Records show FEMA was set up for Florida before storms struck (In 2004)

Published - December, 3, 2005

Records show FEMA was set up for Florida before storms struck
Memos don't shed light on reimbursements

Melanie Payne and Jeff Cull
mpayne@news-press.com


Government lawyers on Friday released Federal Emergency Management Agency documents, including memos sent to the White House that they had tried to keep secret for more than a year.

Although portions of the documents were removed, they showed that FEMA early on decided to give Florida a significant increase in the usual reimbursement costs of a disaster.

The documents also showed that the agency was mobilizing for the disaster and allocating money to Florida before the bands of the first of four deadly hurricanes struck the state on Aug. 13, 2004.

The documents, which included FEMA memos and "talking points," did not shed any new light on how the government decided to reimburse Floridians for 2004 hurricane damage. The News-Press in Fort Myers and other media -- including the Pensacola News Journal -- had reported the reimbursement process immediately following hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.

FOIA request

The government made the documents available in response to a court order that granted a Freedom of Information Act request made by The News-Press. The newspaper, along with two other Gannett dailies -- Florida Today and the News Journal -- sued FEMA to see copies of the documents and other related disaster information.


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http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051203/NEWS01/512030332/1006

Not me!!!

It's all in the family with BUSHCO!

Mismanagement at all levels..

:(

U.S. releases FEMA storm documents
Papers show early response to '04 hurricanes
By Melanie Payne
and Jeff Cull
THE FORT MYERS NEWS PRESS


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''We're not just talking about laws that were created for one administration. They must be protected over many administrations,'' she said.But this administration uses the laws in a different way than some past administrations have, according to Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota.

In 2001, then Attorney General John Ashcroft directed government agencies to withhold documents even if releasing the information caused no harm, Kirtley said.

''The current climate within the executive branch is that if they have any basis to claim an exemption (to the Freedom of Information Act), they will cite it and hope that you, the requester, will back off,'' Kirtley said.

Indeed the documents showed that FEMA appeared to prepare early for the Florida hurricanes and to advocate on behalf of the state throughout the hurricane season.

On Aug. 13, 2004, before Hurricane Charley had made landfall, then undersecretary Michael D. Brown, the head of FEMA, wrote a ''Memorandum for the President'' supporting Gov. Jeb Bush's request for a disaster declaration for the state of Florida.


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http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051203/NEWS01/512030329/1010