Tax money well spent....

Sadly, the FEMA representative was right about prosecuting these people that loot and damage the trailers. The costs to prosecute usually far outweigh the value of the trailer when it was new. When you think about it there are many aspects to the overall prosecution cost: attorney fees, court fees, investigator fees, funding the police departments to find and issue subpoenas/detain these people, plus backing up the judicial system even more... the list goes on. My guess is that very few, if any, of the former FEMA trailer residents that looted & destroyed will be prosecuted.

Did you hear? There are a bunch of camping trailers down in Lousiana for sale, really cheap! All you have to do is finish gutting them (that shouldn't take too much effort), fix all the damage, then install all new furnishings and you've got a great mobile retreat... what a bargain! :p

Simply put, this is why we can't have nice things.
 
Y'all need to come down here and live for a while. FEMA sucks, the federal government is doing basically nothing............all recovery efforts are faith-based volunteers (mudwoman and I among them). It's pitiful!!! We're closing in on 2 years since Katrina hit!!!!!!! You would not believe the shape New Orleans neighborhoods are in. The Mississippi coast is still nothing but foundations. But, of course, the media chooses to highlight damage to the damn FEMA trailers. It sickens me. You lose everything you have - possessions, neighbors, loved ones, church family, schools, etc...........basically everything that encompasses "life".............and the "news" wants to talk about trashed government trailers. You and your wife and your 2 kids in a 400 sq.ft. trailer!!!! Thanks, Uncle Sam!?!?!?! Why doesn't the "news" address this????
Like I said, it sickens me. I'm signing out on this thread, but y'all need to open your eyes...............maybe c'mon down and help out!! Things like this really make me ashamed of our government. Damn bureaucrats!!...
 

On a side note........................

Y'all pray you don't get hit by one of these natural disasters...........do NOT depend on your government (they're too busy spending money killing people) or on you're insurance company (surpising what all that "fine print" says)......good people will help you - and you need to pay it forward............it's our only hope.
 
I hear ya, Brother Mud! FEMA has brought in a couple hundred of those trailers for the folks of Greensburg...but that's about all they're doing. Of course, they didn't tell them that a majority of the people living in those trailers in the gulf are suffering from respiratory illnesses due to the formaldehyde used in the preservation of the wood and plastic in the trailers. Seems it leeches out in high temps combined with high humidity. :shock: Hmmm...when I think high temp and high humidity, I think of the gulf coast and Kansas in the springtime! FEMA's answer? Just open the windows to air it out, and spend as little time as possible in them. :???: Excuse me?
 
mud4feet said:
On a side note........................

Y'all pray you don't get hit by one of these natural disasters...........do NOT depend on your government (they're too busy spending money killing people) or on you're insurance company (surpising what all that "fine print" says)......good people will help you - and you need to pay it forward............it's our only hope.
Click to expand...

I know about the insurance problems there and I think both sides have a point.
Where I live it cost me $400 per year for flood insurance on top of my normal home insurance. I understand that allot of those folks didn't have flood insurance or if they did they didn't have contents insured. When the storm surge hit most of the damage was done by flooding so the insurance companies told those without a flood policy that while a "storm" was covered a "flood" wasn't. But I think I heard that one of the big insurers was going to go ahead an start paying on the policy of people without flood policies anyway.
 

Sparky-Watts said:
I hear ya, Brother Mud! FEMA has brought in a couple hundred of those trailers for the folks of Greensburg...but that's about all they're doing. Of course, they didn't tell them that a majority of the people living in those trailers in the gulf are suffering from respiratory illnesses due to the formaldehyde used in the preservation of the wood and plastic in the trailers. Seems it leeches out in high temps combined with high humidity. :shock: Hmmm...when I think high temp and high humidity, I think of the gulf coast and Kansas in the springtime! FEMA's answer? Just open the windows to air it out, and spend as little time as possible in them. :???: Excuse me?
Click to expand...

