{
  "id": "2005-novemberdecember-probing-femas-chronic-illness",
  "slug": "2005-novemberdecember-probing-femas-chronic-illness",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-probing-femas-chronic-illness.html",
  "year": 2005,
  "month": "November/December",
  "monthNum": 11,
  "headline": "Probing FEMA's chronic illness",
  "kicker": "AFTER A HURRICANE",
  "author_name": "John Maines",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "South Florida Sun-Sentinel",
  "summary": "The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's year-long investigation into FEMA revealed systemic waste, fraud, and a lack of accountability in disaster relief payments.",
  "keywords": [
    "FEMA",
    "Fraud",
    "Disaster Relief"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Government & Politics",
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "ArcGIS"
  ],
  "full_text": "The meltdown of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to Hurricane Katrina stunned America and the rest of the world. At the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, there was a lot less surprise. By the time Katrina hit New Orleans, we had spent the better part of a year documenting troubles with the FEMA relief efforts that followed Florida's four hurricanes in 2004. We found one problem after another, ranging from widespread fraud and waste in the agency's disaster assistance program to the discovery that many FEMA housing inspectors had criminal histories. Our work led to a U.S. Senate investigation and a demand by senators for sweeping changes at FEMA to shore up sloppiness and improve accountability. FEMA responded to 313 declared disasters across the United States and in U.S. territories between 1999 and 2004. We mapped out the money by ZIP code using ArcGIS 9 and compared our data maps to any document we could find – public records of damage in these areas, newspaper stories, police or fire calls, ambulance runs, public utility flooding reports, and the National Climatic Data Center's storm events database. During the investigation Sun-Sentinel reporters visited the inner cities of Baton Rouge, Cleveland, Detroit, and Los Angeles. In each, residents told us almost mirror versions of what we had heard in Miami: FEMA was an easy mark. As a result of the Sun-Sentinel's articles, in May hearings were held before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Two months later the committee sent then-FEMA director Brown a letter saying \"serious shortcomings\" existed in the nation's disaster relief program that \"allowed taxpayer dollars to be wasted.\" FEMA announced a series of reforms in its Building on Success report, outlining plans for greater scrutiny or work by inspectors, who now are required to take photographs of damaged property.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
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      "slug": "1993-junejuly-reporters-find-femas-secret-funding-of-fallout-shelter",
      "score": 0.326
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  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-probing-femas-chronic-illness.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-novemberdecember-probing-femas-chronic-illness.json"
}