The Public Policy: The Floyd Fiasco
Bovard, James
This is the background image for an unknown creator of an OCR page with image plus hidden text. would suffer an astonishing $ 7 billion in damage. (Later he conceded this was "purely a...
...Almost $ 3 billion has been spent in the last two decades "repairing and rebuilding the same structures two, three and four times...
...The 1998 damage was greater than it otherwise would have been because FEMA had extended the sewer system after the previous hurricane, thus opening the door to new development...
...Treasury because of heavy borrowings to cover its massive losses in recent years, even before the surge of claims pending from Floyd...
...President, with federal flood insurance, is the government encouraging coastal development at a time when we may be in a new cycle of more dangerous and more frequent storms...
...One Houston home suffered 16 floods...
...When the former threaten to make their presence felt, the latter demand equal billing...
...Later he conceded this was "purely a guess...
...Forget-and-forgive" is FEMA's attitude toward repeat flood claimants...
...A ll of this post-disaster benevolence almost makes one forget that it was government policies that helped place many in harm's way in the first place...
...At a televised press conference at FEMA headquarters Clinton was asked, "Mr...
...Federal relief spending over a three-year period amounted to more than $1o,000 for each permanent resident on the island, according to the Associated Press...
...Witt has peddled this schlock ever since he arrived at FEMA in 1993...
...In reality, the NFIP is more than $70o million in debt to the U.S...
...In 1998, the island was hit by another hurricane—and FEMA rushed in to spend another $io million...
...The Tampa Tribune noted that such an order "would earn political points along the Atlantic seaboard...
...Under this theory, the threat of losing one's life is not sufficient to leave the coast—unless the government also promises to force other citizens to pay for your gas...
...But it would likely be unpopular in the rest of the state, where homeowners would have to foot much of the bill...
...FEMA Director Witt jumped in: "You know, without the Federal Flood Insurance Program, without 19,000 communities across America being in that program, it not only has saved probably close to $750 million a year in disaster dollars that taxpayers pay...
...Florida Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson is now pressuring FEMA to compensate state residents who had extra gas and lodging costs because of the evacuation order...
...And the federal Flood Insurance Program is supported by flood premiums, not taxpayers' dollars...
...After the storm was over, President Clinton began urging North Carolina residents to "take advantage" of the federal aid elixir...
...Once Clinton issued his pre-emptive emergency declaration, state and local officials were free to rev up spending and send the bill to Washington...
...And once again, FEMA will come in and bail out Topsail Island, the lucky spot where Floyd finally made landfall...
...77 to low- and moderate-income individuals, Small Business Administration loans for business and personal property disaster, Agriculture Department emergency loans to farmers who suffered crop or chicken losses, reimbursement for paying the cost of clearing roads and carrying away downed trees, and more...
...FEMA's repeated bailouts of flood victims and local governments are hell on the environment...
...would suffer an astonishing $ 7 billion in damage...
...After FEMA did not jump at the opportunity, Nelson—who is a Democratic candidate for the U.S...
...The Treasury Depai tnient has written off more than a billion dollars in previous loans to the NFIP, thereby proThe American Spectator • November 1999 moting the fiction that the program is not an actuarial rathole...
...Senate next year—announced that he is considering ordering insurance companies to compensate homeowners, even when their homes suffered no damage...
...The American people know that no individual can handle this alone," he said, announcing a special distribution of federal food stamps to people who would not normally qualify for such handouts...
...At a time when North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt sought to discourage rebuilding on the island, FEMA came in and deluged the area with more than Sioo million to rebuild private and public facilities damaged by two hurricanes in 1996...
...Florida, which would suffer little damage, was promised the feds would cover 75 percent of overtime for police, firefighters, and other government workers and other related costs in response to the proclaimed emergency...
...By the time the weather calms, it's not clear which of them caused the bigger mess...
...The backups by then were massive...
...its owner collected more than $800,000 in compensation for repair costs...
...It] has undermined years of efforts to discourage unwise development...
...Florida Insurance Department spokesman Don Pride observed: "If people aren't reimbursed when they're ordered out, it may be a disincentive for them to obey...
...Floyd's devastation in North Carolina is a reminder of how federal flood insurance spurs development along "hurricane alley...
...A National Wildlife Foundation study estimated that two percent of properties covered by federal flood insurance had "multiple losses accounting for 6o percent of the program's total claims, and more than 5,600 properties had collected claims exceeding the total value of the property...
...Hurricanes and governments have developed an odd, symbiotic relationship...
...In a speech in Tarboro, North Carolina, Clinton recited a long list of federal benefits available to flood victims and urged the audience: "So you all need to take advantage of these things...
...The more the federal government gives, the more demanding state and local governments can become...
...The Charlotte News Observer noted in 1997 that FEMA's "bailout [after earlier hurricanes] has reimbursed resort towns for just about any piece of public property that blew away in the storm...
...A White House press release listed the array of benefits—from disaster housing assistance (to cover the cost of a hotel while people are forced out due to home damage), grants 44 Officials dragged their feet for eight hours before ordering the lanes reversed...
...Consider the experience of Topsail Island, a 26-mile island off the North Carolina coast...
...American taxpayers currently face over $400 billion of exposure from NFIP policies...
Vol. 32 • November 1999 • No. 11
