Fema Quotations | Page 2

You have people waiting for five or six hours to have a operator come online, ... At least FEMA gave people the opportunity to apply over the Internet.

Though the City has some concerns, overall the new flood maps released by FEMA today truly represent some good news for us and our rebuilding process. Essentially, these new maps more or less maintain the standards already previously enforced at the 100-year flood elevation levels.

We don't have details on how to apply for FEMA assistance or how to contact the Red Cross or the Army Corps of Engineers or any other public or private relief agencies.

We are looking at three weeks or more, then the president will declare a disaster and FEMA will begin working with them for permanent arrangements. What the Red Cross is responsible for is immediate mass care. We are a safe harbor until they get homes and lives back together.

We are like a lot of people - at the mercy of FEMA with this.

We were all wearing FEMA shirts. I struck up a conversation with one of the marshals, and halfway through the 40-second conversation, he stopped me and said, 'Get rid of the T-shirt. You will die with that T-shirt on.' There were 50 shirts coming off.

We've been working around the clock sending FEMA personnel to the Scotia Prince and other cruise ships to make sure that every single family staying on board has received long-term housing assistance, or if they haven't, to get them signed up right away.

What we've been doing is providing them with the wherewithal until FEMA can kick in and they can make it long term,

We're trying to save lives. The rescue teams are FEMA people. The medical assistance are FEMA people. Right now, getting people off roofs and keeping people from drowning are a priority.

We offered to move him to another office far away from the FEMA building, where he could do no harm, ... We told him that he would have a nice desk, a telephone and a secretary, and that he could spend all day rewriting his resume.

We offered a range of services. Some people needed food, and many disabled residents and seniors were asking for assistance. We set up telephones for public use, set up computers so residents could send e-mails, provided information on available housing, and helped file applications to FEMA for assistance.

We are working closely with FEMA to determine the capabilities that are required in the state. When you say 15,000 troops, what do you mean? You have to refine that.

We have been communicating that with them since November. We are sure that most of our people have already made contact with FEMA to make sure that they are on list so that they can take over their own rent agreement.

We saw buses, helicopters and FEMA trucks but no one stopped to help us. We never felt so cut off in all our lives.

The program is designed to cover you damages or buy your house at your pre-storm equity. It's capped at $150,000... net of other insurance proceeds or other FEMA aid.

There are published guidelines when FEMA will adjust the cost share.

This will help our schools tremendously. Their budgets have been strained, and they have had to use reserve funds to be able to reopen schools while paperwork for insurance and FEMA is being processed.

The part that is related to FEMA we can get back, but trips to the zoo, to the mall and to the movies we have to incur, ... I'll have to find the money by cutting something else because we will not say no to helping evacuees.

The parking lots of the hotels around Jackson were jammed with various vehicles - power companies, county ambulances, relief trucks like ours, FEMA vehicles, fire and rescue trucks. FEMA was controlling all of the hotel rooms. It was kind of exciting, being at the center of the relief effort.

There are about a thousand churches right here in Houston, and a lot of them are helping people with housing, but FEMA says they can't reimburse faith-based organizations,

Filling out the paperwork right is something that unfortunately we have learned how to do. FEMA is not the easiest entity in the world to deal with,

Both symbolically and also because of the job he did, ... No one person is ever at fault. I don't mean to imply that. But symbolically, it was necessary. FEMA in general has serious improving to do.

The governor's involvement was merely facilitating contact with a corporate citizen of Florida that was seeking to provide immediate housing relief. Any assertion the governor had to do with any contracting negotiations or further action by FEMA is unfounded.

Yes there's a better way to organize it... we look forward to working with the committee. I think we all share the same common goal and that is having a strong, capable FEMA that is better able to serve the American people when they're in greatest need.

We were disturbed the president moved too slowly, that FEMA looked too disorganized.

While they seem to be willing to pay the cost of housing hurricane victims, it is not clear that FEMA would agree to make long-term payments to the state to house the homeless in these apartments.

While they may not have seen a person like myself in a FEMA shirt, they may have seen other disaster workers and again in the very beginning the volunteer agencies were providing support and that is the way the system is designed.

Tom Benson & X FEMA Director Inside. No Open.

The Red Cross didn't ask FEMA to come in. We serve people through the Red Cross. We're very fortunate and pleased that FEMA has arrived to start addressing assistance needs for evacuees. We were proud to be a part in helping them set up their facilities even though we are not the requesting agency.

We had to ask FEMA for permission to practically do anything, including use the outhouses.

What part of the FEMA plan envisioned that the first responders in Hancock County and much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast would have to loot the local grocery store and loot the local Wal-Mart in order to feed themselves, would have to loot the local Wal-Mart in order to have a change of clothes?

