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I have a very poor opinion of FEMA. This opinion is based on how they have treated me and how they treated other Floridians (particularly senior citizens) after last year's hurricanes. Opinions do not belong back on the page that you just came from which is devoted to facts about the proposed Hillsborough County flood plain. This separate page was created to detail a few examples of just how arrogant and incompetent FEMA really is.
David L. Thomas II - Contributing To FEMA's Bad Reputation? You Decide! I have been trying for almost a month to get a straight answer for the typical Sun City Center flood premiums from FEMA. I have asked the people who go out and teach insurance salesmen how to quote the premiums. Since the rates are all pre-set, it should be a simple matter to figure it out. After all, it ain't rocket science! However, these FEMA people always want you to go to an in$urance $alesman - who will obviously try to mislead you and sell you more insurance than you want or need. David Thomas, a FEMA official in Atlanta, scheduled a Sun City Center Flood Plain Insurance Workshop for August 30 in the Florida Room of our Atrium with Registration 9-9:30am and the Seminar 9:30am-1:30pm. Originally he wrote "We welcome your attendance and that of the residents of Sun City Center." Now he says "If there are empty spaces, you can sit in on it." I wrote: And this was David L. Thomas II's reply. In it he refers to his military service. Given how easily he can be metaphorically intimidated by some old farts in Sun City Center, I wonder what he was like as a soldier. "I respectfully request that you do not contact me by e-mail again or by phone. I will be unable to respond to you unless it is in letter form to the FEMA Regional Office at the address under my signature block. You have, in several of your e-mails, threatened me and Ms. Magel with bodily harm, by either you or by referencing other residents potentially causing bodily harm by inciting the residents in your community as you aptly put it, "A bunch of seniors citizens beating on you with their canes and walkers". No matter how you look at it, that is a threat sir, and we are not required to take e-mails, phone calls or other forms of contact from individuals or groups that are threatening us with bodily harm. Given today's violent times, these are not considered as anything but threats and they are not just harmless comments. There have been too many instances of violence for us to take this as a laughing matter. Typical FEMA incompetence! Typical FEMA stonewalling!
FEMA's Funeral Fee Fiasco! The arrogance expressed in David Thomas' letter is just the tip of the iceberg of the attitude and incompetence that is pervasive throughout FEMA. An article in the Tampa Tribune on August 12 was headlined: "Funeral Aid Provided For 203 Who Didn't Die In Storms, FEMA Paid Out $1.3 Million In Death Claims In State" The article states: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved 319 hurricane funeral claims in Florida for $1.3 million. However, most of those people died from natural ailments, suicides or accidents unrelated to the storms, the coroners concluded."You know those premiums that FEMA's going to require you to pay - that's the kind of stuff they'll use them for! The last sentence of the article reads: "FEMA did not respond to requests for comment on the coroners' finding or the missing death certificates." Typical FEMA incompetence! Typical FEMA stonewalling!
Mount Trashmore: The Herald-Tribune reported on 2/6/2005 that last year's hurricane Charley destroyed more than 400 homes in Punta Gorda's Windmill Village Mobile Home Park. The senior citizen residents took the initiative and hauled the debris out to the curbside for pick-up by the County who was to be reimbursed by FEMA, using those premiums that you'll be required to pay. Six months later, the pile was still there. Charlotte County and the Federal Emergency Management Agency couldn't agree on whose responsibility it was to pay for hauling it to the landfill. The final insult for residents was that the U.S. Postal Service refused to deliver mail in the park until the pile was gone -- even though it was another federal agency, FEMA, that wouldn't clean up the mess. Residents of Windmill Village had to pick up their mail in a Publix parking lot down the street. FEMA said that debris removal from private property is almost never eligible. "Private property debris is the responsibility of the individual landowners." In the case of Windmill Village, the landowners are the residents, who each own the property under their trailers. The Charlotte County Administrator blamed FEMA for taking too long to issue its ruling: "It's really the inability of FEMA to say yes or no. We'd prefer to hear yes, but if they say no, we know what we have to do." Once the politicians got involved, FEMA paid for the removal. Typical FEMA incompetence! Typical FEMA stonewalling! You've got to wonder about a government agency that is using your insurance premiums to pay the funeral fees for people who died weeks before a hurricane but is unwilling to pay for the removal of the destroyed homes of more than 400 senior citizens. And you've got to wonder why groups like the Salvation Army and other charitable and religious organizations, with very slim budgets, can go into hurricane ravaged areas and do immense good while FEMA, with billions of our dollars, can't even pay for a truck to haul some trash. It makes no sense!
FEMA Credit Cards and Louis Vuitton handbags: The interesting thing about this report from the New York Daily News is that the Hurricane was in New Orleans - but FEMA is in Atlanta, which makes me wonder if lowlife FEMA employees helped themselves to a handful of cards before the rest were sent to the hurricane victims... "Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta. "We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday." The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000. "It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me. "There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it, unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong." The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the $800 range. "They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said, 'They must be one of the evacuees.' The one that I dealt with yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as "outrage." "It doesn't say anywhere on there, but it would have to be a good amount to be shopping in here," the source said with a dark chuckle." In The Spirit Of The Boston Tea Party: FEMA employees are arrogant, bureaucratic, bottom-dwelling scum who lack pride in their work, as testified to by the God-awful flood plain contour lines that they drew (knowing that they were bad) for all of Hillsborough County, and maybe for all of Florida. And to boot, FEMA employees often stonewall and then become defensive and very obnoxious to those who pay their salaries, to those who pay for their health care, to those who pay for their family's health care, and to those who pay for their pensions! It doesn't pay to be Mr. Nice Guy to FEMA, because they won't be nice to you - no matter what. If you're looking for an example of government run amok, try FEMA! When FEMA is here for the community meeting within the next few months, we old farts should, metaphorically speaking, be sure to bring our flaming torches, some rotten fruit to throw and maybe some buckets of tar and bags of feathers. Also, our old worn-out surgical support stockings might come in handy to tie them up with while we apply the tar and feathers. Anyone got a rail?
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