Santa Barbara's ABC Affiliate Airs Compelling 2-Part Original Katrina Series

by Ana Maria

Last night, the Santa Barbara ABC affiliate interviewed Kevin Davis, a budding would-be reporter who had just returned from his self-financed trip to the Katrina-ravaged region. In his interview on InFocus, Kevin aired part 1 of his two-part video titled Katrina Revisited.

Kevin’s mini series demonstrates compellingly the devastating financial crisis that can befall the 55% of Americans who live within 50 miles of our nation’s beautiful coastlines. His series demonstrates further that Taylor’s multiple peril insurance proposal is the answer to protect the financial security of everyday Americans who work hard, play by the rules, and expect an insurance policy to provide the financial security we pay for it to provide.

While doing his research long before coming to the area, Kevin came across my blog A.M. in the Morning! which I had posted on my Daily Kos diary. Regular readers know I focus exclusively on real life inside Katrina Land, with a specific focus on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Kevin decided to contact me to share his plans to come to New Orleans. I recommended that he consider including three parts of the Katrina story that would surely be overlooked by most of the mainstream programs.

1. The ongoing devastating economic harshness of living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

2. How the insurance companies have played a major role in preventing its policyholders like Joe De Benvenutti and Congressman Gene Taylor and plenty of other throughout the Katrina area from rebuilding their homes, businesses, lives, and communities.

3. The absolute necessity of passing the multiple peril insurance policy that Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) sponsored, legislation that is now a part of the federal flood insurance reauthorization bill on which Congress will soon vote. Brilliantly, Kevin incorporated everything into a two-part short video, the first part of which aired last night on Santa Barbara’s popular Sunday evening program InFocus during his interview on the program.

Here is part 1 that Kevin showed on InFocus.



I’m hoping that the popularity of Kevin’s interview and the compelling story he revealed in part 1 of this series will assist in guaranteeing that he will land a follow-up interview where the second part can also be aired. In Part 2, Kevin addresses the multiple peril insurance act directly and ends the piece with his interview with Congressman Taylor, the original sponsor of this landmark legislation. The congressman's interview provides undeniably persuasive and convincing reasons that the nation must offer its citizens one policy for both flood and wind damage, a policy option which private industry does not offer.

My favorites in the series are Congressman Taylor, Joe De Benvenutti, and Lisa Palumbo. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, Kevin also included two clips of yours truly as well.

Taylor told Kevin,

“People say ‘Well, gee. How is it the flood program loses $19 billion the same year that the insurance industry collectively cleared about $60 billion?’ Well, it’s no coincidence. The tax payers paid bills that the insurance companies should have paid.”

Taylor explained how families and businesses benefit from his proposed multiple peril legislation.

“and you can buy an option on your flood insurance for all perils. So that whether the wind did it, the water did it, if you come home to a slab, if you come home and your home was substantially destroyed, it doesn’t matter.

If you built it the way you were supposed to, if you paid your premiums, and the storm gets it, you’re gonna get paid. You don’t have to hire a lawyer. You don’t have to hire an engineer . . . and wait years to get the check that you should have gotten within days.”

That is how is should be.



To help propel the airing of this second part—seen here courtesy of Kevin Davis and A.M. in the Morning!;), let’s channel our political hell raising energy into contacting the station to request that they air Part 2. Santa Barbara is an important media market.

Contact the station know that their budding reporter has provided the world with a gift and that we’d like them to consider bringing him back on to show part 2. As always, A.M. in the Morning! provides a phone script with the phone number to achieve this important goal to help get this series aired in an important media market.

Hopefully, this bright, young, energetic, soulful man’s two-part series will also launch his new on-camera reporting career. Our nation needs more reporters who deliberately seek out the stories that need talents like Kevin’s that can tell the story in a movingly compelling manner.


Kevin Davis works as a production assistant for KEYT-TV, an ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, CA, and is currently looking for his first reporting job. Last week, A.M. in the Morning! published an interview with CNN’s Kathleen Koch that Kevin Davis shot here in Bay St. Louis. Kevin can be reached at 925-788-1803 and kdavis2600@gmail.com.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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“Run for Cover!” Republican Gov. Evacuation Plan for Gulf Coast Residents

by Ana Maria



With Hurricane Dean tearing through the Caribbean, Gulf Coast residents watch the weather reports praying that whatever Mother Nature does, she does elsewhere. We’re still a long way off from recovering from Hurricane Katrina, which demolished the area two years ago. Many of our families—mine, included—have put into place evacuation plans that we had never before felt a need to have BK, Before Katrina.

The Associated Press reported that Mississippi’s Republican Governor Haley Barbour stated

“people should think about where they will go if an evacuation is ordered and how they'll travel.”

Oh, so that’s it? What is this?! Barbour’s admission that he has no evacuation plan?

Maybe Barbour is taking a page out of Karl Rove’s scare-‘em-half-to-death political playbook. After all, it is an election year for the governor’s mansion here in Mississippi.

Instead of real, effective, and efficient homeland security, however, Barbour decided to squander public dollars on little more than election-year posturing. Mississippi’s Republican Governor sent out a pre-recorded message to

“some 70,000 land-based phone lines in the three southernmost Coast counties Saturday morning. The message reminded locals a hurricane was in the Caribbean, and now is the time to pay attention to weather reports and have a hurricane evacuation route in mind, as well as to load up on supplies.”

Like we don’t know that. We’ve been through a few hurricanes in our day, and believe me, we’re watching the weather closely.
Click here to listen to Barbour's call to Gulf Coast residents telling us "not to panic." [Call courtesy of John Leek.]

Rather than election year posturing using fear that Karl Rove tells Republicans to instill in voters, how’s about something more important and effective for the situation at hand. Like what, you ask? Well, you know, homeland security kinds of things. The real kind, that is.

What A Homeland Security Plan Could Include
If the governor were so inclined—and apparently Barbour is not, he could have set up emergency hurricane evacuation hot lines staffed with calm, cool, collected, and well-trained individuals from right here in South Mississippi, good folks who provide information fellow South Mississippians need to keep us safe during the stormy hurricane season. These hotlines could provide a much-needed service to the Gulf Coast’s residents and business owners.

In addition, staffing these hotlines with local people provides much-needed revenue into the coffers of Katrina’s families who could use the income. Nothing like a good paying job to help buoy a person out of feeling totally depressed or a family out of its financial crisis, both of which are major problems throughout the region. The only people getting wealthy off of recovery efforts seem to be those with close ties to the White House or to Barbour himself.

To help keep our families safe and secure, hotline operators could provide important critical pieces of information. For example, operators could provide a list of items (children’s birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s license, medicines, doctors’ names, etc.) that everyone should have with them regardless of whether they go to a local safe haven or evacuate outside of the area.

For those who are need a local safe haven for shelter, hotline operators could be armed with the following critical pieces of information.

The closest places we can go for safety complete with addresses and directions on how to get there. This would require that the governor’s homeland security people would have scoured the area to locate and negotiate the use of the facility for this extremely important emergency usage.

Phone numbers to call to obtain a ride to the nearby safe havens that our responsible government has secured. This would require more organizing and negotiating with folks on the ground as well as finding out an approximate number of people that would request this important evacuation assistance.

A list of things that should be brought to the safe havens: (i.e. bedding and the like). Depending on where folks are going to ride out a storm, different items would be required and prohibited. We will need to know which is which. Through his emergency management people, the governor should ensure that this kind of information is available to us.

Barbour’s administration could send out tape-recorded messages to the homes with phone service informing South Mississippians of these hot lines staffed with wonderful homegrown folks providing this much needed service.

There may be plenty of Mississippians who are in a similar position as Keisha, the young single mother with two children and no car with which to evacuate on her own. Katrina ruined Keisha’s car, and she has not been able to replace it.

When she was talking with Democratic Gubernatorial nominee John Eaves the other day, I heard her tell Eaves that FEMA gave her $3,000 for all of her belongings, those of her two young children, and her car. Goodness knows that even if she had forgone replacing any clothes, bedding, toys, or books for her children, $3,000 would not have purchased a safe and reliable vehicle for her and her children. My heart went out to her as she was talking with Eaves and WLOX-TV 13, an ABC affiliate located in Biloxi, Miss.

The governor’s evacuation plan would also need to address how to keep safe those who are too sick to move, the disabled, and the elderly. These Mississippians need safety, too.

It’s been two years since Katrina. Plenty of billions of dollars have made their way from Washington, DC, to Jackson, Miss. With Hurricane Dean blowing its way through the ocean waters, none of us need more hot air from some high-ranking Republican government official.