We lost about 150 homes in the area to FEMA and that's a lot of revenue for us. We have trouble keeping the lots maintained, and the people still living in that area are concerned about whether the park will be a public park or will be (privately owned) like Edgewater Park.

We are certainly pleased by the president's actions and look forward to working with FEMA (Federal Emergency management Agency) to get assistance going to the home and business owners hardest hit by the storms.

We are certainly changing our approach. The guidance we have had from FEMA is you need to be able to hang on for 72 hours, and we'll be there.

We certainly have to fill out the ranks of FEMA in terms of its senior level with experienced staff.

We are trying to get a feel for what is available. We are not going to run shelters for a long time. We are going to try to get people into housing options, or FEMA may try to get them back to their home states.

We spent a lot of time trying to understand the new FEMA rules. That has not been a satisfying experience.

We think it's very important. We want feedback from all our citizens. This is not an opportunity to sign up for a FEMA trailer or certain programs. This is an opportunity for them to tell us what would make them come back home.

We are still administering the program at this time. But we are in discussions with FEMA as to when and if a transition in administration will occur.

East Texas needs everyone's attention this hour, right now, and it doesn't matter whether it's the state or FEMA or the Corps of Engineers. I don't really care whose fault it is. It needs help now. These communities are the last to complain, but they've reached the end.

every day that we delay professionalizing FEMA and depoliticizing it is another day that taxpayers' money is being spent by an agency which has been demonstrated under these circumstances to be incompetent.

Every FEMA employee should have a FEMA photo ID. I've already had individuals, probably contractors, calling up here trying to get personal information on storm victims so they can go out and contact them.

As it is currently designed, the program is not achieving the outcome it should. We've asked FEMA several times if this program can be scaled back, and be run more upon need.

At the maximum occupancy level, this equates to $416,000 per evacuee. We understand that FEMA terminated the lease and returned the improved property to the Joint Powers Authority.

Disasters are very hard to get your arms around early on. In the early stages of a disaster, you can either underestimate it, as FEMA did, or you can overestimate it, as the mayor did.

Cruise ships provided over two million meals, plus housing for over 8,000 hurricane victims, first responders, and representatives from eighteen federal and state agencies. Carnival Cruise Lines, Captain Angelo Los, and the staff of both the Ecstasy and the Sensation have been tremendous partners with FEMA throughout this recovery process.

Due to computer problems with the online application, we inadvertently had duplicate applications. Because of this we have received nothing and even though we have repeatedly spoken to the FEMA helpline, there is no answer as to when it will get resolved.

FEMA is working aggressively to fill the remaining positions.

FEMA is so disorganized that it's buying ice, trucking it all over the country and placing it as far as possible from the people who could use it.

FEMA is moving supplies and equipment into the hardest hit areas as quickly as possible,

FEMA is going to be here. We're not going to leave Mississippi until we're done.

FEMA is going to be here. We are going to make sure that you get taken care of.

FEMA is discredited, demoralized and dysfunctional. It is beyond repair. Just tweaking the organizational chart will not solve the problem.

FEMA is committed to helping provide a clean, safe learning environment so students in the impacted areas of the state can move forward with their educational experience. We will continue to work with local and state officials and our federal partners to ensure local communities have the facilities needed to help instruct Mississippi 's future leaders.

FEMA is already looking to areas other than where the disaster started. They call it free money, and they are giving it to their friends.

FEMA in efforts to make sure these folks found shelter as quickly as humanly possible said go ahead and sign leases. Do whatever it takes to make sure these people had a roof over their heads.

FEMA has proven to be a shell of what it once was and has been unable, and seemingly unwilling, to provide the direct and immediate resources necessary in the aftermath of the most devastating natural disaster in American history,

FEMA has promised us 100 percent reimbursement on our expenses. The governor said he didn't want to hear about one human need that did not get met because of the paperwork.

FEMA has pre-positioned many assets including ice, water, food and rescue teams to move into the stricken areas as soon as it is safe to do so.

FEMA has lost its way. FEMA has been submerged in a sea of bureaucracy,

FEMA has better resources and ... it brings more to the table now than it did in the previous five, six, seven years.

FEMA has been appropriated some $60 billion, and as far as we know there's still about $40 billion that's not specifically dedicated to certain expenditures, ... FEMA could be allowed to use some of that money to float these local governments in the short term.

FEMA has become a symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy in which the American people have completely lost faith. There are many good people who work at FEMA. But they have lacked the leaders, the tools, the systems, and the budget to be effective.

FEMA has a substantial challenge in balancing the need to get the money out quickly to those who are actually in need and sustaining public confidence in disaster programs by taking all possible steps to minimize fraud and abuse.

