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Evacuees Struggle to Receive Services

by TChris

For all the promises to cut through red tape, there are still thousands of evacuees who aren't receiving the services they need. In fact, government officials still can't get a handle on the number of survivors and they don't know where many of them ended up.

"I don't see much evidence of overall planning and guidance," said Richard Murray, a public policy expert in Houston, which is hosting thousands of evacuees.

In an e-mail, Murray, who is director of the University of Houston's Center for Public Policy, wrote: "Couple a multi-state disaster of Katrina's magnitude, (including some of the poorer and less well-governed states in the union), add on a dysfunctional federal bureaucracy that had deteriorated in recent years, and a chief executive whose motto seemed to be, until yesterday, the buck stops there, and we get a helluva mess."

In his Thursday speech, President Bush asked each evacuee to register with FEMA because "we need to know who you are." But evacuees who have called FEMA daily haven't been able to get through to register.

Survivors such as Louise Dilsenroth and Sandra Brent, who has diabetes, have had similar problems in Mississippi. The women spent hours last week waiting in line to get a number that would allow them to enter a Red Cross facility to speak with an official. Brent said she had spent three days so far, trying to get a number. She has not had access to insulin since the hurricane hit.

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller wants to know where she might find some of the $12 billion Congress appropriated for disaster relief two weeks ago. Her city houses 25,000 evacuees but depends on its own limited resources and private charities to help them. School districts are having the same problem. Says Bruce Hunter of the American Association of School Administrators: "The federal government really hasn't provided much of anything."

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  • Re: Evacuees Struggle to Receive Services (none / 0) (#1)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:00 PM EST
    They are still on their own. I wonder how much things have changed since the 1927 floods. Years ago, I recall hearing John Lee Hooker sing the haunting old blues song about the event called "I Rowed a Little Boat." You know I rowed a little boat, five miles 'cross the pond You know I rowed a little boat, 'bout five miles 'cross the pond I throwed my things in the little boat, it rolled me right along It was thunderin' and lightnin', but it rolled me right along It was thunderin', it was lightnin', Oh yeah, it rolled me right along There were thousands of people, they didn't have no place to go, mmm Little children they were screamin' and cryin', Oh yeah The wind was howlin', they didn't have no place to go, mmm There were thousands o' people, they's goin' from door to door, mmm My little boat kept rollin', it kept on rollin', You know it rolled me right along Mmm-mmm, Kept on rollin, Kept on rollin' Kept on rollin' Kept on rollin', Rollin'