Where are Mississippi’s coastal evacuation plans? Surely someone somewhere got federal money to create them. So where are they?

Rather than describing a well-though out deliberate plan of action to protect the Gulf Coast and its residents, Barbour announced “No government is big enough to do everything for everybody.”

What a cop out. No one is asking our government to do everything for everybody. We do ask it to do some things for some people. And those “some people” includes regular families with regular lives. No matter how minimalist some one thinks that they want our government to be, when it comes to homeland security, we expect America’s public officials to act like we’re the number one nation on the planet.

Apparently, Barbour hasn’t figured out that homeland security requires more than screaming “Run for cover!”


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Post-Katrina Living: Making Do and Good Enough

by Ana Maria

It’s finally here! We have the date on which the contractor will arrive and do the next set of renovations to my mom’s home.

He’ll sand and seal the wood that hasn’t been touched in that way since my parents had the house built 45 years ago. Hang the doors to the bedrooms. Rework the closet doors. Create new doors for the utility room. Put up the crown molding on the ceiling and the floors. I think that about covers this next leg of returning to life BK—before Katrina.

When I arrived back in March, I was shocked at everything. From the total disappearance of so much of my home town here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast through the evaporation of nearly every home and business along the 40-50 miles of beach going east to Biloxi, which is as far as I’ve traveled that way. Then going west to see family in New Orleans was more of the same: destruction, devastation, disappearance, and evaporation.

Clearly, the PR campaign that the Bush Administration has going along with its counterpart in the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion via Haley Barbour doesn’t hold any water. Barbour is the former head of the national Republican Party and good friends with Bush. Naturally, they would support each other’s BS, I mean PR, campaign.

I’ve been here now five months. I have acclimated to a great deal and in ways no one could have convinced me that I would ever acclimate myself. Not that long ago, I was living in the lap of comparative luxury over there in San Jose, Calif.

I lived in a beautiful apartment inside a complex with three “sparkling pools” as its brochures like to brag, two tennis courts, two workout rooms, free tennis and yoga classes, and a sauna—actually two: one for women and one for men. Everything was convenient to my locale. Within a matter of minutes, I could be at any number of malls and full-sized grocery stores. Real grocery stores!

Safeway, Albertson’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, PW, Ranch 99—the large Asian food store chain. Plus there were a myriad of farm stands and plenty of smaller ethnic grocery stores. What joy! What bliss! Especially for someone like me that loves to cook and is damned good at it, too.

Today, I have Wal-Mart. In California, I protested with my union friends the atrocious employee policies that Wal-Mart uses. Today, it’s the only grocery around, and I’ve tempered my political preference for the reality life is currently presenting to my family, friends, and neighbors. Today, I go to Wal-Mart to get groceries and rarely think more than twice about it.

In my very first blog entry on the first of May, I wrote, “The best I’ve come up with is that many of life’s routine activities is like walking through glue . . . for miles on end.” That remains the best way I’ve come up with for describing post-Katrina life. As a current example, let’s talk about moving out of the house so the contractor can come in and work on it.

I called around to locate a hotel. Well, there aren’t that many. The one I wanted to book is literally 5 blocks from the house and would be great. It’s booked solid. Oh. We FINALLY get a contractor and his schedule and ours is permitting him to come fix up the house . . . and we can’t find a hotel nearby? I panicked.

Next, I called Hollywood Casino Hotel. It’s almost twice as expensive, and we would not have all the nights we would need. That won’t do. If I’m having to interrupt the routine for an elderly mother who is not in her prime physical condition--though she's sharp as a tack mentally, I want to get somewhere and stay put until we can come home. Nevertheless, I took the rooms I could.

Then, I called the lesser motel down the road a bit. Rooms are plentiful. Great! I booked them and then, I canceled the other reservations. My younger brother recommended that I actually look at the rooms., which I did. He was right. Not good enough.

My hotel hunting began all over again. There are limitations to what has been rebuilt and open for business. Finally, I settled at another casino hotel which is about 25 minutes from the house. There some interruption in our stay, but it is doable. It’s more than good enough for now. It has to be.

The story of post-Katrina life. Making do and good enough.

Personally, I am elated to be going to a hotel with extremely comfortable beds. Little furniture is in the house today. I’ve been sleeping on a twin-sized air mattress. A month ago, it sprung a leak. I repaired it . . . so I thought. I repaired it again. Better.

It would go like this for a few weeks toward the end of which I would find myself in the middle of the air mattress, squarely with my butt and back up against the wood floor. Finally, I gave up. If I’m going to end up on the floor anyway, I may as well just put myself there to begin with and quit waking up oddly contorted.

Believe me, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought another air mattress. Heck, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought the replacement mattress, set up the bed, and had myself some terrific sleep. If anything, however, these are extra-ordinary circumstances even some two years after the storm.

Back in April when I met the woman who turned me on to her contractor husband, I had thought everything would work out so he could get in here at the end of May at the latest. Then, I kept thinking a few more weeks, a few more weeks.

The whole time, I was slowly being baptized in the post-Katrina way things are. When I’d become agitated at something, I would think to myself, “This is only temporary. This, too, shall pass—quickly. I can handle anything for a little while.”

Or I would think, “I’ve only been at this since March. I can NOT imagine how it has been for those who’ve been back a year or those who actually went through the storm!”

So, when I found myself waking up in the middle of the night in contorted positions due to the deflation of my air mattress, I pulled out one of my old stand-bys and thought, “This is only temporary.” Of course, there is another part of me that says that things like this are part of my post-Katrina experience. My dues, as it were.

Going to a hotel room for a while will be a welcomed reprieve with its wonderful bed that will be heavenly to sleep on, I’m sure. (I’ve actually gone to the hotel and looked at the rooms. Gorgeous! A fabulous bed to sleep on--a new found luxury.)

See, there is no use in buying mattresses to replace the ones that had to be gotten rid of after Katrina had her way with the house. Why buy them and put them up only to have to move ‘em when the contractor gets here? It’s going to be harried enough with all the moving parts to prepping the house for the contractor without adding to the workload.

And so this is how I imagine many others from every walk of life have coped with the dysfunction that has characterized post-Katrina living. Whether finding the courage to go up against the insurance industry or dealing with a contractor that has taken money and failed to show up (a horror story that is far too common) or dealing with not finding a contractor to do the work in the first place, folks around here have more than perfected the art of making do.

Whether sleeping on the floor or putting up with the contamination that is inside the formaldehyde-filled, Barbie doll-sized FEMA trailers or dealing with insurance companies trying to rip off consumers by hiding behind false claims that the 135 plus mile-per-hour winds created not a smidgen of damage to a home or business, folks throughout the Katrina-ravaged region have invented new ways of defining good enough.

But these persistent conditions are not good enough. No one here should have to make do for two long years. It’s not right. As always, the question is how do we improve the situation? What can we do? What kind of political hell can we raise to shake things up and make things better?

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activity

''Fighting an insurance company is like staring down the wrong end of a cannon,'' Dr. Bennett said after fighting his insurance company in New Hampshire.

Dr. Bennett is so very right. We can change this and have the insurance industry itself staring down the wrong end of a cannon when it does its policyholders wrong. We have a great opportunity to impact insurance reform efforts this very month.

During August, our federal legislators are in their home districts. We can contact our Congressional representative and two U.S. Senators by phone or email and ask them to support two pieces of legislation to fix the problem going forward. Many lawmakers will be holding town hall meetings. Going to one and asking for their support is another option.

1. One policy: Wind and Water Insurance Coverage
At the same time, let’s continue to contact our federal legislators to support expanding the Federal Flood Insurance Program to include wind. Remember that the insurance industry begged off of its legal obligation to pay if so much as a smidgen of water came onto a property regardless of the damage that wind had caused. This is wrong.

We can make it so the post-Katrina experience doesn’t happen to other Americans. Informing our federal lawmakers that we support having one policy for both flood and wind coverage is how we remedy the situation for the future. That way future American families and businesses will not be required to make do unnecessarily.

2. The Insurance Industry Must Play By the Same Rules
Robbing us blindly with premiums for policies that they deliberately fail to make good on is, well, NOT good enough. So, let’s contact our federal lawmakers to ask for their support on the proposed legislation that would require the insurance industry to operate under the same rules as every other business in America. End its accidental 60-year exemption from laws governing price fixing and collusion.

That proposed legislation is S. 618 (in the Senate) and H.R. (in the House of Representatives). We must make the insurance industry play by the same rules as other businesses in the United States. This is fair.

Together, we can redefine what is good enough.



