Lessons Not Learned: Forget About Disaster Housing from FEMA

If you think of humans as the creatures most capable of learning from past mistakes, the ongoing saga of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans after the federal levees breached should give you some pause. Long pause.

Not only, as was reported here Monday, is the Army Corps of Engineers repeating its mistakes in choosing the technically not superior method of flood protection (pleading not enough money to do it the right way), now comes the Homeland Security inspector general to say that FEMA has learned nothing from its disastrous handling of the temporary housing problem post-Katrina in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. The nut graf:

But FEMA's reliance on costly programs to provide trailers and mobile homes to survivors, and the government's inability to swiftly and cheaply repair damaged housing, especially rental units, mean the agency is not up to handling a Katrina-scale event...

Those "costly programs" are the same ones that resulted in thousands of people being cooped up in improperly prepared trailers that "outgassed" formaldehyde fumes, and that government "inability" has doomed at least a hundred thousand people to long-term exile from their homes.

Lessons learned? Try Bonobos.

Comments

[spmcintyre]

Proof positive that allowing the government to continue being your benefactor is not only ignorant, but possibly dangerous. Perhaps, the people of New Orleans should take matters into their own hands and rebuild their own houses. The government didn't own ALL those houses. The government didn't pay the rent or mortgage in ALL those houses. Did it? Yes, I agree that the levee was not up to standard, but it was up to the local government, (Mayor Neagan and predecessors) to ensure that their city was properly protected. Apparently they liked Mayor Neagan, they reelected him. Although I still find it odd that they were able to organize and certify that event with most of the population not there. Did he run unopposed? No worries, the citizens that remained and continue to be taken care of by him, have recieved exactly what they wanted, and rightly deserved. Lib Government at its best.

[HoppinHill]

Spmc

It was not the Mayor´s role to ënsure that the city was properly protected¨from flood. That job belongs to the federal government by law, the Flood Control Act of 1965.

In America we have laws.