FEMA has asked us for temporary housing land that we have available.

FEMA has a responsibility to protect lives and property, and to ensue that disaster re-building efforts use the best data available. We also have responsibility to ensure that federal tax dollars are spent wisely and cost-effectively. It makes no sense to rebuild using outdated data.

FEMA has a responsibility to ensure that disaster rebuilding efforts use the best data available... It makes no sense to rebuild using outdated data.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is too white to represent us and so is the Red Cross, so we're going to demand our place at the table,

FEMA didn't have any food for those people in Gretna. They didn't give me any food. I didn't have any water. My obligations are to the people of Jefferson Parish.

FEMA continues to be able to mess up a one-car funeral -- we don't begin to have enough money for major reconstruction,

FEMA City is now a socioeconomic time bomb just waiting to blow up. You throw together all these very different people under already tremendous stress, and bad things will happen. And this is the really difficult part: In our county, there's no other place for many of them to go.

FEMA can be turned around. But I don't think it can be turned around within Homeland Security.

FEMA called Wednesday to say they would accept our bid,

FEMA alone will likely require $100 billion in additional funding,

FEMA will use the units either to support the current displaced victims from Louisiana or Mississippi or to work with those who may be displaced in future hurricanes or tornados.

FEMA will reimburse the county for our salaries while we are on assignment,

FEMA will not have this preparedness burden on it anymore,

FEMA will be there for years working on this.

FEMA went from being a laughingstock to one of the most effective federal agencies we had, ... A lot of that was due to the quality of the personnel.

FEMA urges anyone who sustained losses as a result of Hurricane Katrina to complete and mail in the completed SBA loan application as soon as possible. Even if the applicant feels they would not qualify for a loan, filling out the application is the first necessary step to being considered for other forms of disaster assistance or grants.

FEMA strongly recommends that communities build higher and stronger to reduce vulnerability from flooding during future hurricanes. FEMA provides this kind of advisory information to local governments -- but ultimately it is state and local officials, working with their citizens, who make final decisions on land use and other building code requirements.

FEMA strongly recommends communities build higher and stronger to reduce vulnerability from flooding during future hurricanes.

FEMA still does not know any more about what it was doing last week than it was a month ago, ... an incompetent agency.

FEMA should not be hindered by a top-heavy bureaucracy when they are needed to act swiftly to save lives.

FEMA said we needed to show an ID or a PG&E bill, anything to verify our previous address.

FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours,

FEMA payments for hotel or motel rooms will end on Feb 7 for those who did not obtain a code. Once a family has their unique code, they will be eligible for a hotel reimbursement.

FEMA mobile homes staged in Arkansas are habitable, available and properly maintained. They have not been damaged, and certainly none are being destroyed. Mobile homes are an important part of a comprehensive housing strategy, and are commonly used for temporary housing outside of floodplains.

There's meetings planned for mid- to late May that will be dealing with the issue of how FEMA should be reformed and what options the House should consider.

There's no way to give any sort of estimate on what that cost would be. FEMA is responsible for reimbursement.

Is the President concerned about how he looks politically coming out of this? Heck yes! ... The president has some serious exposure here. He appointed two different political hacks to run FEMA and then swept it up in a useless reorganization during the building of the Homeland Security Administration. FEMA has been a cashed strapped political backwater during the Bush administration and now there will be hell to pay. If I were Michael D. Brown, director of FEMA I would be brushing up my resume.

The way it is now, none of these piecemeal things will deal with FEMA being buried in a gigantic bureaucracy. I think we are in worse shape now than we were pre-Katrina.

It would be a false sense of security to rely on FEMA to rebuild a life the way it was before a disaster.

These monies are used for food, diapers, medicines, and other essential items. For FEMA to cut off these funds now is unacceptable,

The simple fact is that we needed something as simple and basic as buses delivered in a timely fashion from FEMA in order to save lives. They didn't do that,

The thing that surprised me the most is the housing need in the area despite FEMA trailers.

Thanks to the governor and many others working late into the night locating existing space in shelters and FEMA flying evacuees out, it appears we were able to locate shelters for the evacuees destined for tents at Camp Minden, ... Humane considerations, 102 degree temperatures and a possibility of 30 rain over northeast Texas and northwest Louisiana all drove efforts to find other sites.

Schools are the heart of the community for many throughout Mississippi. FEMA is proud to be able to help in providing the tools and funds through the Public Assistance program so students can have a safe, comfortable environment to continue to learn.

Our concern is it's already a flood zone, so why would FEMA want to pay the owner of the trailer park so much money a month to house people in a zone that could be flooded again?

After what we all have witnessed the past week or so, is there anyone in America who feels we should continue to rely exclusively on FEMA to head the federal government's response to this tragedy?