Did Katrina Teach FEMA a Lesson?

Bureaucracy and a natural disaster again combined to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency a black eye after a tornado hit the Arkansas town of Dumas in February.

The twister left at least 150 people homeless, including about 45 older residents, says Dumas disaster relief and recovery coordinator Lynn Weatherford. Because FEMA had stockpiled more than 8,000 unused Hurricane Katrina manufactured homes in Hope, Ark., 126 miles away, Dumas officials asked, "Could FEMA help?"

No, because President Bush hadn't declared the town of 5,300 a federal disaster area, explained FEMA spokeswoman Debbie Wing. So the new factory-built homes remained at Hope's municipal airport.

FEMA has a manufactured-home glut because the homes bought to house Katrina victims can't be used in flood zones. Not wishing to depress market prices, the agency has been slowly auctioning off its surplus. All that doesn't matter to Weatherford. "There's no excuse for FEMA not to be here" when they were needed, he says.

He adds that federal officials told him that Dumas probably would have been declared a federal disaster area had the tornado resulted in deaths.

That doesn't sit well with Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.). "I am frustrated with the massive bureaucracy involved in simply helping people in an emergency situation," Ross says. Two weeks after the storm, 24 FEMA homes made it to Dumas—but only after the state paid to move them.

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