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Helping hand?
FEMA: Helping hand? Not!
Date published: 12/21/2004
FEMA gets low marks THERE ARE SOME who hold that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is the devil's handmaiden, the government organization that is secretly planning the takeover of our free American republic, herding citizens into concentration camps with the help of black helicopters. We suspect that FEMA is a bit more benign. Still, the agency's reputation in the Old Dominion among even nonconspiratorialists has been besmirched by the way it handled claims after Hurricane Isabel's visit to the state in 2003. Now to mediate come 1st District Republican Rep. Jo Ann Davis and Sen. George Allen. Both have sent letters to outgoing Homeland Security Administration chief Tom Ridge and outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting a review of FEMA's handling of flood claims. By January, the state and federal governments had paid out $257 million in assistance to individuals and businesses affected by the massive storm, but were those payments fair? Advocates have found that many homeowners received low-ball settlement offers. Those who appealed often got more. Alas, only 6 percent of the victims did so; most were lulled into complacency by the blue-jacketed adjusters who visited them. Citizens thought the blue jackets were FEMA workers who would do the right thing. They were not. They were contract adjusters from Computer Sciences Corp. "We need to pay people what they are due," notes Mrs. Davis. "I've learned that these CSC adjusters wrongly told my shocked, bewildered, and unsuspecting constituents they were not entitled to the benefits they were seeking." In fact, former Maryland insurance commissioner Steven Larsen released a study in February that found that relief payouts from Hurricane Isabel were very unfair. The report uncovered a discrepancy between payments and the real costs of home repairs, misleading information from adjusters, and pressure on homeowners to settle, reports The Baltimore Sun.
Date published: 12/21/2004
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