The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "emergency management" ...
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Bales: Army suspect in Afghan shooting was liable in financial fraud
On the day that tips arose about a U.S. soldier who may have strafed two Afghan villages, I left the office for a flight to Tacoma. Within 48 hours of the soldier’s being identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, I and two colleagues broke the news that the emerging hagiography of Bales drafted by family and attorneys had more to it than the story of a soldier who enlisted at the ripe of 27 driven by outrage over the 2001 terrorist attacks—and then broken down by an unrelenting cycle of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our story started with pure spidey senses: Bales’ s family and lawyer said he had left a stockbroker’s career to enlist, as they explained his call to serve. Yet he had not finished college and clearly had financial troubles, I had determined. And he was active in brokerage in the late 1990s in Florida I learned by checking assorted online records—which raised my suspicions about the quick-money penny stock trading that was commonplace then. Based on those instincts, while also doing the running daily story from Bales’ Army base in Washington state, I had checked some online brokerage records and enlisted Julie Tate to look at others and run through civil and criminal filings in Ohio (Bales’s home state and then nationally). Within an hour, I had found one suspicious record and Julie had found others and we were off on a 30-hour run of investigative reporting and boots on the ground interviews that yielded the breaking news of Bales’s more complicated—and less laudatory—past in the period just before he joined the Army. We located and I interviewed an elderly couple who had lost substantial savings in accounts managed by Bales and received copies of detailed financial records that corroborated their claims and showed Bales as the account manager. We also peeled back corporate records for a now-shuttered firm run by Bales and his brother with backing from a longtime friend and reached him to further flesh out the checkered professional history of the Staff Sgt. at the center of an explosive, fast-moving and intensely competitive story. The story demanded intense investigative reporting that netted notable results in far far less than 30 days of a breaking event.
Tags: U.S. soldier; Afghanistan; military draft; terrorist attacks; deployment
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"FEMA's Toxic Bureaucracy"
After nearly a year of reporting, the CBS News Investigative Unit reported a string of "discrimination, sexual harassment and cronyism in the New Orleans" FEMA office. Several staff members went on camera to share stories revealing the "toxic environment" of the FEMA office. Just a day after the story aired, an internal investigation was launched by FEMA, and the Chief of Staff was quickly transferred.
Tags: Gulf Coast Recovery; Nancy Ward; Federal Emergency Management Agency; FEMA Louisiana Transitional Recovery; Doug Whitmer; Joseph Cao; Jim Stark; Mary Landrieu
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Hung Out to Dry
FEMA is currently in the “final stages of revisiting all of the flood maps throughout the country”. The investigation revealed major problems in the mapping and these mistakes could be costly to the residents in these areas. These residents living in the “flood zones” must pay flood insurance or risk losing their homes. Many of the residents believe they should be excluded from the flood area and come together to prove FEMA wrong.
Tags: Federal Emergency Management Agency; South Central Los Angeles; Oxford; Southern California; disaster; relief; help; flood base level
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Follow the Money
Corruption among street agents in the Dominican Republic has been public knowledge, but after a Chicago White Sox assistant general manager tried to bring $40,000 in undeclared cash into the United States a new story emerged: corruption among MLB employees.
Tags: David Wilder; kickbacks; Washington Nationals; signing bonus; Outside The Lines; baseball
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Code 3
"Code 3" focused on ambulance delays in San Francisco and provided a rare glimpse inside an inherently complex and often secretive bureaucracy. The project began as a two-day series and continued with several follow-up reports. Paramedics and quality control experts say the city does not have enough ambulances and needs to hire more paramedics. A history of tensions between paramedics and firefighters, and a lack of coordination between the Fire Department, the Department of Emergency Management and the Public Health Department, continues to undercut the city's 911 medical responses and the quality of care. The city does not collect sufficient data on 911 responses to fully audit ambulance delays, examine particular treatments and learn from clinical mistakes
Tags: ambulances; emergency response; San Francisco; first responders; fire department; department of emergency management; public health department
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American's Neglected Levees
Scripps reviewed the federal and state level system of levee oversight and found that no one at any level of government knows where all levees are, what they protect or what shape they are in. Thousands of communities are being forced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get levees certified under a national upgrade of flood hazard maps, but even FEMA admits the standards are outdated and don't accurately reflect the risks to people behind them.
Tags: FEMA; levee; flood; Army Corps of Engineers; infrastructure; National Levee Safety Committee; insurance
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The CDC, FEMA and formaldehyde
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, people who moved into trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency almost immediately complained about the air quality in them. As complaints mounter, FEMA had an agent of the center for Disease Control conduct a test of the formaldehyde found inside the trailers. Joaquin Sapien explains why it took more than two years for the government to admit that formaldehyde levels in many of the trailers were high enough to increase the risk of caner and repiratory illnesses.
Tags: formaldehyde; Federal Emergency Management Agency; FEMA; Hurricane Katrina; Center for Disease Control; CDC; housing; FEMA trailers; air quality; environment; health
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Hurricane Giveaway
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)kept tens of millions of dollars worth of new household supplies meant for Katrina victims stored in FEMA warehouses for two years. In early 2008, the agency decided the items were no longer needed and declared them surplus, even though agencies that help hurricane victims told CNN they desperately needed those types of items. The supplies ended up with federal and state agencies, but not Katrina victims. The investigation revealed the groups that are helping rehouse Katrina victims did not know these items existed. Furthermore, CNN discovered a serious disconnect between FEMA and the states, as well as within states themselves. Louisiana's surplus agency passed on taking any of the surplus items because the director said he was never told they were still needed. Mississippi, on the other hand, took the supplies and gave them to state prisons and other agencies, but not to non-profits helping Katrina victims. Those non-profits told CNN they never knew these items were available.
Tags: Federal Emergency Management Agency; Hurricane Katrina; non-profit organizations; Louisiana; Mississippi; natural disasters
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Code 3
"'Code 3,' a two-day series that focused on ambulance delays in San Francisco, provided a rare glimpse inside an inherently complex and often secretive bureaucracy." Findings included: 439 people died while waiting for the ambulance to arrive; in 27 percent of high-priority medical calls, first responders failed to meet the city's time standard; and the city's 911 call center was the weakest link.
Tags: Philip Meyer Award; ambulance; response time; 911; Fire Department; Department of Emergency Management; death; medicine;
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Pasco 911
WTSP-TV found that Pasco County's 911 system had systematic failures. Operators were not trained for medical emergencies, supervisors were not doing their jobs and managers "padding their educational experiences through diploma mills."
Tags: emergency response; medicine; health; ambulance; fraud; management; neglect; Florida