[StBernard] Stupid FEMA Tricks

[Westley Annis]

This is in response to the article about rebuilding the schools from a few
days ago.

Quotes from the article:
"Donors showered St. Bernard with enough supplies to fill a spare classroom
floor-to-ceiling and FEMA will cover 90% of rebuilding. But Voitier can't
financed the other 10% - strict rules forbid using other relief money to
make up the 10%."

"She says the rules sometimes border on comical: After she put together the
laundromat - a fire marshal had declared the trailer unfit for classroom use
- FEMA reported her for misusing federal property."

As long as it is not FEMA money, who cares how they make up the other 10%?
This is like telling a man dying of thirst in the desert, I'll give you all
the water you can drink, but first you must have a Waterford Crystal Goblet
to drink it from.  It just seems at times you need to have "three
Philadelphia lawyers" with you at all times when dealing with FEMA.

I wish the article gave the name of the fire marshal.  I would love to know
who declared for all that you cannot use a Laundromat for a classroom.  From
what little I can see, it looks like there was no intention to use it as a
classroom to begin with.

Perhaps we should start sending letters to the editor.  Don't give us
positions without giving us names.  Who is this genius of a fire marshal?

By the same token, who is FEMA? SBA?

Collectively, I think we need to stop accepting a generic answer, "The rules
say we can't do this."  Everything FEMA and SBA does is governed either by a
Congressionally passed law or an Executive Order signed by the President,
usually the former.  Last time I checked, it was all public record (I
realize some Executive Orders are sealed, but I can't see how anything
pertaining to FEMA or SBA would be considered something that needs to be
sealed).

Don't accept handbooks as a final answer any more.  Ask for the law that
governs any decision made by FEMA, HUD, or SBA and look it up yourself.  If
it is too complicated to understand, ask others.  If need be, visit one of
the local law schools.

Until someone starts questioning their interpretations, we don't know if
they are right.  If they are right, but stupid, we can then working on
getting them changed.

Westley