The Unnatural Disaster

The Federal Emergency Management Agency wants you to believe it is a noble public-service organization. The motto "People helping people" is plastered on its publications and on the walls of its headquarters. A more accurate slogan would be "People helping people to other people's money." Yours, to be exact.

FEMA's popularity is one more sign of the decline of individual responsibility in American political culture.

FEMA shovels out cash when bad things happen--be they floods, earthquakes or fires. In the early years of this century, the federal government offered aid only for disasters of monumental scale, such as the Mississippi floods of 1927. But after President Jimmy Carter created FEMA in 1979, the number of disasters increased dramatically--on paper, if not in reality. From 1983 to 1988, the number of declared disasters averaged 25 a year. From 1989 through 1993, the average rose to 41 disasters a year. In Clinton's first year of office, the actual number of disasters was 58. In 1996 the total reached 75. Last year the nation was less scathed, with a mere 43 cash-invoking calamities. Prior to the Monica Lewinsky incident, which so far has claimed no FEMA money, Clinton was averaging one "major" disaster a week.

The Clinton administration has delivered more than $25 billion in disaster aid, $7 billion of it from FEMA alone. That's a lot of money for a photo op: President comes to the rescue.

After the earthquake in Northridge, California in January 1994 FEMA sent thousands of unsolicited checks for up to $3450 to homeowners simply because they lived in zip codes that had been hit hard. FEMA issued more than 47,000 checks--totaling $142 million--to individuals under a "fast-track" procedure that requires no preliminary inspection.

After FEMA's generosity was exposed by the Los Angeles Times, the agency's chief spokesman, Morrie Goodman, denied any mistakes had been made in the big giveaway: "Anyone who says an error was made doesn't know what he is talking about. We received very few calls from people who felt they didn't need the aid." An audit later found that FEMA made no attempt to recover payments to individuals that exceeded what it cost them to rent alternative housing or repair their homes.

Like ambulance-chasing lawyers, FEMA officials often recruit victims, convincing people that their aches and pains qualify them for financial relief. After a one-day flood in the Milwaukee area, a FEMA regional director "urged residents who had damage to call the FEMA number, even if they thought they didn't qualify for help." A few months after floods in North Dakota subsided last spring, the state coordinating officer for flood relief moaned, "We are particularly concerned that senior citizens whose homes were flooded may not register for assistance because they do not feel the damage is serious." Maybe they're simply honest or have been through this before.

Disaster relief isn't just about helping victims, as FEMA director James Witt acknowledged to a Senate Appropriations Committee in 1996. "As we all are aware, disasters are very political events," he testified. Accordingly, the Clinton administration has stretched the definition of major disaster to include routine events almost never covered before, such as snowfall.

Last winter's ice storm that toppled powerlines and left parts of the North-east without electricity might qualify as a major disaster. But what about ordinary snowfalls? Prior to Clinton's taking office few blizzards earned disaster ratings. Snow accounts for a large portion of the skyrocketing number of federal emergencies. In 1996 Clinton shoveled federal aid to 16 states hit by old man winter, empowering FEMA to reimburse local governments for the cost of plowing. FEMA implicitly assumes that any local or state government is incapable of plowing the snow on a main highway after a big storm.

FEMA's snow bonuses can undermine sound government policies at the local level. Consider what happened in Vernon, Connecticut. In 1996 this town of 30,000 received a FEMA emergency relief grant of $40,023 to help the city cope with damage caused by the preceding winter's storms. Yet a cursory examination of the town's budget makes a mockery of the pretenses of federal intervention. The total cost for snow removal in the winter of 1995--1996 was $258,000, or $8.60 per person. That's probably less than the average homeowner would pay a 12-year-old to shovel his driveway. The town had budgeted $104,516 for snow removal, and thus claimed to be overwhelmed by the heavy costs. What did the town managers learn from FEMA's generosity? As The Hartford Courant reported, an "optimistic town council has already set the proposed 1996--1997 snow-removal budget at $69,383, the lowest level in 15 years." Some local officials may believe that setting a low budget for snow removal--which is then exceeded--will make it easier for them to shake their tin cup at FEMA.

Almost any local government expense is now considered by some bureaucrat to be worthy of federal disaster assistance. After violent storms hit Chicago last summer, the Chicago Tribune reported that the city was seeking federal aid to cover, among other emergency burdens, "the expense of such things as extra garbage pickup. City Streets and Sanitation Department crews worked 12-hour days for most of last week as they picked up ruined furniture and other debris from flood-stricken neighborhoods."

