Fema

TUCKED AWAY in the fine print of the Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 budget is a new tax next year on more than 5 million home mortgage borrowers and those who refinance.You probably haven't read or heard about the proposed new home financing tax yet because it's buried in a place where most people in the housing field wouldn't expect to find it -- the new budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). You might miss it, too, because the White House doesn't call it a tax. It's a "mortgage transaction fee."

Maryland and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are opening four disaster recovery centers in northern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore tomorrow to help residents and businesses devastated by flooding from Hurricane Floyd.People in the 11 Maryland counties President Clinton declared federal disaster areas last week should call FEMA's toll-free number before going to the centers, said Crystal Payton, a FEMA spokeswoman.Clinton authorized federal disaster funds Friday for Anne Arundel, Calvert, Caroline, Cecil, Charles, Harford, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, St. Mary's and Talbot counties.

Why not 2K?OK, so Jan. 1, 2000, probably isn't going to be the end of civilization as we know it. But why not take a few precautions around the home, just in case there are minor disruptions in our computer-driven society caused by the turn of the millennium? Especially if those precautions aren't costly, make sense as general disaster preparedness and don't contribute to the millennial hysteria.As 1999 winds down, it's no longer just the extremists suggesting we should be ready for problems created by the so-called millennium bug, which could cause some computers to shut down because they won't know how to calculate the year 2000 (otherwise known as Y2K)

The Disaster Recovery Center in Westminster will be open until 6 p.m tomorrow for residents applying for emergency flood disaster relief.The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Maryland Emergency Management Agency encourage people who sustained flood damage to visit the center.Help will still be available after the centers close through the Small Business Administration loan officers on site and FEMA Community Relations teams in the disaster areas.FEMA can be called from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week at (800)

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials were blushing yesterday after learning they had published a wrong number in a news release about federal aid for flood victims that had callers reaching a recorded advertisement for a phone sex line.The incorrect number was listed as a TTD number for the hearing-impaired and was printed in Wednesday's Carroll County Times."It was our mistake," said Mary Margaret Walker, a FEMA spokeswoman.The correct number for hearing-impaired people who need information about disaster relief is 1-800-462-7585.

Federal funding for Anne Arundel County shelters, food banks and other agencies that help the poor with emergency needs is down more than $40,000 from last year, but the number of people who need help is going up.The decrease, part of the congressional cutback in spending on social programs, also means the nonprofit agencies administering many of the programs will have to scramble to make up the difference.The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will give $139,637 to county nonprofit organizations recommended for grants by a board of representatives from county agencies and charities.

WASHINGTON -- Webster Hubbell: Convicted of swindling money from his former law firm.David Watkins: Fired for using the president's helicopter for a Frederick County golf trip.M. Joycelyn Elders: Booted for agreeing that masturbation should be taught in public schools.It's no secret that President Clinton's high-profile appointees from his home state haven't fared well since coming to town. Many of them have been forced to pack their bags and head back to Arkansas.But one appointee has turned into a surprising success story for the president.

5/8 TC Harford County has been allocated $45,639 by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist with local emergency food and shelter programs.The money will be disbursed to private voluntary and governmental agencies that provide food, clothing, lodging, utilities and rental assistance to needy Harford families.Last year's grant of $43,786 was divided among 15 charitable organizations, including the Salvation Army, Harford Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, Harford Interfaith Community, ECHCO House, the Sexual Assault/Spouse Abuse Resource Center.

The violent windstorms that ripped apart three working-class neighborhoods Tuesday were classified yesterday as tornadoes, whose destructiveness was muted by the widespread vacancies in the poor communities they hit.Of the 125 homes damaged in the storm, 36 were not occupied, city officials said. Many of the vacant city-owned buildings in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown were scheduled for demolition.On street after street, large flatbed trucks lined nose-to-tail as residents moved their belongings from their houses and apartments for the trip to storage.

In the largest civil settlement ever reached by federal prosecutors in Maryland, a major computer services company has agreed to pay $3.2 million to resolve claims that it falsely billed the Federal Emergency Management Agency.The settlement, announced yesterday, resolves an investigation into Computer Sciences Corp.'s billing for services provided to FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program.Computer Sciences is an international company based in El Segundo, Calif. But the investigation targeted billing practices out of the company's Lanham office, where its Health and Administrative Services Division employs about 200 people.

