SUN-SENTINEL INVESTIGATION: FEMA

SUN-SENTINEL INVESTIGATION: South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

"THE FEMA INVESTIGATION
This report is the latest in a series by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel examining the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster assistance payments. The newspaper first revealed that FEMA paid $31 million in Miami-Dade County for Hurricane Frances, even though the Labor Day weekend storm made landfall 100 miles to the north. Subsequent reports detailed how FEMA inspectors receive little training; that the agency paid for funerals for deaths unrelated to the storm; and that some criminals were hired to inspect damage. The reports resulted in recommendations by a U.S. Senate committee and the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security for widespread changes in the way the agency administers its program....

Hundreds of millions paid to people untouched by disasters
The federal government's mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe is only the latest bungling in a national disaster response system that for years has been fraught with waste and fraud.

`Free money' went to thousands after wildfires
LOS ANGELES � Word of 'free money' from the Federal Emergency Management Agency spread through neighborhoods here like the wildfires burning in the hills miles away in the fall of 2003.
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Disasters examined
The Sun-Sentinel analyzed 20 of the 313 disasters declared by FEMA from 1999 through 2004."