Flash floods now count as national major disasters. Last July 15 the river town of Montgomery Center, Vermont was hit by a flash flood. Only a few people in town had flood insurance, and damage for a handful of families was substantial (though no one was injured and no pets were washed away). The scant impact did not deter the White House from declaring that "a major disaster exists in the state of Vermont."

John McClaughry, a former state senator from Concord, Vermont, observed that some FEMA officials "made the flood sound like Pearl Harbor." McClaughry claimed Clinton's labeling the local flood a major disaster was an example of "defining disaster down." President Clinton evidently likes to "feel your pain" even when you do not.

Federal law authorizes FEMA to make grants for home repairs (from $10,000 to $20,000) to individuals in residentially designated disaster areas whose homes are damaged severely enough to be uninhabitable. With the proliferation of disasters--and the habit of labeling every outburst by mother nature a major disaster--FEMA faces a problem: There often is not enough home damage at disaster sites for the agency to maximize the gifts that it bestows upon would-be voters. So FEMA liberalized that standard by allowing anyone whose home has suffered more than $100 in damage and is deemed eligible to apply for a federal handout.

A report by the inspector general found that 89 percent of the recipients of federal home repair allotments said their homes were habitable. But with FEMA, where there's a handout, there's a way.

While the original program limited the use of federal grants to making homes habitable, FEMA now gives money to people to buy new carpets, cabinets and other accoutrements of a comfortable life--all at other people's expense.

The inspector general concluded that more than a third of the home repair money FEMA doled out in recent disasters went to pay for items that should not have been covered under federal law.

FEMA now routinely bankrolls lavish new buildings to replace those buildings that have received a trivial amount of damage. After the Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles Times reported: "If a single ceiling tile fell from a classroom, or a single light fixture was jarred loose, the entire [school or college] campus could qualify for more-quakeproof ceilings or lights, courtesy of FEMA's mitigation fund. In Los Angeles, many schools fit that bill."

FEMA also donated $5.6 million to fix the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium (home of the Disney-owned Anaheim Angels) and $88 million for repairs and upgrades to the Los Angeles Coliseum, former home of the NFL Raiders. After flash floods in the Palms Springs area in 1993 (in what is perhaps an example of Clinton's compassion for his big Democratic donors out West), FEMA paid "$871,977 to repair erosion, cart paths and sprinklers at the Indian Wells Golf Resort in California and $246,102 to fix the fairways, greens and cart paths at the Palm Springs Golf Course."

FEMA apparently sees itself as national therapist. Lest you think the agency only pampers the well-to-do, consider this: After one earthquake, FEMA gave $152,137 to the Los Angeles Alliance for a Drug Free Community, $152,137 to the Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment and $365,354 to the Asian American Drug Abuse Program. Were drug addicts unduly shaken by the quake's bad vibes? The money was intended for crisis counseling. In fact, FEMA doused southern California with a total of $36 million for crisis counseling in 1994.

One recent study showed that after a natural disaster, suicide rates go up and stay up for several months. Does that represent a pressing need? The heightened rate boils down to about two additional suicides for every 100,000 survivors.

Now the agency routinely funds crisis counseling after a disaster. After North Dakota was hit by floods in early 1997, FEMA awarded a $712,000 crisis-counseling grant, which paid 200 "paraprofessionals" to counsel trauma victims. A writer for a FEMA tabloid bragged that the crisis counselors visited elderly women at a nursing hospital and "let the women reminisce for hours about earlier, more peaceful years in Grand Forks."

While crisis counseling is a popular way to shed money, the National Flood Insurance Program is FEMA's crown jewel. Unfortunately, the heavily subsidized flood insurance bribes people to ignore common sense.

A March 19, 1997 report in The Idaho Statesman on the recent deluge by the Boise River concluded that the NFIP "has backfired, putting more people in harm's way" and has made risky development "look not only possible but attractive." Doug Hardman, coordinator for Boise--Ada County Emergency Services, says subsidized flood insurance "has done the opposite of what it was designed to do. It has encouraged people to move here and developers to develop here." Scott Faber of American Rivers, a conservation organization, observes, "Prior to the Sixties, you didn't have much development in flood-prone areas because you couldn't find an insurer crazy enough to underwrite it. But the federal government came along and said it would cover any damage, making it financially possible for people to live in a floodplain."

Now when floods occur, far more property is damaged. That's one way to create clients. In some cases private insurance companies would charge a $10,000 annual premium for an insurance policy that FEMA gives away for a few hundred dollars a year. Should we have 40 days of rain (or even fewer), American taxpayers face more than $400 billion in liability.

When disaster strikes, FEMA makes sure everyone gets soaked.

"If a Ceiling Tile fell from a Classroom, the Entire Campus could Qualify for more-quake-proof Ceilings."