The Mayor is not happy...

About FEMA. More like, everyone's mad at the local FEMA reaction to Ike.  Here's why.

According to Mayor Bill White, FEMA’s efforts to help disaster victims have fallen short.  The stats:  400,000 applications.  288,000 of those applications have been referred for assistance.  Just 37,000 have actually been approved.

“There's too much bureaucracy,” said a frustrated White.  “People are not acting with a sense of urgency.”

Part of the problem?  Many FEMA officials come here for a few weeks, and then are rotated out.  It makes for a tough learning curve.  The agency’s newest spokesperson says it may not be able to improve things.

“We’re trying to move as quickly as we can, yes, it's a bureaucratic system,” conceded new spokesperson Jack Heesch.

“Are you saying there's no realistic way of speeding things up and cutting through the red tape?” I asked. ” I uh, don't know the red tape part, we're moving as quickly as we can,” said Heesch.

Comments

[Juan Beltran]

Thanks for the awsome job your doing. You really take a no nosense approach to the reports that your doing. In my opinion your one of my Fav. news persons. Is their a way that i can get an autograph picture of you?
N-E-Way, keep up the good work.

[anthony]

Hey Miya,

I caught your Visions Segment this past Sunday. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I noticed you mispronounced "Vietnamese" several times. I would expect this from non-asian, but coming from a person who represents the Asian community is unacceptable. If you want the respect of your viewers, I suggest that you not make this mistake again.