Disaster? What Disaster?
FEMA Response In Dumas Lacking
Last updated Wednesday, March 7, 2007 5:56 PM CST in Columns
By John Brummett
The Morning News
A tornado that kills children in Alabama is worse than one that injures a few dozen people in Arkansas.
Of course President Bush would hurry to Alabama. Of course a formal disaster declaration providing all manner of services would be made for Alabama within 48 hours.
Attaboy, Mr. President. Your response was a darned sight better than after Katrina.
Meanwhile, though, back in Dumas, where they had a downtown business district until Saturday a week ago, some people have started to grumble an ugly word -- "politics."
U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., says he doesn't intend to let FEMA get away with bragging on itself for its efforts in Alabama. From his vantage point as the congressman representing South Arkansas, he looks east to a flattened central section of Dumas and west to 9,000 idle mobile homes in Hope. It seems like the same old FEMA to him.
An unidentified FEMA official was quoted by CNN as saying Arkansas could always handle the Dumas situation out of its own surplus. So now we're means-testing federal aid? If so, states with histories of bad weather had best beware of responsible budgeting.
Alabama is a Republican state. Arkansas is a Democratic state. But this White House wouldn't dare distinguish among human suffering by whether a state was red or blue. Would it?
One can only wonder if Mike Huckabee might have had more luck with this current regime or whether Mike Beebe would be having better luck if we could fast-forward a couple of years to the Obama or Clinton administration.
At this writing, 11 days after the Dumas tornado, all we know is that Alabama got an affirmative answer in two days while Arkansas has yet to receive any answer at all.
What's interesting is how and why FEMA distinguishes between tornadoes. The worst are called disasters. Some lesser ones are called emergencies, which is what Beebe requested for Dumas. Some get called nothing, apparently, because uninsured losses don't amount to $3.2 million.
The distinction turns on pure randomness. It comes down to whether victims have insurance and whether public infrastructure, which counts as uninsured, gets damaged.
Dumas' tornado struck business establishments, industrial plants and chain grocery and dollar stores, most or all of which were insured. It hit mostly homes that were insured. It knocked out power lines operated by a private company, Entergy, which is presumed to have insurance.
Had Dumas been served by the nonprofit electric co-operatives, like similarly damaged Marmaduke last year, FEMA would have counted the repair costs for downed power lines as uninsured losses.
Had the tornado knocked out a bridge rather than homes, or washed away a road rather than flattened a Mad Butcher with 48 people cowering in the freezer, then Dumas would be a higher FEMA priority.
One other thing: All these distinctions are mere "guidelines." FEMA and the White House can easily waive them. Oh, and another thing: The president makes the final decision. Beebe's letter is not addressed to FEMA. It begins, "Dear Mr. President."
Arkansas officials aren't asking for much. They want to haul a few trailers from those fully furnished ones parked by FEMA about three hours away. The state also seeks to make these stores, offices and industrial plants -- which provided 600 jobs that are now lost for weeks to months -- eligible for Small Business Administration financing favors.
The governments of Dumas and Desha County will need financial help. The city is paying overtime at the very time its economy has ground to a halt because 600 people aren't working and most of the sales-taxing stores got obliterated.
Rural Arkansas gets the short end again. The new economy gravitates to service sector jobs in urban and metropolitan areas. Now FEMA wants to see more uninsured damage than a poor Delta town can necessarily produce.
brummett shirttail
About this columnist
John Brummett has been writing about Arkansas and national politics for three decades and as a regular columnist since 1986. Email Brummett at jbrummett@arkansasnews.com.
Click here to read his blog.
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Yellow-Dog Democrat wrote on Mar 8, 2007 2:28 PM: