Disaster plans lacking in Hudson Valley area

Greg Bruno of the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., looked into disaster plans for communities of the Catskills and Hudson Valley, finding that three-quarters of them would be unprepared. "Of the 75 communities that provided their plans for review, only 25 percent are updated or specific enough to be useful in a catastrophe, according to state emergency planning standards." The paper found some plans don't include basic information, such as shelter locations and phone numbers for first responders; others are generic or fill-in-the-blank documents; and some planners have not studied possible disaster scenarios. "Only 16 communities are in the process of reviewing and revising their plans." The story includes a chart detailing the results for each town and information about how the story was researched and reported.

Duane W. Gang and David Olson of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise examined state, county and hospital emergency plans and found that Inland California counties were unprepared to provide medical services after a large earthquake. "A major temblor could leave multiple hospitals damaged and unable to treat their own patients, let alone the thousands of injured."

Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal contract data covering hurricane response to show that "more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition ... provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse." FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers have spent the most so far. (Note: For other stories looking at what went wrong in the Katrina disaster, please see IRE's Katrina resources page.)

Megan O'Matz, Sally Kestin, John Maines and Jon Burstein of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel continue the paper's investigation into FEMA. "The handling of aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina is only the latest in a series of missteps and fraud that has plagued this tax-funded government agency. The Sun-Sentinel took a look at 20 recent disasters and found mismanagement and misallocation abound." Among the findings: thousands of claims in Cleveland for damaged washers and dryers after a thunderstorm when the city received only 73 complaints; claims of smoke damage in Los Angeles from wildfires that were 30 miles or farther away; and $9 million paid to people up to 37 miles away from a tornado that touched down in South Florida. The package includes more information about how reporters reseached the agency.

In a Web exclusive report, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball of Newsweek report that state emergency management directors have complained FEMA has concentrated too much on preparing for terror threats and not enough on natural disasters. "Internal Homeland Security documents obtained by Newsweek lend support to the state directors' complaints. Out of 15 'all hazards' disaster-planning scenarios approved by DHS and the White House Homeland Security Council last May, only three involved natural disasters, one document shows." (Note: For more stories looking at what went wrong in the Katrina disaster, please see IRE's Katrina resources page.)

Sarah Okeson of the Peoria, Ill., Journal Star mapped tornado sirens and looked at how much of the county they cover, as well as geocoding the county's schools and nursing homes and looking for gaps in the coverage. "The National Weather Service thinks Peoria is adequately prepared for a tornado or other disaster." Okeson describes in a NICAR-L posting that "I went to all 80 of the county's tornado sirens with a GPS device and then put the locations on my computer and converted them to a shapefile. I drew buffers around the sirens and calculated how many people in the county weren't covered by comparing the siren coverage area to the census blocks."

Frank Bass and Dirk Lammers of The Associated Press examined nearly $5 billion in loans granted by the Small Business Administration as Sept. 11 recovery aid, and found that many went to businesses "that didn't need terror relief — or even know they were getting it." The SBA said it first learned of the problems from AP. "The records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also show that many other loan recipients who made cases they were injured by Sept. 11 were far removed from the direct devastation of New York City and Washington, like a South Dakota country radio station, a Virgin Islands perfume shop and a Utah dog boutique."

Jim Miller and Ben Goad of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise use mapping software to plot thousands of new home permits issued since the 2003 Southern California fires and then compared the points to state maps showing fire threat. "In the 18 months after the firestorms of 2003, Inland cities and counties issued permits for more than 2,500 homes in areas the state identifies as facing 'very high' or 'extreme' fire danger." (Editor's note: IRE and NICAR offer resources for covering wildfires)

Megan O'Matz and Sally Kestin of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that "government inspectors entrusted to enter disaster victims' homes and verify damage claims include criminals with records for embezzlement, drug dealing and robbery." The paper found the names of more than 100 inspectors for the Federal Emergency Management Agency through public and confidential sources; 30 had criminal records. "The story is the latest in the paper's
investigation into FEMA's mismanagement of hurricane relief funds.
Read more about the story in the upcoming May/June issue of The IRE
Journal."

Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines of the Sun-Sentinel used federal records to show that "the federal government has paid funeral expenses for at least 315 deaths" in the wake of hurricanes in South Florida last year, "including those of a man who shot himself and a stroke victim hospitalized more than a week before the last storm hit." A state official said that the actions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency constituted a "Free Funeral Payment Act". The total cost of the funerals was $1.27 million, according to the paper's analysis of FEMA data. The paper is suing to force disclosure of the names of all recipients of FEMA aid related to the hurricanes.