Despite all the face-saving media spins and agency testimony to the contrary, the NFIP’s “repetitive loss” properties are the combined result of repetitive fraud and repetitive fk-ups – and it’s past time for FEMA to stop the face-saving cover-up, man-up and address these two very real problems.
Sun Herald Reporter Geoff Pender recently asked current FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, “What, if anything, is being done to improve the National Flood Insurance Program?”
I wanted to start with an overhaul of FEMA regulations and policies first, because the law itself has a lot of what I would call flexibility, in many cases, but our administration and rules and policies are restrictive.
“Restrictive”? It was the agency’s loose-as-a-goose administration of the WYO program that allowed insurance companies to shovel money out of Treasury following Katrina.
Ignoring the agency’s responsibility for all but inviting $18 billion in debt, some or all attributable to fraud, Fugate went on to say the FEMA needs, “to provide flood insurance because nobody else will do it…” – and, in doing so, left coastal property owners twisting in the wind.
The Times Picayune picks up Five years after Hurricane Katrina… Continue reading “Katrina’s 3 R’s – Repetitive loss, Repetitive fraud and Repetitive fk-ups!”