State Lawmakers Critical Of FEMA Slow Response
How many FEMA trailers have been officially set up for Louisiana flood victims? According to one Louisiana lawmaker that number is one. That's right officially one FEMA manufactured home has been approved and actually setup for living.
If I might editorialize, "if that's a true statement then FEMA needs to be burned down and we need to start over. This is unacceptable". Those are my words, I welcome your rebuttal.
Representative Clay Schexnayder and I obviously agree on this total failure by the agency that is supposed to be at the ready to help U.S. citizens in times of disaster.
I don’t feel that y’all are pushing the issue quick enough or fast enough to be able to help these people get back in their homes.
That's what Representative Schexnayder told the Louisiana Radio Network. According to FEMA there have been 200 families approved for housing but so far only the one trailer is on the ground in the state.
Having one trailer set up so far out of all of this, one trailer. Where I’m from I don’t call that satisfactory at all.
To be fair, as appalled by this information as many of us are it's not like FEMA has totally abandoned the people of Louisiana. The agency has spent over $213 million in sheltering displaced families. Much of the cost has gone to covering hotel rooms and providing support for shelters in surrounding communities.
Still that fact doesn't let FEMA off the hook. The agency is just moving very slowly. Perhaps that's by design. However, that design isn't winning FEMA many friends. Over 111,000 home inspections have been ordered, but only 56,000 have been completed.
All we can do is hope that the process will begin to pick up speed and more and more of our citizens who were displaced will get exactly what they need to begin rebuilding their lives. Regardless, it would probably be a good idea to reexamine the mission, the policy, and the procedures that FEMA uses before the recovery becomes worse than the disaster.