal investigation in Miami-Dade, where FEMA paid out more than $31 million to residents after Frances. The Labor Day storm only brushed the county, with the eye hitting more than 100 miles away.

The federal inquiry, which has since spread into Broward County, followed South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports of the disproportionately large amount of FEMA money flowing into Miami-Dade. Residents there told the newspaper they saw neighbors intentionally damaging their belongings so they could collect money.

The Miami-Dade payouts prompted a U.S. Senate committee investigation.

Subsequent Sun-Sentinel reports detailed how the national disaster response system is fraught with fraud and waste. The newspaper found that within the last five years FEMA poured at least $330 million into communities that were largely spared the devastating effects of fires, hurricanes, floods and tornados. Taxpayer money meant to help victims of natural disasters has gone to thousands of people who suffered little or no damage.

On Thursday the Sun-Sentinel raised questions about more than $170 million in FEMA's Hurricane Katrina emergency assistance payments to residents of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

A total of 25 residents in Miami-Dade and Broward counties have been charged with filing false damage claims in Frances' wake. Fourteen of them have pleaded guilty to cashing in on the disaster, 10 are awaiting trial and one was acquitted. Of the 11 defendants who have been sentenced, one got a three-month jail sentence and the rest were put on probation.

If found guilty, Preston could face up to 15 years in prison on each of the bribery counts and five years on each of the counts of making a false claim. She will be arraigned Thursday at the Miami-Dade federal courthouse.

[Donna]

What a waste of money. These crooks should have their assets seized, their wages garnished or if destitute, put on road crews until they pay off their debt.

--------------------
FEMA hurricane aid spent on divorce lawyer, vacations, porn and sex change
--------------------

Associated Press

June 14, 2006, 5:23 AM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Houston divorce lawyer Mark Lipkin says he can't recall anyone paying for his services with a FEMA debit card, but congressional investigators say one of his clients did just that. The $1,000 payment was just one example cited in an audit that concluded that up to $1.4 billion -- perhaps as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in assistance expended after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- was spent for bogus reasons.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change operation, the audit found. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

``I do Katrina victims all the time,'' Lipkin, the divorce attorney, told The Associated Press. ``I didn't know anybody did that with me. I don't think it's right, obviously.''

Government Accountability Office officials were testifying before a House committee Wednesday on their findings.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee overseeing an investigation of post-hurricane aid, called the bogus spending ``an assault on the American taxpayer.''

``Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time,'' he said.

To dramatize the problem, investigators provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358 U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent received using a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Tuesday that the agency, already criticized for a poor response to Katrina, makes its highest priority during a disaster ``to get help quickly to those in desperate need of our assistance.''

``Even as we put victims first, we take very seriously our responsibility to be outstanding stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we are careful to make sure that funds are distributed appropriately,'' Walker said.

FEMA said it has identified more than 1,500 cases of potential fraud after Katrina and Rita and has referred those cases to the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. The agency said it has identified $16.8 million in improperly awarded disaster relief money and has started efforts to collect the money.

The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially fraudulent payments were much higher _ between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were paid twice, since FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and paid hotels directly. FEMA paid California hotels $8,000 to house one individual _ the same person who received three rental assistance payments for both disasters.

In another instance, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.

Among the items purchased with the cards:

_An all-inclusive, one-week Caribbean vacation in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

_Five season tickets to New Orleans Saints professional football games.

_Adult erotica products in Houston and ``Girls Gone Wild'' videos in Santa Monica, Calif. _Dom Perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages in San Antonio.

``Our forensic audit and investigative work showed that improper and potentially fraudulent payments occurred mainly because FEMA did not validate the identity of the registrant, the physical location of the damaged address, and ownership and occupancy of all registrants at the time of registration,'' GAO officials said.

FEMA paid millions of dollars to more than 1,000 registrants who used names and Social Security numbers belonging to state and federal prisoners for expedited housing assistance. The inmates were in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.

FEMA made about $5.3 million in payments to registrants who provided a post office box as their damaged residence, including one who got $2,748 for listing an Alabama post office box as the damaged property.

The GAO told of an individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers _ including the person's own _ to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

[jzt]

It is very disgusting.

[Steve]

Pigs..... pure and simple.

[dianepmny]

Not at all surprising.

So, do you actually believe that his office had no clue how they were being paid? Please.