FYI, the glue that the manufacturer's use has formaldehyde in it and your right, it vents out or leeches out over time. The government knows it and allows it and I don't think its a good thing either. That industry pretty much gets to do what it wants to. Those travel trailers were not meant to be lived in for extended periods. They were built for weekends and vacations. FEMA does suck and it should be disbanded. I was told by a friend of a situation during the clean up operation in Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida. This dozer operator was clearing downed trees and he was pushing them into this guys swimming pool. The home owner ran out and started yelling at the dozer operator and was mad as heck. He told him to stop pushing brush into his pool and to push it elsewhere. A nice FEMA man showed up, with a government issue sidearm and ordered the man back inside, and threatened to have the dozer take his house down if he even stepped foot back outside.

Yeah, FEMA, nice folks to have in time of need..
 
I may be ignorant about this (and you can say so if you want) but just what are we expecting the government to do now, two years later. Are they supposed to come in and rebuild everyones home and give it to them for free? Are they supposed to rebuild the businesses for the business owners? Haven't they rebuilt the infrastructure so that people can rebuild if they want? What am I missing here?
 
90Xjay said:
I know about the insurance problems there and I think both sides have a point.
Where I live it cost me $400 per year for flood insurance on top of my normal home insurance. I understand that allot of those folks didn't have flood insurance or if they did they didn't have contents insured. When the storm surge hit most of the damage was done by flooding so the insurance companies told those without a flood policy that while a "storm" was covered a "flood" wasn't. But I think I heard that one of the big insurers was going to go ahead an start paying on the policy of people without flood policies anyway.
Click to expand...

State Farm insurance got their tit in a wringer over "flood" vs "wind" damage. They told all of their insurance adjusters to write off all damage along the coast (within a certain distance) as being flood damage. Downed trees, missing roofs, collapsed walls, etc. The Supreme Court stepped in and fined them a huge amount and made them pay all claims, saying that although the storm surge was considered a "flood" by the insurance company, it was the direct result of wind, and therefore they had to pay any damages incurred from the storm surge.
 

southtj said:
I may be ignorant about this (and you can say so if you want) but just what are we expecting the government to do now, two years later. Are they supposed to come in and rebuild everyones home and give it to them for free? Are they supposed to rebuild the businesses for the business owners? Haven't they rebuilt the infrastructure so that people can rebuild if they want? What am I missing here?
Click to expand...

FEMA has been ordered by the president, by way of his disaster declaration, to pay out cash benefits, offer short and long term low interest loans, and give government grants to both businesses and residential home owners. They have fallen way short of that. The homeowners cannot perform any repairs on their property until FEMA has assessed it and decided how much aid they are to receive. They can clear debris, but cannot board up windows, patch roofs, etc. One of the people Sunshine and I went down there with in October after Katrina hit has been down there several times now to do relief work. She says that thousands of homeowners and business owners are still waiting for FEMA to make their final assessments. As a result, homes and businesses that had minor damage are now a total loss due to holes in the roofs and walls, and missing doors and windows. Those without adequate insurance coverage are stuck, as they have no jobs, and no means of securing another loan to rebuild elsewhere (or even move elsewhere). So, to answer your question, no, FEMA is not supposed to foot the entire bill for these people to rebuild, but they do have an obligation to assist them as I mentioned at the top of this post. An obligation they have fallen short of.
 
southtj said:
I may be ignorant about this (and you can say so if you want) but just what are we expecting the government to do now, two years later. Are they supposed to come in and rebuild everyones home and give it to them for free? Are they supposed to rebuild the businesses for the business owners? Haven't they rebuilt the infrastructure so that people can rebuild if they want? What am I missing here?
Click to expand...


FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Administration. If you think this is proper "management" of an "emergency", then I pray it never happens to you. The federal government has set a precedent to assist people in times of natural disaster (hence, the formation of FEMA). That's why places are designated "disaster areas", so people can get federal assistance.

