Colorado Flooding and FEMA

[msquared48]

I will post here a comment on Facebook by one of my friends who is stranded outside Lyons in the mountains waiting for help from FEMA.

"I have spent all morning on the phone and don't feel like I have accomplished nothing. One call was from a FEMA rep who said that they need to be able to get up to my house to inspect the damages but the damage is to my road so he can't get to my house until I get it fixed. What? I want their help to fix the road but I need to fix the road before they can help me? Typical government crap. He also said that they are not letting him through the checkpoints yet to gain access to the area because they don't want the extra congestion. Oh but they would help me move to someplace else in the meantime. What about my livestock? I guess I would be expected to take them to a shelter. But wait how am I supposed to get them out to the highway? No way. I am staying put. We will get the road passable and be the independent, resourceful mountain folk we are."

My friend is also a contractor and volunteer fireman. Looks like you have to solve you own problem before FEMA is willing to stick their neck out.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[bridgebuster]

I worked as a FEMA contract employee some years back. Everybody complains; sometimes rightly so. Your friend should complain to his congressional representative. FEMA is sensitive to political rumblings. One thing to keep in mind, in the early stages of the FEMA response effort things are generally disorganized. There's a lot going on - setting up the field office, emergency response, putting policies in place, etc. I understand when someone is hurting it's not easy to say be patient.

Typically, FEMA can't pay for repairs to private property; that what insurance is for.

 

[concretemasonry]

FEMA is only for disaster "RELIEF" to get by in the short term. They really not have much to with the long term, but only to "get the wheels turning" again. The longer range "RECOVERY/REBUILDING" comes later when a major disaster is declared and the the SBA (Small Business Agency) comes in to make more detailed damage assessments to allow the cheap loans for loss, rebuilding, mitigation and other items. In a local crisis the time pressures do not allow an immediate proper assessment and FEMA mainly is a subcontractor to get supplies, contractors and short term coordination.

I worked for the SBA in late 2005 and early 2006 after Katrina and the miscellaneous tornadoes widely spawned by Katrina. -I went for indoctrination and updating for a week and finally ended up coming home after about 5 months (6 or 7 days a week, 10 to 14 hours a day) of damage assessment. When we started, we were told to always wear our SBA shirts and hats to make sure we were not FEMA, because the short term opinions of FEMA in the wake of any disaster (Katrina or a local flood) get people in a very nasty mood because they want an immediate cure.

Dick

Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[bimr]

Somewhat odd that people don't appreciate the government until the disaster personally affects them, and then they expect the government to perform miracles. Your friend should be pleased to be alive now because in earlier times, there was no disaster relief and you were completely on your own.

Coolidge was criticized for his actions during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster to hit the Gulf Coast until Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although he did eventually name Secretary Hoover to a commission in charge of flood relief, Coolidge's lack of interest in federal flood control has been criticized. Coolidge did not believe that personally visiting the region after the floods would accomplish anything, but it would be seen only as political grandstanding. He also did not want to incur the federal spending that flood control would require; he believed property owners should bear much of the cost. On the other hand, Congress wanted a bill that would place the federal government completely in charge of flood mitigation. When Congress passed a compromise measure in 1928, Coolidge declined to take credit for it and signed the bill in private.