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Pelosi-led group to tour Gulf Coast

Visit to put focus on region two years after disaster
By Maria Recio - McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Aug. 09, 2007

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will lead a delegation of 15 House members to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Aug. 12-14 to draw attention to the region just before the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Pelosi, D-Calif., who led a group of 29 House Democrats for last year's anniversary when her party was in the minority, is looking to contrast the Democrats' active response to hurricane victims with that of the Bush administration.

Although the trip is being labeled "bipartisan," it was unclear if any Republicans would be joining the speaker.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., who will be on the trip, said that after last year's visit, "we set to work meeting with local officials, touring the region and determining the needs around infrastructure, education, health care, public safety and housing. We made a commitment to do better to help the Gulf Coast."

Hurricane Katrina hit the Crescent City and the Mississippi coast on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying homes, schools and buildings, and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents. The initial lackluster response of Federal Emergency Management Agency continues to haunt the Bush administration, but officials say they've since gotten on track.

"We're grateful for the help we've gotten, but we've still got challenges," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who lost his home in Katrina.

Taylor will hold a town meeting for constituents with the visiting members to push for his signature legislation -- multiple peril federal insurance. Taylor's bill would include wind damage as part of the federal flood insurance program in order to prevent the raging legal disputes policyholders are having with insurers over whether homes were destroyed by wind or water. The House is expected to consider the bill in September.

In Louisiana, the lawmakers will visit the Lower Ninth Ward, tour the St. Bernard Health Center, visit a New Orleans school and observe the city's levee system.

Original article here.

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Normalcy Long Overdue in Katrina-Ravaged Region

by Ana Maria

Two days ago, Mississippi voters in the Democratic Primary ousted Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose cozy relationship with Big Insurance became his electoral albatross. Surely less than a year ago, Dale anticipated his re-election bid to retain the normalcy he had experienced over the last three decades of running for office.

The campaigns for newly-elected Democratic nominee Gary Anderson and his Republican opponent will recuperate from the primary, then redirect their efforts for the usual hustle and bustle of a general election, which will be held this November. Even inside the chaotic nature of every election campaign, there is a sense of normalcy to that chaos—at least for those of us who’ve been in a few.

Here inside the Katrina-ravaged region, we’re still struggling to return to a sense of normalcy. At Katrina’s ground zero, we still have Wal-Mart as our only grocery store for at least a 30 minute ride in any direction. Insurance companies continue to low ball, delay, and fight tooth and nail to break their legal contracts to pay on legitimate wind damage claims. Reliable, solid, and reasonably priced contractors to repair homes are still miraculous to find. FEMA continues to jerk around municipalities.

Jobs are scarce. More scarce are employees. More scarce still? Housing.

Even hotels are difficult to find. On reflection, that makes sense. When Big Insurance decided not to pay wind damage claims for its wind policy customers, it did screwed over all customers—including the hotels.

What is easy to find are the stories of how folks survived in those first few weeks after Katrina hit.

Turning Family Homes into Hotels and Restaurants
Yesterday, I spoke with a young woman who was going into her senior in high school two years ago when Katrina hit. She works as a concierge at one of the local casino resort hotels that re-opened recently. She is working at the hotel as she goes to the local university.

When I encouraged her to stay in school, she looked me squarely in my eyes and said, “Don’t worry. I was valedictorian of my class. I have every intention of getting my degree.” Good. I asked how her family made out in the storm.

She said that her family lives in Guatier (go-sheyah), Miss., near a river, but the family home only had a few shingles fly off their roof. No other damage. Fortunately, her dad owns a local roofing business so repairing was a breeze. Given the family’s relative fortune in coming out of the worst natural disaster, I asked how many people ended up staying at their place.

Notice, I didn’t ask whether they opened their home. I didn’t ask if anyone had asked to come stay with them. Given the innumerable stories that I’ve heard since returning home in March for my, uh, short surprise visit that has since extended past the few weeks I had intended, I knew that it wasn’t a matter of whether, but how many stayed with them.

The young college student told me that after Katrina, her family helped everyone clear out yards and streets. For at least a month, and maybe six weeks, after the storm, though, they didn’t have any electricity. She said that sometimes they were cooking for 50 people—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They didn’t know how many or who would show up much less when. It was like running a hotel.

Amazing.

My cousin Eric was living in Slidell at the time Katrina hit. Slidell is 30 minutes east of New Orleans and 30 minutes west of Bay St. Louis, Miss.,--one of the three tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero. When the New Orleans levees broke, parts of Slidell flooded. Eric and his immediate family did ok. His older brother, Chip, who lives in Diamondhead, Miss., just a bit up the road from the western part of the Gulf Coast, lost everything. Recently, Eric shared with me part of his post-Katrina story.

One Big Garage Sale—With a Twist
Like the young woman’s family in Gautier, Eric and his wife Lisa had opened their home to Katrina survivors never knowing how many would be eating with them at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Fortunately, Lisa is a great cook and loves cooking. Eric said it was like running a restaurant because they had to cook big batches of everything.

Every room in his home housed survivors—including a woman in the last month or two of her pregnancy. He felt badly because the better beds were upstairs which she had to climb for the more comfortable sleeping quarters.

Eric holds a leadership position in an international Catholic prayer circle dedicated to Medjugorje. He put out a call to those members who live on the west bank of New Orleans, because they didn’t get hit by either Katrina or the levee breaks. With creative flare, he asked for everyone to clear out their garages. If it isn’t being used, donate it to those who lost so much in Katrina.

Calls poured in. On his lunch hour, after work and on the weekends, Eric would go pick up furniture, baby clothes, appliances, or whatever people had and networked to give it to those who in need.

He said that he had learned of a very elderly African American lady—around 90 years old, if I recall correctly—who had 15 family members in her home, but she had no stove to cook the meals. A call came in about a brand new stove sitting in someone’s garage waiting to be installed in the house. The family decided that the old stove was fine, and they could donate the stove to the effort.

Eric had one lady tell him that she needed a bed. But the catch was that her husband was a BIG man requiring a king sized bed. Oooo. That’s gonna be a tough one. He told her to pray for it. He had not even reached his home when a call came in—someone had a king-sized bed. Did he know who could use it?

Eric regaled me with story after story similar to that one. In one instance, a mother told Eric that just before the storm, she had just finished decorating her young daughter’s room with everything Shortcake and how devastating losing it had been on her daughter. Now the woman was clearly just sharing with my beloved cousin part of her family’s Katrina story.

Yet, before he knew it, he got a call from a woman who told him that her daughter had outgrown her bedroom, which had been decorated in everything Shortcake. Did he know of anyone that could use it?
Around Christmas time, Eric’s boss approached him asking what he is doing on his lunch hour. He had been watching Eric—a longtime, valued employee—dart in an out for a few weeks. So Eric told him of the garage-emptying project he started. The boss was impressed, of course. What did he do? Noting that Christmas was coming up, he asked how he could best help provide for those families. Eric said “gift cards.”

If I recall correctly, the boss put out an email to all the employees. The company ended up donating piles of $25 gift cards, which Eric and his merry band of friends personally delivered to various families so that the parents could shop for their kids. One woman, whom I’m sure represented the reaction from many recipient, simply cried when Eric handed her the package of gift cards tied neatly with a pretty ribbon. She said that she had no idea how to provide some normalcy in her children’s lives. She thanked him profusely.

Another lady opened her door when Eric knocked. She listened as he said what he was there to drop off. He handed her the gift cards wrapped in pretty ribbon, and without a word, she closed the door. Months later, she got word to him that she was so stunned, so in shock, that she couldn’t say a word. She, too, was grateful for the sense of normalcy the gift cards would bring to her children at Christmas.

Normalcy? What normalcy?
We’re just shy of the two-year anniversary from any sense of normalcy here in the Katrina-ravaged region.

Those who live in New Orleans are suffering because of the levee break and the breakdown in our federal government, which has utterly failed to live up to its obligation to the American people.

Those who live outside of New Orleans, but inside Louisiana—such as those in Slidell, and those of us who live anywhere along the 50 miles of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and into Alabama, also yearn for normalcy.

A sense of normalcy. That is what everyone here yearns for. Anytime some small effort is put forth, all one has to do is take a drive down beach boulevard in Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Miss., then cross the bridge and continue down highway 90 from Pass Christian through Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs. The stairs leading to no where represent homes that have not been able to be rebuilt. Same with the slabs that are cleared of debris but overgrown with weeds. And the steel beams standing erect waiting for the walls to be returned to their pre-Katrina place.

For all of us here, a sense of pre-Katrina normalcy is long overdue.

As I hear of all these wonderful, arms wide-open stories of folks making do and doing more than good enough to get through this ongoing crisis, I keep thinking why in the living heck George Bush and the vast resources at his fingertips didn’t and still doesn’t bother to lift much of a finger to restore a sense of normalcy.

