$229,000 FEMA trailers
Agency spent more on trailers than it would have cost to buy new houses
By Lisa Myers and Richard Gardella
NBC News Investigative Unit
updated 7:16 p.m. MT, Thurs., Nov. 15, 2007
For six months, security guard Mary Guidroz -- whose apartment was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina -- lived with a friend in a FEMA trailer on a site at the Port Bienville Industrial Park in Bay St. Louis, Miss.
A new report by government watchdogs obtained by NBC News estimates expenses for each FEMA trailer at the Port Bienville site could reach a staggering $229,000.
"I could have bought a brand-new trailer! Or a house even!" Guidroz says.
She's right. Guidroz could have bought a $200,000, 3-bedroom house nearby, with money left over.
Investigators with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) say the trailers themselves cost only $14,000, but FEMA wasted big money by placing them at a small temporary site built from scratch with huge maintenance costs.
"What you see throughout this report is an utter disregard for how much was being paid," says Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) who asked the GAO to investigate trailer-maintenance costs.
The GAO found that over a seven month period, FEMA made a total of $30 million in improper or fraudulent payments for trailer maintenance alone. The investigators also found examples of phony inspections, rigged bids, and excessive payments.
At one site, McLeod Water Park in Kiln, Miss., FEMA paid a contractor $1.8 million to clean trailer septic tanks. A staggering $1.5 million of that was profit. While FEMA paid the contractor $245 per cleaning, per trailer, three times each week, the contractor paid a subcontractor $45 per cleaning to actually do the work.
The contractor told government investigators that it informed FEMA about the big profit, and that FEMA said it didn't care.
David Stewart, a debris cleanup worker who has been living at that site, says now he understands why workers cleaned out the tanks so often.
"Half the time, they didn't even need cleaning out," Stewart says. The company was paid for each visit.
"It's obnoxious. The waste," Stewart says. "It's not right. it's just not right."
Meanwhile, a small grassroots housing organization in the area could have used that money to build permanent houses for Katrina victims for about $30,000 a house.
"FEMA's practices don't seem to be based much on common sense," says Mike Sweeney, co-founder of Camp Coastal Outpost, a non-profit organization. Sweeney says his organization has built 144 houses at that price in Louisiana and Mississippi.
FEMA challenged the $229,000 figure for the trailers, saying that number is exaggerated. A spokesman also says the agency was operating under extreme conditions in the wake of the storm, but that now contracts are "fully competitive" and "highly scrutinized."
Link to Report
Thanks to Shelley Bluejay Pierce for sending this on.
MTBW NOTE: This is an outrage! How many more times are tax payers going to sit back and remain silent in light of such waste and again, with contractors making a killing at the expense of the victims of this terrible disaster???
The victims of FEMA and the federal government are being assaulted again not by a hurricane - a natural disaster, but by the disgusting greed of this government and their friends who are given these outrageous contracts. So many greedy, selfish pigs are making money hand over fist off the misery of the victims of Katrina, of the war, of every opportunity that can be found by this government to steal from the taxpayers, including all the victims of Katrina - they pay taxes too.
The victims who were counting on their government to come to their aid with at least the necessities - food, water, a clean and safe place to stay until work could be done and plans made to get families into their own home together, even a temporary home, were left hanging in one of the most desperate situations I can ever remember seeing in my country.
The horrors of that auditorium - the pleas by the people for food and milk for their babies, for safe water, clothing, all the things we need to survive was ignored. Besides the majority of them are people of color anyways, and even George Bush's Mother had no empathy for the horrible conditions of the auditorium when she made her queenly visit to New Orleans. She said they were accustomed to living that way - OMG - I am ashamed to live in the same state as these vultures who have their mansion by the sea! Daddy and Momma Bush taught their son well. Momma Bush is a celebrity for her good works at the Children's Hospital in Maine, but they're mostly white kids and besides, she summers here too, in Kennebunkport. (pardon me!)
FEMA and this government doesn't care if they are poisoned or not by dangerous fumes in these cheap trailers. $14,000 per trailer these days, is a cheap trailer. Yet, some greedy, selfish companies are getting rich to the tune of over $200,000 per trailer according to the pathetic and disgusting excuses FEMA is giving in an attempt to justify these outrageous costs.
I don't know how they sleep at night. But I believe in the retribution of justice - pure justice, not their kind of justice. They will pay for all the terrible deeds the guilty have committed because of their greed by a much higher power than any of them think they are. They are leeches - and it's an insult to the leech, because at least it has a purpose.
Everyone who reads this should contact their Senator, their Congressman, their state and town representatives and demand justice. Demand that there be investigations of FEMA employees and others who could not account for millions of dollars of FEMA funds, even before this latest fiasco of greed. The entire staff, the listings of contractors and every single person who has made a lot of money from this, should be investigated. Where the heck is the IRS?
Our country is being run by criminals, while too many of us sit back and do nothing. DO SOMETHING! Don't just sit around talking about it and grumbling about it - do something! This cannot be permitted to continue or to be forgotten. These criminals must be brought to justice - we owe that to the victims of Katrina and their loved ones that passed during the crisis and the American people who are honest and hardworking and do care for others, besides themselves.
Enough is enough!!!! Haven't YOU HAD ENOUGH???
Jeanne Svhiyeyi Aga Chadwick
Publisher/Editor
My Two Beads Worth - November 20, 2007
Contents
November 2007 News Reports
Last updated on Nov 20, 2007