NEW ORLEANS - A Federal Emergency Management Agency official says Hurricane Gustav evacuees whose homes remain uninhabitable can have their hotel costs paid by FEMA. David Garratt, a deputy assistant administrator for the agency, said last night that the aid won't be available for short-term evacuees who fled the storm, spent a few nights in a hotel and then returned home. Rather FEMA's program pays for "extended stays" in hotels for people who can't return to their homes because of power outages, damage or for other reasons related to the storm.

NEW ORLEANS -- Inside trailer No. 27 here at the A.L. Davis Playground, where the government set up a camp last year for residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Tracy Bernard's meager possessions are all packed up, even though she has nowhere to go. About a month ago, workers for the Federal Emergency Management Agency swept through her trailer park, a bleak tableau of housing of the last resort, taping eviction notices on the flimsy doors. Thousands of other trailer residents across Louisiana were informed by FEMA last week that they would also be evicted in the next six months.

Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, put it best recently in the Congressional Record when he spoke in favor of a bill he has fought hard to pass: "As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press," Mr. Pence said. "The Free Flow of Information Act is not about protecting reporters; it's about protecting the public's right to know." The bill, which would give journalists qualified protection from revealing their sources in federal cases, passed the House, 398-21, and has strong, bipartisan support in the Senate, where both the House bill and a Senate version are under consideration.

FEMA learns lessons and responds faster The Sun's editorial suggesting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not applied the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina is simply wrong ("Lessons unlearned," Aug. 29). FEMA's response to Hurricane Dean, as well as to the numerous tornadoes, storms and floods that have struck the nation this year, demonstrates that we have made significant reforms in our business processes and culture. And these reforms are working. After each disaster, senior FEMA leaders were in contact with our partners in state and local government.

The Bush administration's indifference to ordinary Americans' well-being is encapsulated in the latest Federal Emergency Management Agency scandal: Last year, field workers e-mailed Washington that hurricane victims in government-provided trailers were experiencing health problems and suggested testing the trailers for toxic chemicals. Top FEMA officials said no. They feared the results would show a problem, and the government then would have a duty to do something about it. In China, a leader caught out in such an appalling violation of public trust would be executed.

WASHINGTON -- Top officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency knew about - but suppressed - reports of possible health problems from formaldehyde in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina victims, according to documents released yesterday by a House committee. The warnings from Gulf Coast field workers were kept quiet because "senior FEMA officials in Washington ... didn't want the moral and legal responsibility to do what they knew had to be done," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as he opened a hearing into the agency's response.

WASHINGTON -- Condemning the bureaucracy at the Federal Emergency Management Agency as "Kafkaesque," a federal judge ordered the government yesterday to immediately resume housing payments to Gulf Coast residents who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina. Six months after Katrina ravaged the region in August last year, FEMA began ending benefit payments to several thousand families still in temporary housing and unable to return to their homes. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the agency had violated the evacuees' rights by not adequately explaining why it was ending the benefits, making it difficult for storm victims to appeal the decisions.

Editor's Note: Marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Workers column starts a three-week series of firsthand accounts from Maryland-based employees who went to Louisiana. Jon Ayscue, 59, of Baltimore has worked as a Federal Emergency Management Agency reservist for four years. Before joining FEMA, Ayscue worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. Ayscue served in a variety of posts during his five months in Louisiana, including chief of staff to the federal coordinating officer for the state of Louisiana, the No. 2 FEMA post in the state.

There never will be another Hurricane Katrina. Not long after the weather system that began inauspiciously over the Bahamas as Tropical Depression 12 brewed into an ugly storm with a comely name and struck the Gulf Coast one year ago today, the World Meteorological Organization retired its appellation to the ranks of hurricanes so notorious for their destructive power that they are a genre unto themselves. But as surely as the sun rises and sets, there will be another hurricane equal to or greater than Katrina.

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Federal emergency officials say they have improved the logistics, communication and equipment problems that were exposed by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma last year. David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters in a conference call Friday that his office has worked since last hurricane season to fix the issues that left many people without help after devastating storms. "We have a lot of issues inside of FEMA," he said. "There were a lot of systems that were not in place and a lot of things that need to be fixed.