Oh, I see.

I forgot to look carefully at which finger he and his administration were collectively lifting.



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A Breath Of Fresh Air In Post-Katrina Mississippi

by Ana Maria

Today’s a big day in Mississippi. While there are plenty of contested local races throughout the state—particularly on the Republican side, the insurance commissioner is the most important statewide race because it impacts every individual, family, community, and every form of government inside the state.

Here on the coast, electing Gary Anderson as the Democratic nominee and booting out George Dale from office would clearly send more than a few ripples of joy throughout the Katrina-ravaged region. You see, the insurance crisis impacts so many things that most of us—myself included—just don’t think about until it is pointed out.

For example, I’m hearing how drug and alcohol abuse among teens and adults has dramatically increased since Katrina. Kids have no where to go—not a movie theater, skating rink, nothing. What is there to do? How are they to channel all the usual that comes with being a teen and all the unusual that resides inside of them because of Katrina’s impact?

Their friends may be scattered to the winds. The kids may have had to deal with death of friends or family members. Their homes may be gone, schools destroyed, social groups evaporated. Their families finances shattered because of jobs no longer available since most businesses were lost in Katrina. On top of that, little to no money for rebuilding the family home.

We know that communities everywhere struggle with this issue of teens and having places for them to go and activities to keep them occupied in healthy ways. Put on top of that having lost everything they’ve ever known including their social network that helps them go through those difficult years that transform kids into young adults. No wonder drugs and alcohol are rampant.

This past weekend, I attended a Democratic Women’s annual picnic in which many candidates or their surrogates spoke. I was honored to speak on behalf of Gary Anderson. The park was stupendously gorgeous with water to the one side of us, beautiful homes on another, and the beautiful green grass and trees everywhere.

My pitch was easy—all Gary Anderson voters, of course. Yes, I gave them a political hell raising activity: get out their address books and call all of their friends and family to ensure that they remembered to get out and vote. (I'm the same me on paper and in person—only a lot more lively in the flesh.)

The lady who spoke with me about the teen issue also talked with me about the level of depression hitting teens as well as adults and how she is losing friends to suicide, those who lose hope that their lives will ever get back to some level of normalcy.

I listened as she told me that another issue facing the Gulf Coast is the lack of affordable housing in the area and how the insurance companies have made it so that apartment complexes cannot afford to rebuild and that those that may be rebuilt will have to substantially raise the rent to cover the insurance rates.

I recall talking with a grade school friend some months back. Before the storm, her elderly mother’s apartment rent was about $500 a month. After Katrina, the rent nearly doubled—$900 a month. I don’t know about you, but if my monthly costs for housing doubled, that would be more than a bit difficult to absorb.

Most of us could not absorb it regardless of whether we are Democrats or Republicans, seniors or not yet seniors, single or married, Caucasian, African American, Vietnamese American, Sikh, Latino, disabled veteran, coach, nurse, lawyer or doctor. Whether we are salaried, self-employed, hourly wage or fixed income households, we all have “X” amount of money coming in—if we’re among the lucky ones, that is. Increasing household expenses in such a dramatic fashion makes life more than difficult to say the least.

By the way, my grade school friend’s family who received this shocking increase on mom’s rent? The family is Republican.

Increased teen drug and alcohol abuse, adult depression so overwhelming that suicide seems the only out of the unnecessary misery, skyrocketing financial burdens unfair under any circumstances. And what does Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale have to say about all of this?

“My mistake after Katrina was saying . . . some claims are not going to be paid because of water damage.”

WHAT?! The financial ruin of an entire region because Dale chose to turn his back on these communities, cities, towns, and every person inside of them. The emotional devastation that came as a result of Dale assisting his insurance industry buddies to create the largest financial disaster to hit the area probably since the Great Depression in the 1930s. And all he can think about is that his mistake was blurting out what was that he shouldn’t have gone public with insider knowledge that he was going to let the insurance companies get away with ripping off Gulf Coast residents?

Dale’s comments seem to have come from a set of talking points that the insurance industry would have supplied him.

I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of taking personal responsibility for the ruin his own public policies have had on an entire region. I don’t know how a public official can be so completely devoid of an ounce of genuine compassion.

Who am I kidding? George Dale publicly campaigned on behalf of George W. Bush.

I pray that tonight will bring everyone on the Gulf Coast great joy at having helped to give George Dale his walking papers through electing Gary Anderson as the next Democratic nominee for the state’s insurance commissioner. While the insurance industry will have the wind knocked out of it, electing Gary Anderson will be a breath of air that surely to goodness we could all use especially here in post-Katrina Mississippi.


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Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Just Doesn’t Get It—His Job, That Is . . .

by Ana Maria

Some have said that I may be too cozy with the industry I regulate. Those who make these charges have never offered one fact where I have not held [the] insurance industry accountable to the laws of Mississippi that I am called on to enforce.

–George Dale Speech at the Neshoba County Fair,
video courtesy of John Leek and Cotton Mouth Blog

After 32 years sucking out money at the government teat, after over three decades in the job, George Dale doesn’t know his job. He is supposed to effectively, efficiently and faithfully carryout the duties of insurance commissioner. That is not just following the letter, but also the spirit, of the law. The point of his job isn’t to be the government paid lobbyist for the insurance industry. Voters wouldn’t put up with that nonsense. The industry has plenty of its own money to pay for lobbyists.

The point of the insurance commissioner is to protect consumers from the ravages of a market that would rip us off blindly if we let them. Andddddd, it is to create a level playing field for the businesses who are insuring our homes, offices, and non-profit organizations as well as local, state, and federal government assets. Unfortunately for us here in Mississippi, Insurance Commissioner George Dale is like their good neighbor, his always on their side. That’s right, the insurance industry is in good hands with George Dale.

When it comes to his job, George just doesn’t’ get it. I think to help him understand the errors of his ways will require breaking it down a bit. Let’s try to spark in him a vague memory of the point of his job.

1. “They made me do it!”

George Dale claims that the corporate big wigs in the insurance industry force him to burden Mississippians with massive jumps in the cost of insurance. The usual talking point for an insurance company is that they will take all their toys and go home if George doesn’t give them the obscene rate increases they are demanding. Dutifully, George drinks the kool-aid the industry gives him, and then he spits out this garbage.

“One important aspect of my job is to maintain a marketplace for the sale of insurance.”

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale, 2003

News Flash, George. It isn’t the only or the primary aspect of your job. The key question is this. To whose benefit do you maintain that marketplace? Your demonstrated bias is to maintain the marketplace for the benefit of the insurance industry itself and its apparent insatiable lust for obscene amounts of profit.

However, you are supposed to maintain a marketplace for the sale of insurance that is fair and equitable to all insurance companies AND that benefits the public. A HUGE difference.

Don’t give me that poppycock that it won’t do any good if an insurance company pulls out of the state. What is this? Government propping up of business? If companies can’t make their obscene profits here, fine. Let ‘em go. Don’t let the door hit ‘em, you know?

2. “Come right on in! We have your office all set up.”

George, you are supposed to protect the hen house from the foxes, not roll out the red carpet and invite them to set up shop inside your govern-ment office. Immediately following hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in our history, you allowed an insurance industry PR flack to set up shop inside your government office.

When you did this, George, you betrayed the very people depending on you to protect them from the foxes in the insurance industry.

3. “Don’t’ be ridiculous. I’m supposed to be good friends with Industry lobbyists and hire one of their big time lawyers to be my own attorney.”

George, you are supposed to be regulating the insurance industry, not becoming good friends with its big time lobbyists or hiring a big industry attorney as your own lawyer. No, there is no law specifically prohibiting this. However, there is something mighty unethical about it. It doesn’t take a college graduate such as yourself to see that this creates a C-O-N-F-L-I-C-T of I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T.

Yet, all you said about hiring Greg Copeland, an attorney who is a longtime lobbyist for the insurance industry, is “I don’t see any conflict.”

George get your eyes checked, honey. You aren’t seeing the smut that is squarely on the end of your nose. In fact, George, you called this big insurance lobbyist "a good friend." You are not paid to be good friends with the industry. You are paid to protect us from the insurance industry’s propensity for not doing right by us.

Since you see no conflict with it, George, why don’t you just go ahead amd campaign specifically citing your chumminess with an industry big wig.

Vote for me! I’m good friends with an insurance industry big wig lobbyist. I will protect the insurance industry from silly fools who think their family and business budgets ought to come first. Remem-ber . . . a vote for George Dale is a vote for big insurance!

