Get Hurricane Help? FEMA May Want Money Back

[southerngale]

I hope the people who received FEMA money in error haven't spent it yet!

Get Hurricane Help? FEMA May Want Money Back

POSTED: 1:10 pm CST March 20, 2006
UPDATED: 3:59 pm CST March 20, 2006

BEAUMONT, Texas -- Thousands of people who received money from the federal government after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma might be asked to give it back.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency started sending letters last week asking people to return money they received in error.

Officials with the agency said 1.7 million households received FEMA assistance after Hurricanes Rita, Katrina or Wilma. Up to 50,000 of them will be asked to reimburse the agency.

Those who receive a letter requesting repayment can appeal if they believe they were entitled to the funds.

But FEMA officials encourage them to make payments while the matter is resolved or to at least set up a payment plan. If the amount isn't paid in full within 30 days, interest will be tacked on.

While FEMA tries to track down those funds, a House committee said Monday it would review several post-Katrina hurricane contracts for waste and abuse, citing recent concerns about limited oversight and the haste in which they were awarded.

The Government Reform Committee will hold at least one hearing in April, said Robert White, a spokesman for chairman Tom Davis, R-Va. Witnesses and the specific contracts that will be scrutinized have yet to be determined, he said.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office reported in its first preliminary overview of Katrina contracts that the government wasted millions of dollars, including at least $3 million for 4,000 beds that were never used. The report blamed in part mismanagement and poor planning by agencies.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat on the panel, suggested earlier Monday that Davis to hold hearings on Katrina contracting. Waxman has proposed creating an independent, anti-fraud commission and has criticized congressional oversight of the hurricane recovery effort.

A House select committee also chaired by Davis issued a report last month saying waste in government contracts was due largely to poor planning. In one case, Mississippi officials requested from the Federal Emergency Management Agency 450 trucks of water and ice. After FEMA could not immediately deliver it, state officials were forced to buy from the commercial market at an untold cost, the report said.

"We spent five months investigating Katrina, including the contract issues," White said. "We understand there needs to be further review - GAO report or no."

As the government wheels turn, work is quietly continuing on efforts to find the bodies of those who perished in Katrina.

Two more bodies have been found in the city's hurricane-devastated Lower Ninth Ward, a coroner said Monday.

About 1,100 deaths have now been blamed on Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Melissa Walker, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said. Katrina's death toll in Mississippi is 231.

The latest bodies were found Sunday in a collapsed house while rubble was being cleared, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, state medical examiner.

Cataldie said he was not sure who found the remains, but he did not believe it was relatives of the victims.

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/8143546/detail.html

[MiamiensisWx]

Just great! Those who actually needed the money will likely be the ones required to give it back, while those who did not need it will continue to keep it. This solves nothing; it's just politics all over again!

[HurricaneBill]

Didn't this happen in Florida after the 2004 hurricanes?

[Aquawind]

Didn't this happen in Florida after the 2004 hurricanes?

Yep.. Standard Operating Proceedure Evidently..

Paul