I never implied that the Feds should rebuild everyone's homes and businessess for free. I'm thinking that two years later, there shouldn't even be a need. Basically, the federal government just threw a bunch of money in this direction and figured they'd done their part. Very little has trickled down to those who need it. It is not a failure of the people to use resources alloted to them by the government wisely. It's a failure of the governent to get those resources into the hands of the people who need them.

In times of crisis, the finer qualities of humanity/governments usually comes to the forefront.............our government, once again, has dropped the ball.

And, yes, you're missing something. C'mon down and see for yourself.


the muds
 
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I have spent quit a bit of time in the Rocky Mountains and talked to some historians about the kind of people it took to live, work and just survive out west back 150 years ago. I somehow can't picture them standing on the roof of their cabin after an avalanche waiting for the government to do something.
We pay taxes, well the working people do, to fund all of this government bull crap, and they still don't end up helping the people when it's needed.
We used to not have to pay all of this tax to support this huge government payroll and we the people used to be more self reliant.

Now, start flaming me......:D
 

Article on the front page of the paper today says that FEMA overpaid benefits to the tune of several hundred million (don't quote me on the number). Imagine that. I heard there were suckas in jail getting $3500 debit cards.
FEMA sucks this is true. They are also incompetent and lying to the public right now. The director stood in front of congress just a few weeks ago and said they were ready for hurricane season with their new plan and had everything in place. I know first hand they don't have everything in place. Some of you know that I'm a government contractor...we bid a contract to establish a maintenance program for FEMA to take care of the millions of dollars of equipment they have in storage as well as deploy with them to perform maintenance in emergencies. They called and told us we won the contract last September, but have yet to finalize the official contract. Congress mandated that they have a standbye maintenance contractor and they do not. There are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ATV's, trucks, vans, RV's trailers, generators and tractor trucks sitting at various locations and FEMA can't even tell you when the oil was changed if ever on any of them. Absolutely no fleet database whatsoever. **** poor asset management to say the least.
I feel sorry for the people of the gulf coast and hope that they can get their lives back together. Our government should really be doing more to help, instead of trying to help build missile systems over Europe and all the other crap we get involved in beyond our borders. At the same time though, people need to work on covering their own a$$ and not relying on the unreliable. I.e. get homeowners insurance, keep a few months salary in savings, heed warnings and be prepared.
 
90Xjay said:
I was told by a friend of a situation during the clean up operation in Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida. This dozer operator was clearing downed trees and he was pushing them into this guys swimming pool. The home owner ran out and started yelling at the dozer operator and was mad as heck. He told him to stop pushing brush into his pool and to push it elsewhere. A nice FEMA man showed up, with a government issue sidearm and ordered the man back inside, and threatened to have the dozer take his house down if he even stepped foot back outside.

Yeah, FEMA, nice folks to have in time of need..
Click to expand...
I don't doubt the trees in the pool part, but the FEMA guy with a gun is a stretch. I don't think they are allowed or commissioned to carry sidearms.

Back to the trailers. I saw a list of the lots going up for auction at the Fema site in Selma, AL. All were 2006 mobile homes, not travel trailers, and they were all junk. Doors missing, cabinets ripped off, carpet crapped on. It was appauling. Lots of people deserve help on the Gulf Coast...alot of others deserve jail.
 
And don't forget Social Security...............another government promise for all the "good" people!?!?!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!:redface:
 

redrooster said:
Article on the front page of the paper today says that FEMA overpaid benefits to the tune of several hundred million (don't quote me on the number). Imagine that. I heard there were suckas in jail getting $3500 debit cards.
Click to expand...
Yup, they got scammed out of some major dinero, that's for sure. People who didn't even live close to the gulf, had never even seen the gulf coast were getting cash payments for property they didn't own, even some listed addresses that were cemeteries, city parks, national parks, and even one had the cajones to list the New Orleans City Hall as his and got paid for it!! :shock:

redrooster said:
At the same time though, people need to work on covering their own a$$ and not relying on the unreliable. I.e. get homeowners insurance, keep a few months salary in savings, heed warnings and be prepared.
Click to expand...

That's the key right there. ;)
 
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