Could these be the reasons that Forbes Magazine reported this horrible fact about insurance rates on your watch?

“Mississippi, dead last in [per capita] income, is the sixth most expensive place to insure a house.”

See, your job is to be a referee so that there is a level playing field that does not benefit one company over the other, that makes it fair for all companies to compete, AND that ensures the public is PROTECTED. The main reason your job exists is because if left to its own devices, the insurance industry is unfair to its customers such as home and business owners. These are YOUR constituents. However, you think your job is to protect your favored corporations. You have missed the boat, George.

Your job is to protect all the folks in the state who own homes and businesses as well as educational facilities. And let us remember that every government agency and non-profit needs insurance, too. That is OUR money going into paying the insurance on the courthouses, jails, public schools, etc. When you approve inappropriately massive increases in insurance rates to protect a company or set of companies that you favor, you demonstrate that have lost your way and forgotten the job you had been elected to do.

You are one confused public official, George. Your job is about the public interest, not your personal interest.

You let the insurance industry co-opt you. They didn’t make you. You did this to yourself.

Heck, even the Mississippi State Supreme Court has so much as stated that you’ve abandoned your post, gone AWOL when it comes to regulating insurance companies.

These days, George, you are whining about trial lawyers who represent the very constituents you’ve long abandoned, lawyers who are the champions for the policyholders you’ve long abandoned. Come to think of it, because you haven’t done your job, you’ve become the trial lawyer’s best friend. Way to go, George. Way to go.

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Miss. Insurance Commissioner Finds Self in Political Harm's Way

by Ana Maria

Once again, Mr. Foot-in-Mouth Diseased Insurance Commissioner of the State of Mississippi—George Dale—has implied that the majority of Americans ought to move. That’s right, George Dale thinks that the 55% of Americans whom the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency reported live within 50 miles of our nation’s gloriously beautiful coastlines should move from our homes, families, communities, places of worship, jobs, and friends . . . and that if we don’t, then—by George—we get what we deserve from the worst of Mother Nature.

Oh, George, you are such a horse’s patoot!

Rather than having worked tirelessly as an exceedingly strong, faithful, and compassionate advocate on behalf of every Mississippi family and business owner—especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, George Dale has spent his tenure being in the pocket of the very insurance industry he is responsible for regulating.

Gary Anderson is Dale’s opponent in next week’s Democratic primary. Anderson’s television ad asserts that Dale has received $260,000 in campaign contributions from the insurance industry and raised insurance rates 29%.

Mississippians for Fair Elections is running a television ad asserting that the insurance industry is denying valid claims all over the state while making over $60 billion in profits in 2006 alone. The ad asserts further asserts that George Dale raised insurance rates implying that raising the rates may be the reason the industry has invested over $200,000 in his campaign.


A month and a half or so ago, Dale clearly showed his hand to the Clarksdale Lion’s Club.

Katrina was “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.”

Yeah, I feel so sorry for the corporate fat cats whose boards of directors have insisted on drowning their CEOs in millions. State Farm increased the salary of its CEO by 82%. Last year, Allstate gave its CEO a $5 million annual raise on top of a nearly $10 million bonus. That sure would have paid for an awful lot of homes and businesses to be repaired.

Heck, rather thandefending the billions in profits from an industry that is hurting his own Mississippi people, George Dale should have pro-actively sent down boatloads of folks from his office—hired more if needed—to help his constituents fill out the paperwork to get the insurance claims filed and to apply for the state grants. Then, Dale should have led the charge to ensure that the insurance companies honored their legal contracts rather than pull the “wind vs. water” baloney he apparently allowed to go unchecked.

We have elderly and mentally disabled folks. We have folks simply devastated from the magnitude of Katrina’s force. We have folks exhausted from battling insurance companies. The commissioner of insurance should have battled the insurance giants on behalf of his constituents. Instead, Dale forced these good people of all political, religious, and economic backgrounds to turn to trial attorneys such as our state’s very own Dickey Scruggs to get the helping hand they needed from a good friend.

To my knowledge, Dale has NEVER mentioned the significant burden that the insurance companies have placed on Mississippi families and businesses by refusing to pay legitimate claims on their wind policies. No, he has not used his office as a bully pulpit to get the insurance companies to honor their contracts. Rather, Dale is using the power of his office to bully Mississippians who live on the Gulf Coast into believing that we deserve no help from our government or our insurance company regardless of whatever bad weather comes our way damaging our homes, our businesses, our communities, and our places of worship . . . and no matter the legal contract we had signed up for with our insurance company. Oh, George, how utterly vile and contemptible.

Now that he is in a tough election campaign for the job he has held for 32 years, Dale is choosing to attack the fact that his constituents live on one of America’s coastlines. Speaking recently before the Rotary Club in Columbus, Miss., Dale asked

“Should we be allowed to live wherever we choose even if it's in harm's way? Should we make taxpayers pick up the tab of those who choose to live in harm's way?”

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale
Dale discusses Katrina's impact on insurance, campaign
The Commercial Dispatch

Excuse me?! Since when is Dale in charge of determining whether a geographic area constitutes being in “harm’s way”?

Perhaps George Dale would like to list the “safe” geographical places in our nation so that the 55% of us who live within 50 miles of our nation’s “unsafe” coastlines can immediately pack up and move to this alleged “safe place”. By the way, according to the Census Bureau, 55% of our nation’s population equals 167 million Americans. I wonder where George is anticipating us to move? Where exactly is this fictitious place where we can live outside of harm’s way?

If that list of “safe from all of Mother Nature” isn’t at Dale’s finger tips, perhaps some of his buddies inside Big Insurance can provide him with it—should such a list exist. Of course, where ever these “safe-from-Mother-Nature” cities and towns are, well, surely to goodness our need for insurance will evaporate into thin air. After all, as the “billionaire insurance titan” himself stated

"We are in the insurance business. We are in the risk business. And if you start taking away every risk that industry is exposed to, then what do you need an
insurance company for?"

C.V. Starr & Co. Chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg
Insurance Journal
May 2007

But really, why would George stop at recommending only the 55% of Americans who live within 50 miles of America’s magnificent coastlines? He had told the Columbus Rotarians

“over $122 million in claims have been paid in Hinds County alone, which is more than 150 miles inland.”

Shall we infer that Dale will eventually recommend that any American who lives within 150 miles of our coastlines also deserve whatever Mother Nature dishes out and perhaps should move in order to obtain insurance and governmental assistance? What an utterly ridiculous thing to consider. The whole thing is George Dale’s attempt to deflect from answering key questions.

Why is George Dale running away from his post-Katrina record on the coast? He’s so ashamed of it that he didn’t even buy any air time for campaign television or radio spots. [See George Dale is a Coward.]

Why is George Dale essentially saying that the 55% of Americans who live, work, and worship within 50 miles of our nation's beautiful and spectacular coastline deserve all the Katrinas that Mother Nature can dish out?

Why is George Dale defending the insurance industry he is supposed to be regulating on behalf of the people of Mississippi?

Why did George Dale fail to vociferously, aggressively, and faithfully advocate in a successful manner on behalf of the families and business owners who had religiously paid their insurance premiums only to be screwed over by various companies that refused to honor their wind policy contracts?

All of George’s hatred spewing with him telling the Gulf Coast residents to move if they don’t like the way he permits insurance companies to run all over them? Bizarre campaign strategy, really. What could be the point other than sour grapes because the folks on the Gulf Coast aren’t thanking him for enabling the insurance industry to harm families and businesses by the thousands?

Then, a celestial spirit again visited me in the night sharing these ever-important poignant insights.

George is still trying to divide Mississippians one against the other. His standard line to audiences in North Mississippi:

“Should we be allowed to live wherever we choose even if it's in harm's way? Should we make taxpayers pick up the tab of those who choose to live in harm's way?”

He plays to the worst instincts of his audience by making them think they will have to pay higher premiums just because other people live near the Coast.

Wow! Now that makes it fall into place. While it explains his behavior, it does not excuse it. The commissioner of insurance is supposed to be a trusted public servant. Down here on the coast, his actions have instilled betrayal rather than trust. Personally, I don’t cotton to that.

Insurance commissioners don’t have to be that way
Let’s contrast Mississippi’s insurance commissioner with California’s former insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who won his race for Lt. Governor in last November’s election. Garamendi has a fierce reputation for defending California’s policyholders and going up against insurance companies like State Farm. About a year ago, Garamendi went public “accusing California's largest auto insurers of using political extortion to get him to delay implementing laws that would save California motorists money,” See video here.

