Louisiana misplaces 60 million FEMA dollars; FEMA Ice Follies tour USA

Zut alors! After decades of rotting away beneath the surface of the US national media's attention, Louisiana is finally getting the star treatment! Brace yourself; you'll soon be learning more about crime, corruption and just plain mismanagement in the Magnolia State than anyone ever wanted to know. And here Pundita thought Brazilians were having all the fun, what with televised hearings on corruption in Lula's government!

Today's Los Angeles Times digs up enough scandal to keep tongues wagging all week:

Louisiana Officials Indicted Before Katrina Hit
Federal audits found dubious expenditures by the state's emergency preparedness agency, which will administer FEMA hurricane aid.
By Ken Silverstein and Josh Meyer
September 17, 2005

WASHINGTON - Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.

And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.

In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government.

The problems are particularly worrisome, federal officials said, because they involve the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the agency that will administer much of the billions in federal aid anticipated for victims of Katrina. [...]

Details of the ongoing criminal investigations come from two reports by the inspector general's office in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as well as in state audits, and interviews this week with federal and state officials.

The reports were prepared by the federal agency's field office in Denton, Texas, and cover 1998 to 2003. [...]

Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example. [...]

For the rest of the Los Angeles Times story and the juicy details, click on this link.

The reporters did a great job of -- what's that wailing sound reaching Pundita's ears? Oh for heaven's sake; the FEMA Fan Club feels neglected! Lucky for you, Lisa Myers and the rest of NBC's Investigative Unit are on a roll:

Fema Ice Follies
By Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 7:37 p.m. ET Sept. 16, 2005
WASHINGTON
Initially, after Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, was slow in getting ice and water to victims. NBC News decided to look at the ice situation now, as a microcosm of the relief effort, and found that FEMA ordered plenty of ice -- but getting it to those who need it has been chaotic.

Outside New Orleans, Lori Rosete waited an hour to get ice to preserve food and chill her mother’s insulin.

“We just need this to keep coming,” said Rosete, “and do what we have to do, you know? Ration until we can't ration no more.”

Friday, NBC News located hundreds of trucks full of ice sitting around the country: in Maryland, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. Some had been on trips to nowhere for the past two weeks.

Elizabeth Palmer is a truck driver in Carthage, Mo.

“We really don’t understand,” said Palmer, “why FEMA is sending to all these different locations and just putting us in cold storage.”

Dan Wessels’ Cool Express ice company has worked with FEMA for years. He says he's never seen anything like it -- only one-third of his trucks have actually unloaded the ice that FEMA ordered.

“The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing,” said Wessels. “The right hand is telling us to go to the left hand. We get to the left hand, they tell us to go back."

For example, one truck of ice left Oshkosh, Wis., on Sept. 6, and went to Louisiana. Then it was sent by FEMA to Georgia but was rerouted before it arrived to South Carolina, then to Cumberland, Md., where it has been sitting for three days at an added cost to taxpayers so far of $9,000. Multiplied by hundreds of trucks, this sort of dispatching could mean millions of dollars are being wasted.

"From a trucking aspect, I'm happy. Keep it coming," said Wessels. "From a taxpayer aspect, it's sick."

A FEMA official says, in the rush to respond to Katrina, the agency ordered too much ice. Rather than let it melt, they sent it to other parts of the country to be ready for the next hurricane.

But Wessels says FEMA just ordered more ice and re-routed some of his trucks again -- to Idaho.

Lisa Myers is NBC’s senior investigative correspondent.

By the way NBC is setting up a permament bureau in New Orleans (reportedly CNN is doing the same), so NBC's Ice Follies only picks at the tip of the iceberg, if you'll pardon the expression.

However, orientation is necessary before we embark on a festival of scandalous news. Thus, today's earlier Pundita post looks at New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco and her first year as governor.

For readers who saw the 'early edition' of the post: at 2:30 PM, EDT I added more footnotes and linked the book titles under discussion. Also, Dan at Riehl World View picked up on the Cuba angle mentioned in the post and put forth his thoughts.

The winds of Katrina have blown the lid off many, many things.