Multifamily housing hit hardest by Wilma

Brittany Wallman and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed hurricane damage reports to show that in Broward County, “condos and apartments were hit the hardest, accounting for 55 percent of the buildings declared uninhabitable. Mobile homes made up 28 percent of seriously damaged structures. Houses fared the best. Only 42 were deemed uninhabitable, barely 1 percent of all severely damaged buildings.” Low-income areas had the most buildings declared unlivable.

Leslie Eaton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal data to show the pace of homeowner loans in the Gulf Coast is lagging. “The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications it has received. And it has rejected 82 percent of those it has reviewed, a higher percentage than in most previous disasters.” The loans that have been approved have been going to higher-income neighborhoods.

Bob Cuddy, Sarah Linn and Leslie Griffy of The Tribune reviewed San Luis Obispo County's disaster documents to show that the county was vulnerable in case of a major disaster. "While the county, home to Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, gets high marks for its planning, Hurricane Katrina showed that plans are one thing, implementing them is another. A major emergency could strand thousands of the county's most vulnerable and severely tax the government's ability to spread information." In a four-part series on disaster management in the county, the investigation also looked at the safety of people in nursing homes, those with special needs and pet safety. According to the paper, in the case of nursing homes, essential precautions such as stockpiling supplies, planning evacuations and setting up communications are left largely under-regulated in a system that splits oversight between state and local officials and gives neither the authority needed to ensure safety of the residents.

Eric Hand, Todd Frankel and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch examined the state of dams in Missouri and Illinois, following the failure of a dam in southeastern Missouri. They found that hundereds of dams in Missouri and Illinois lack plans for handling emergencies, are regulated by cash-strapped state offices that make intermittent inspections and depend on the willingness of private owners to make repairs, some of which are needed badly. "Of the state's 641 dams labeled "high hazard" — meaning a potential loss of life after a failure — more than half are not regulated. " (Editor's Note: The National Inventory of Dams, one of the sources used for this story, is available to journalists from IRE and NICAR.)

Russ Buettner, Heidi Evans, Robert Gearty, Brian Kates, Greg B. Smith and Richard T. Pienciak of the Daily News in New York used FEMA data to show that the federal government's $21.4 billion program to help New York recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks was dreadfully flawed. "New Yorkers by the tens of thousands received free air conditioners, air purifiers and other clean-air devices in such an illogical pattern that the toxic plume from the smoldering World Trade Center would have had to travel like a wild tornado, arbitrarily touching down here and there throughout the city." The size and scope of abuse in the FEMA-funded program dwarfs any fraud and misuse allegations that have surfaced in disaster aid programs for hurricanes in Florida, wildfires in California and floods in Detroit. The paper found that air conditioners and the other devices were awarded to people living in buildings with central air, in buildings where the windows did not open and in locales where scientific evidence showed there was no environmental impact.

Joe Mahr and Phillip O'Connor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch find that "repeated recommendations from all levels of government in an eight-state region of the central United States have been largely ignored on how to best brace for an event that scientists expect to kill thousands and cause widespread chaos." The Post-Dispatch reviewed studies, reports, and interviewed government officials, researchers and preparedness advocates to reveal that "More than two decades after federal and state officials called for massive preparations for a major earthquake in this region, including St. Louis, a Post-Dispatch investigation found that government has failed to marshal many of its own resources to prepare for a disaster that could rival the devastation of Hurricane Katrina."

Mc Nelly Torres of South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that, despite an engineer's independent study showing workmanship and materials that did not meet standards in a hurricane-prone area, homeowners have been waiting 10 years for their homes to be fixed. Torres reviewed hundreds of records, including a grand jury report, two independent studies, and other construction-related documentation to show that Arvida/JMB Partners and Disney World Co. failed to design and construct homes using the materials and workmanship required by the 1979 South Florida Building Code. Independent study by an engineer found evidence of shoddy construction with firewalls missing, no wall reinforcements and with roofs attached with staples instead of nails. The home owner's association filed a class-action lawsuit in 1995 against Arvida/JMB Partners and Disney.

Randy Lee Loftis of The Dallas Morning News reviewed government test results to show that the Army Corps of Engineers is planning one of the biggest environmental clean ups ever attempted in New Orleans. According to the report, part of an extensive look at the rebuilding of New Orleans, the clean up would involve scraping miles of sediment laced with cancer-causing chemicals from New Orleans' hurricane-flooded neighborhoods. "The clean-up plans would also include crews using front-end loaders to scoop up contaminated sediment that Hurricane Katrina floods left in yards, playgrounds and other spots throughout the greater New Orleans area." Despite one widely publicized study that said the Katrina floodwater was no more polluted than typical urban floods, the examination of the EPA's tests of flood-deposited sediments reveals long-term health concerns if the contamination were to remain.

Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel continue their investigation into waste and fraud swirling around Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster aid, this time focusing on Hurricane Katrina. In three Louisiana parishes, FEMA issued more $2,000 aid checks than there are households, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $70 million. And in 36 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, FEMA awarded $102 million to at least 51,000 more applicants than local officials said were displaced by the storm. " In Mobile, Ala., residents coached each other on the right words to use when calling FEMA to get the $2,000. Many who received the money never had to leave their homes. Some had minor roof leaks. "The newspaper's findings are based on a review of $1.46 billion in FEMA claims paid through Sept. 22 and interviews with officials from 54 counties and parishes.

Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald used forecast verification reports to show that breakdowns in crucial weather-observing equipment are foiling forecasters at the National Hurricane Center — the nation's first line of defense against tropical weather. "Buoys, weather balloons, radars, ground sensors and hurricane hunter planes, all part of a multibillion-dollar weather-tracking system run by the federal government, have failed forecasters during nearly half of the 45 hurricanes that struck land since 1992." Records show that forecasters have predicted tracks hundreds of miles off course, anticipated weak storms that grew all powerful, and powerful storms that eventually grew weak. The story includes information on how this story was researched and reported.