San Francisco’s CBS television station reported that Garamendi received a phone call in which

“he was offered a take it or leave it deal. [Garamendi] says a lobbying group that represents the state's top auto insurers threatened to spend over $2 million in a negative ad campaign unless he delayed new insurance regulations - regulations that require auto insurance companies to give more weight to how people drive rather than where they live, a practice known as red lining.”

Garamendi said the lobbying group behind the threats “is funded by State Farm, Farmers, Safeco, Allstate and other top insurers.” The San Francisco television station reported that “State Farm confirmed to CBS 5 that the phone call to Garamendi did take place, but they denied blackmail or coercion.” State Farm sure is busy these days, and apparently not with taking great care of its policyholders.

Rather than buckling under the weight of the alleged blackmail and extortion, Garamendi went public. View news clip. He also turned the matter over to the FBI and state officials. Read Garamendi’s letter to the FBI and state officials.

Garamendi is proof positive that standing up to corporate bullies can be successfully accomplished. All it takes is courage, character, and commitment to the public good.

Clearly the sun needs to set on George Dale’s tenure as insurance commissioner. So here are a few political hell raising activities that will help push over the finish line a candidate who has signed a pledge not to take money from the insurance industry AND with our help has a chance to win.

Contribute a few dollars into Gary Anderson's campaign, volunteer with the campaign--maybe phone banking long distance if the campaign is dong that, and vote for him are all steps that can be taken to be part of a solution to the problem with George Dale's cozy relationship with the insurance industry that has ravaged the coast in ways beyond what Katrina did. This is how we help George Dale understand that by deliberately placing others on a path of financial and emotional distress has consequences, he placed himself in harm’s way.

___________________________________________

If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy reading the following.

George Dale is a Coward

Mr. “I can do my job” isn’t doing his job


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Man burned in FEMA trailer fire

Neighbors said they heard an explosion

Posted on Sun, Jul. 29, 2007
By MICHAEL NEWSOM
mmnewsom@sunherald.com

BILOXI -- A FEMA trailer fire on Motsie Road Saturday caused one heavily burned man to be airlifted to Mobile after the blaze, which destroyed the home.

The fire at the trailer park happened about 8 p.m. after neighbors reported hearing an explosion, said Biloxi's Deputy Fire Chief Kirk Noffsinger. He said one man was severely burned and sent to Mobile, while another suffered illness related to smoke inhalation.

The fire burned very quickly, which is typical of FEMA trailers, Noffsinger said.

"They are a concern," he said. "We're hoping that soon most of these people will get out and be back in their regular residence."
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
He said the fire was intense, and it threatened two other trailers and also one vehicle, but firefighters were able to contain the flames.

He said Saturday it was hard to tell if there actually was an explosion there, and the cause of the fire was unknown. The case is still under investigation.

Original article printed in Sun Herald.

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House panel votes to add wind coverage

by Sean Reilly
Mobile Press Register Washington Bureau
Original article published on July 27, 2007.

WASHINGTON -- The House Financial Services Committee agreed Thursday to add optional wind coverage to the National Flood Insurance Program, brushing aside objections that such a major step needed more study.

The bill by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., would also increase overall coverage limits, phase out subsidized flood insurance rates for businesses and vacation homes, and authorize spending up to $400 million annually for the next five years to pay for flood map updates.

The subsidized rates generally apply to structures built before the early 1970s. For vacation homes in that category, the bill would allow flood insurance administrators to raise rates by 25 percent annually until the full risk-based premium is reached. For subsidized business structures, rate increases of 20 percent annually would be permitted.

In voting 38-29 to send the bill to the full House, the committee broke largely along party lines, with Democrats solidly in support and most Republicans opposed. In arguing for the addition of wind coverage, Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., pointed to the wave of "wind" vs. "water" disputes that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

For full discussion of the famed "wind vs water" argument, see Wind? Water? More Like a Bunch of Hot Air!


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Worries Permitted

JAMES EDWARD BATES/SUN HERALD

Early construction at a home at the intersection of Division St. and Collier St. in Biloxi on Thursday.

Posted on Fri, Jul. 27, 2007

By PRISCILLA FRULLA
pfrulla@sunherald.com

-- It's been a good quarter for several industries, but some of South Mississippi's prominent business leaders are worried Katrina recovery is starting to drag and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities are slipping away.

Concerns that confusion and delays surrounding the building-permitting process may be scaring developers away was a top issue for members of the Sun Herald's Business Roundtable at its quarterly meeting Thursday. Insurance remains an "800-pound gorilla," freezing many projects in place while developers wait to see if costs will come down.

"The situation is different in some cities and counties as opposed to others, but generally speaking, cities and counties Coastwide are still overwhelmed in their inspection departments in handling the volume of commercial and residential planning-review jobs that have come in," said Brian Sanderson, president of the Gulf Coast Business Council.

Sanderson said of the $5 million in grants allocated to help permitting and inspection offices, only 12 percent had been drawn. The council wants to help municipalities make use of this money. It also plans to request an additional $5 million for 48 third-party inspectors and plan reviewers overseen by Gulf Regional Planning Commission to assist the municipalities.

Roundtable members agreed the perceived difficulty in the permitting process of some municipalities is causing developers to re-think investments in the Gulf Coast.

"The two things that run developers off the quickest are inconsistency and unreliability," said Brooks Holstein of Comvest Properties. "If they walk into a city and there is no accessibility and no consistency, they say, 'Life is too short.'

Some municipalities appear to move through the process more efficiently.

"We permitted a Ruby Tuesday in Moss Point in two weeks," said Holstein.

He said getting a permit shouldn't be complex.

"It is simply a decision made by the political leadership," he said. "We have SmartCode to ensure responsible, high-quality development, the International (Building) Code is going to make sure it is built to specifications, you have a stamped set of plans from an architect who is not going to risk his license to build an unstable building and in order to get insurance we have to build a building that will take 150-mph winds."

Pascagoula City Manager Kay Kell said permitting in Jackson County has been streamlined through regular meetings of mayors, city managers and the county administrator.

"We had the same issues that came up and drafted the same ordinances," said Kell, who has offered Pascagoula's building official to help other communities.

"Pascagoula is so much further ahead in recovery, we are willing to be the pilot. We will go out and teach what is working there to other communities," said Kell.

More than a dozen homeowners and builders have complained to the Sun Herald about inefficiency in the permitting and inspection process in municipalities in Hancock and Harrison counties since Hurricane Katrina. None wanted to go on the record with their complaints because they said they feared more delays on their projects.

Community development director Jerry Creel said there is no backlog in Biloxi.

"We are adequately staffed for the construction that has been permitted," said Creel, though he does anticipate an increased need in the future.

Many of the delays in the permitting process are caused by builders or developers not submitting all the required information, said Creel. Unless there are special circumstances that would trigger a public hearing, development permits are issued in 10 to 30 days, he said.

For residential rebuilds, most permits are issued in 10 days, said Creel.

"We really look at three things: Does the site plan comply with the land-development ordinance; do building plans comply with the building codes; and are the contractors who are going to be doing the work licensed to do the work," said Creel.

If the answer is yes to all three questions, the builder should have no problem getting a permit, he said.

Sandy Hill of Gulfport's building and permitting department said she also sees many delays caused by incomplete applications.

"We like to have a turnaround of three days for residential and 10 days for commercial," said Hill. "We like to respond in that time period, but if there is a need for additional comments it goes back to the developer and we have to wait for their response. We can't control the response time back from the developers and contractors."

Hill said the number of applications received has gone from 870 a month before Katrina to 1,500 a month, though the department still has the same number of employees.



© 2007 Sun Herald. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sunherald.com
Original posted at Sun Herald.

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Federal plan would cover windstorms

A House panel OK'd expanding an insurance program to cover wind damage -- which could bring comfort to Florida residents -- but the plan has Republican critics.
BY MARIA RECIO
mrecio@mcclatchydc.com
(Miami Herald version)
Original published on July 27, 2007.

WASHINGTON --A bill beginning to move through the U.S. House could dramatically change the way windstorm insurance is sold in Florida and other hurricane-prone coastal states.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 38-29 on Thursday to expand the national flood insurance program to cover wind damage. Other proposals floating around Washington would create national catastrophe funds to cover many perils, but this one is focused squarely on hurricane risk.

To be sure, the bill faces stiff opposition ahead -- particularly from Republicans. It could get a floor vote when the House returns from recess in September and, if it passes, would have to prevail in the Senate and get past the White House.
Committee member U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said he supports the legislation and thinks it would help ease the state's windstorm woes but would not completely solve the insurance crisis.

''This could provide some relief for some people, but I still think we need to take additional steps to reduce insurance costs,'' Klein said.

Read the Miami Herald article.

