Senators hear 'shocking examples' of FEMA waste [View All]

Senators hear 'shocking examples' of FEMA waste
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/senatorshearshockingexamplesoffemawaste;_ylt=AgBUUTkMbNllS1cPieZ5kP.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-


By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY Tue Feb 14, 7:23 AM ET

FEMA has let nearly 11,000 unused manufactured homes deteriorate on old runways and open fields in Arkansas, and the agency spent $416,000 per person to house a few hundred Hurricane Katrina evacuees for a short time in Alabama last fall, government investigators told the Senate on Monday.


The allegations that the
Federal Emergency Management Agency has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on a host of bungled efforts to help evacuees were in a pair of reports to senators investigating the government's response to the disaster. (Related blog: Several hurricane reports coming down hard)

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate
Homeland Security committee, called the reports a "fresh indictment" of FEMA. She said investigators uncovered "shocking examples of absent safeguards and wasted tax dollars."

Among them: FEMA spent $878.8 million on nearly 25,000 manufactured homes that the agency is paying to store around the country largely because its own regulations prohibit placing the homes in flood plains, such as New Orleans.