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FEMA to test for chemicals in trailers

Posted on Sat, Jul. 21, 2007
FROM STAFF & WIRE REPORTS

The day after a House oversight committee discovered that FEMA had sloughed off reports that trailers provided to Katrina evacuees had dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, FEMA's chief said testing of trailers would begin Tuesday.

Evacuees have long speculated their health troubles were made worse by formaldehyde in the trailers, a notion bolstered this week with congressional testimony that FEMA knew about the threat but didn't investigate it. Hurricane victims living in government trailers on the Coast have said for nearly two years that they're getting sick from the trailers, but couldn't persuade FEMA to do any tests.

In a statement late Friday, FEMA administrator R. David Paulison said the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Health Affairs will conduct a preliminary field study that will test air quality conditions in "FEMA-purchased housing units under real-life conditions."

Paulison said testing would begin Tuesday.

"We are also looking into engineering solutions that may be available effectively to remove environmental pollutants from the trailers," he said.

In addition, he said FEMA would begin distributing a fact sheet today on formaldehyde and housing to the occupants of each FEMA travel trailer and mobile home in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.

"This fact sheet will provide basic information about formaldehyde, its possible medical effects and contacts for further assistance," he said.

The new brochure also is available online at sunherald.com.

Also today, FEMA will open a toll-free telephone line with operators from the CDC and FEMA available to answer questions about the formaldehyde issue and associated FEMA housing concerns, he said. The toll-free number is 1-866-562-2381.

FEMA provided more than 120,000 trailers to people displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Thousands of people still live in them, mostly in Mississippi and Louisiana.

On Thursday, documents released to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee showed FEMA lawyers discouraged the agency from pursuing reports the trailers had dangerous levels of formaldehyde, a chemical that can cause respiratory problems.

The formaldehyde complaints had sparked lawsuits before the congressional hearing, and more are likely.

In May, the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club issued a nonscientific report saying its tests revealed high formaldehyde emissions in dozens of trailers in Mississippi and Louisiana.
FEMA's response to questions from the Sun Herald at the time of the Sierra Club testing fly in the face of facts revealed in Thursday's congressional hearing.

The Sun Herald originally published the story on July 21, 2007.

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FEMA trailers: Why was action so tardy?

July 20, 2007

Is the federal government only now getting the message that FEMA trailers might be hazardous to health?

For nearly a year, clarionledger.com StoryChat posters discussed the issue under the topic "Are FEMA trailers 'toxic tin cans?'" until the subject petered out.

It was based on a news report of the same title that ran on MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14011193/) in July 2006 and was mentioned in editorials since then about Katrina recovery in The Clarion-Ledger.

It has been no secret, for sure.

Yet, now, suddenly, it seems, the federal government is starting to pay attention - and pass the buck.

Fourth District U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor in February asked the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for a "detailed investigation" into whether formaldehyde in trailers was causing an outbreak of respiratory illnesses.

While acknowledging high enough levels of formaldehyde "to cause irritation to eyes, nose and/or throat," CDC and FEMA suggested the effects can be avoided simply by airing out the trailers.

That's not much reassurance for the 65,900 Hurricane Katrina victims still housed in about 24,400 of the trailers in Mississippi - nor, perhaps, should it be to the Native American tribes Congress has authorized the units to be shipped to as cheap housing for reservations.

Congress should investigate for certain if the homes are "toxic tin cans" and how it came to be - and punish those responsible, including repaying taxpayers. Safety of citizens should come first.

Read original at Clarion Ledger.

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Insurance: Catastrophic coverage the answer?

July 20, 2007

Fourth District U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor may have an answer for providing affordable coverage for Mississippi Gulf Coast residents and businesses.

His bill, HR 920, to expand federal flood insurance to include wind damage was the subject of three hours of debate before a congressional subcommittee Tuesday and, despite vehement opposition by the insurance industry, seemed to win support.

His Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 received a boost by a letter sent to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity by Gov. Haley Barbour in support of the bill.

"Hurricane Katrina demonstrated holes in the private insurance market and the National Flood Insurance Program and I support Congress considering legislation which would create a new program in the National Flood Insurance Program to enable the purchase of wind and flood risk in one policy," Barbour's letter said.

Calling it "a failed system," Barbour said the Coast's recovery has suffered because private wind coverage is scarce and premiums in the state's insurance of last resort, the wind pool, or Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association, have skyrocketed.

As shown by The Clarion-Ledger's May report "Rebuilding the Coast," until insurance issues are solved, recovery will lag.

Gov. Barbour's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal in its report, After Katrina: Building Back Better Than Ever (www.governorscommission.com), offered a tremendous blueprint in the wake of the storm. But efforts have been stymied by the lack of available and affordable insurance.

"Greed is the main disconnect in this situation," said Taylor, according to the Gulfport/Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper.

"It's easy for them to walk around in their Gucci suits and defend their companies, but the reality is down there on the Gulf Coast, where all of the destroyed homes and property of my constituents are," Taylor said. "Of course, these companies don't want to change the rules that are currently in their favor."

A vote by the subcommittee on the bill to move it to the full House could come before the August recess.

Posters in clarionledger.com's StoryChat Mississippi Insurance Forum are already debating the potential effects of such a bill.

Said one: "Haley has been right on the money for every key Coast issue and we need to encourage him to help get HR 920 passed. If it passes, the Coast will boom and Mississippi will never be last again."

Original article at Clarion-Ledger.

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Toxic trailers affecting health, well-being

SUSAN WALSH/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FEMA Administrator David Paulison, center, listens as former FEMA trailer occupant Paul Stewart, left, testifies before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on his health problems while living in a FEMA trailer after Hurricane Katrina. Lindsay Huckabee, who also lives in a FEMA trailer, is at right.

By BRANDON PARKER and MICHAEL A. BELL
SUN HERALD

At work and at home, Kathy James and Patricia Spain said they are constantly breathing in formaldehyde.

The women work for the Department of Human Services, where temporary trailers were erected after Hurricane Katrina damaged the facility. The women also live in FEMA trailers.

When they leave for work in the mornings, the one thing they can't forget is to open the windows.

"If not, if closed up during the summer, oh, gosh, you open that doors, it's like 'whew - that chemical smell'," said James, a 47-year-old Pass Christian resident.

"It's like when you can't breathe through your nose," she said of some of the symptoms she experiences. "Just a sore throat feeling... . like you have a sinus infection."

The problems began as soon as James moved into her trailer in December 2005. Two months earlier, Spain, 56, moved into her FEMA trailer and experienced similar symptoms.

"I do have sinus infections," she said, adding she constantly is fatigued and is unable to complete simple tasks. Asked to elaborate on how it affects her personally, she said she becomes depressed. "I just stay that way," she said.

"I know... this won't last forever," Spain said. "But that's not the way that I feel."

In Washington on Thursday, the House subcommittee on Oversight and Government Reform heard tales like these that supported their findings that FEMA lawyers discouraged investigations of high formaldehyde levels in Coast FEMA trailers.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called the situation "sickening."

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., said he sent a letter Feb. 22 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when he heard about the formaldehyde complaints. After not receiving a response until the end of May, Taylor said he knew the FEMA trailer program was in deep trouble.

"FEMA's trailer program has been so horribly mismanaged, I feel inadequate in finding the words to describe it," he said Thursday. "We've tried to work with them in every instance and show them better and more efficient ways to do things, but they have just ignored our efforts.

"This is just another example of a really inept response to the nation's worst natural disaster," he continued. "As someone who represents southern Mississippi, we are still grateful for trailers that were paid for and provided. But we also know the value of a dollar, so we wanted to see things done in [an] efficient and fair manner."

Asked how lawmakers can get FEMA to admit responsibility, Taylor said, "the only way they'll admit the mistake is if you embarrass them."

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has grown accustomed to the post-Katrina woes of the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"If the allegations are true, it unfortunately wouldn't be too surprising to South Mississippians, who've had firsthand experience with FEMA since Katrina," said Lee Youngblood, a spokesman for Lott.

"Sen. Lott still believes in many respects (that FEMA) remains a big, out-of-control federal bureaucracy with too much red tape and not enough people willing to take responsibility."

Waxman echoed Lott's demand that those responsible be held accountable.
He said the committee's documents revealed "mistakes and misjudgments."

"We need to learn from them to identify what needs to be fixed to protect the health of the thousands of families still living in FEMA trailers," he said. "And we should do everything we can to make sure that this disgraceful conduct never happens again."

Original post at Sun Herald.

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FEMA Failures Meet Democratic Oversight

by Ana Maria

"We have lost a great deal through our dealings with FEMA," said Paul Stewart, a former Army officer living in a trailer with his wife in Mississippi, "not the least of which is our faith in government."

When a retired military officer has lost faith in Bush’s government, that is a bell weather indicator of what many of us predicted since that horrendous day back in December 2000.

You remember that day in December in which the United States Supreme Court legally stopped the vote counting in a U.S. election. The self-proclaimed greatest democracy on the planet no longer believed that counting the votes counted in determining an election outcome. The case was Bush v. Gore, and a New York Times editorial last August summarized it succinctly.

The Supreme Court’s highly partisan resolution of the 2000 election was a severe blow to American democracy . . ..

And what we’ve learned since that day is just how true it is when we say that elections have consequences. Here we are with another set of scandals that negatively impact American lives directly in a real and palpable manner. One scandal centers on millions of dollars of ice for hurricane survivors melting in the sun. The other on FEMA deliberately weighing the cost of lawsuits against testing for the adverse health effects of its formaldehyde-filled trailers.

Burning Mad
Memphis, Tenn., news organizations reported “[h]undreds of bags of ice once intended for hurricane victims have been melting outside a Memphis warehouse for days and could pose a health risk if consumed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency bought the ice in November 2005 to use during long power outages, like those brought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.” This is outrageous!

This past weekend, I watched another of Greg Palast’s riveting investigations, Big Easy to Big Empty. I highly recommend it. Palast told the story of a grandfather who gave his grandchildren his last bottle of drinking water. The grandfather died of dehydration.

Days after watching Big Easy to Big Empty, I learn what FEMA did with the ice that could have saved lives such as the grandfather who died of dehydration.



FEMA ice melting in Tennessee 2 years after hurricane

According to the FEMA Web site, the agency had 430 truckloads of ice in 2005. It increased the amount by 400 percent -- 2,150 truckloads -- for the following year. That's enough to provide ice to more than 1 million people for up to 10 days.

One million people?! For 10 days!!! That would have more than helped the entire Katrina-ravaged region to stay hydrated. Apparently, FEMA didn’t bother to have this kind of foresight before Katrina and Rita. That would require planning . . . and caring. Two traits that elude the Bush-Cheney Administration.

On July 4th, the daily Memphis paper, The Commercial Appeal reported "[h]undreds of bags of ice once designated for hurricane victims have sat melting outside an AmeriCold Logistics warehouse . . . Congressman Steve Cohen said citizens have been carting off some of the ice, and he's worried it may pose a health risk." On July 3rd, Cohen actually saw people taking the abandoned ice. Then the company itself moved the ice to garbage cans. What a waste!

"It is appalling to learn of the waste of $67 million in taxpayer money for the purchase, transportation and storage of ice," [Congressman Steve] Cohen
wrote in a letter to [FEMA Director David] Paulison Wednesday. "That an additional $3.4 million is being paid to melt the ice is unconscionable. To consider such waste a part of doing business is a slap in the face of hardworking Americans whose taxes pay our salaries."

FEMA takes heat for ice boondoggle
Cohen vilifies waste of the public's $70 million
July 19, 2007

Cohen on the phone with FEMA about the ice melting in the Memphis sun.
Rep. Steve Cohen
Submitted by WDEF on July 4, 2007 - 5:50pm

Newly elected to Congress last November to represent the greater Memphis area of Tennessee, Cohen (D-TN) has a lifelong history of fiscal responsibility and fighting to protect the public trust. As his website accurately states, he "never falter[s] in his fight for those who do not have the power bestowed by wealth and advantage, realizing that the American dream cannot flourish without constant rededication to its principle." We need more like him in Congress, the U.S. Senate, and the White House.

FEMA’s Headaches
Today, I went inside of a FEMA formaldehyde-filled trailer for the first time. I am coordinating the volunteers who are coming down next month to work on the home of this elderly retired public school teacher whom I love so much that I refer to her as “aunt.” For well over a year now, she and her family—including her school age great grandchild who lives with her—have been breathing in the formaldehyde.

As I sat next to her, my previous piece titled Formaldehyde-Filled FEMA Trailers went through my mind a time or two. I do hope that we can get things situated to move her back into her home by Labor Day. The air in those tiny Barbie doll sized trailers is hazardous to breathe.

When I came home, my FEMA education continued as I read the Washington Post.

. . . since early 2006 [FEMA] has suppressed warnings from its own field workers
about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said . . . .

Excuse me?! They have known since a few months after Katrina that these sardine can sized trailers were toxic to the degree of being 75 times the healthy level?! Moreover, they knew of the toxicity in early 2006.

Today’s Washington Post is reporting

On June 16, 2006, three months after reports of the hazards surfaced and a month after a trailer resident sued the agency, a FEMA logistics expert wrote that the agency's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing, which would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue." A FEMA lawyer, Patrick Preston, wrote on June 15: "Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

What is this? Be responsible, test the FEMA air, protect the American families living in them . . . or be absolutely vile, contemptible, evil. Apparently, Bush’s FEMA has opted for the latter and adopted the Pinto Profit Protection Plan as the lens through which to cost out its options.

Remember the 1970’s case in which Ford decided that it would be financially cheaper for the company to forgo spending the $10 per car to fix the Pinto’s exploding gas tank. The corporation deliberately decided to allow its car to injure families then settle the cases with those individuals that actually pursued a legal case against the Ford Corporation.

My, oh my, oh my. Another of the Bush Administration’s vain attempt to pretend that the emperor has no clothes.

Thankfully, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is politically smart, savvy, and sophisticated. He calls a spade a shovel. When necessary, he picks it up and hits up side the head whomever seems to be needing a verbal hit up side his or her head. At yesterday’s hearing, it was FEMA director, David Paulison. Waxman referred to FEMA’s perspective as “sickening.” At the hearing, Waxman said,

"The nearly 5,000 pages of documents we've reviewed expose an official policy of pre- meditated ignorance." He also criticized the testing standards that FEMA and the Environ- mental Protection Agency used before they even- tually came to the incorrect conclusion, as Paulison stated in May 2007, that "the formaldehyde does not present a health hazard." Trailers were left with windows ajar, air conditioning on and all vents open for days before interior air levels were tested for the gas — conditions that did not nearly approxi- mate actual living conditions. It was only almost a year and a half after the first complaint — and with the looming prospect of a con- gressional hearing — that FEMA decided to act. Just yesterday, the agency announced that it was teaming up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct testing of the air quality in its trailers. [Emphasis added.]

Premeditated ignorance?! How loathsome. Yet, what did Bush’s FEMA director have to say about all of this?

"The health and safety of residents is my primary concern,"

David Paulison FEMA Director

Primary concern, my you-know-what! These folks feign compassion but their handling of Katrina’s before and aftermath demonstrates in clear and convincing ways that they care of no one but themselves and nothing but the Almighty Dollar.

Congressman Jim Cooper, a Democrat representing the Nashville area of Tennessee, spoke poignantly about Bush’s FEMA. "I haven't seen this level of government incompetence outside of the nation of China. . . . And they executed an official in China for not having done their job. No one is asking for that here, but how about a simple application of the golden rule?"

I’m a firm believer in the “what’s-good-for-the-goose” philosophy, myself, if you know what I mean. For the longest time, Paulison spouted the line that Bush’s FEMA trailers pose no real health threat then he and every FEMA employee that is marching in lock step with the White House talking points should demonstrate the strength of their convictions in the Bush Administration’s official advice. They should live in FEMA trailers for a few years.

Should they experience “headaches, burning eyes and throats, nausea and difficulty breathing” or if their noses start to bleed, they can just say a little prayer as they air out their trailers. When that doesn’t work, maybe they’ll turn in their faith-based, factually-free health recommendation for a dose of harsh reality. I wouldn’t count on it, though.The Bushies are more likely to hold their breath than to admit they deliberately deceived the American people with their willful neglect, stupidity, and blind faith in a White House that continues to betray the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast . . . along with everyone else from the East Coast to the West Coast. As they hold their breath, we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that at our fingertips we possess the tools to help bring about a better outcome for those families living in formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers.

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activities center on thanking Congressman Henry Waxman and Congressman Steve Cohen for their leadership. Here are the activities for Waxman, and here for the activities for Cohen. Think about it. When someone unexpectedly praises us for something at work or home, we beam from ear to ear. Our eyes get wide and begin to dance. We stand a little taller. We feel even better about doing whatever it is we did. We feel appreciated and respected.

You know what happens then? We are more likely to do it again. So let’s burn up the computer and phone lines with simple words of thanks and praise. As we do, we’re putting a down payment on a future government that we ourselves deliberately create so that the former Army officers around us can begin again to have faith in our government. And the key phrase is “our government.”

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