FEMA

What We Choose to Ignore

Chip — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:15:45 -0400

Ending Corporate Looting on the Gulf Coast

Ana Maria — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:31:14 -0400

Recently, a man got four years in prison for burglarizing a neighbor’s home to loot it right after Katrina. What kind of jail time will the insurance industries’ corporate cronies get for deliberately contriving to steal the claims money from policyholders in the Katrina-ravaged areas that crossed three states: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama?

Here in Mississippi, we have two state officials responsible for holding these corporate crooks accountable to the people. We have State Attorney General Jim Hood who is doing his job to bring justice to the people of Mississippi, and we’re grateful to him for his strength and fortitude in the face of tremendous pressure to go along to get along—a position of weakness, for sure.

We also have State Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose idea of justice is more of an insurance insiders "Just Us" mentality.

Dale’s own words portray a man in the back pocket of the insurance industry.

Katrina was "the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies. . . ." Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale

What a lovely sentiment coming from a public official who should be the first defender for us as policyholders. Those words should be put on bill boards, television ads, and radio spots throughout South Mississippi. What a betrayal this man has wrought upon the families and business owners inside Katrina Land.

Of course, it would be unrealistic for us to expect a man who is in the pocket of the insurance industry to be our protector against the industry’s fraudulent practices.

"We take money from anybody who is interested in good government.'' Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale

Who are these folks interested in "good government"?

Miss. Commissioner Dale Raised 40% of Campaign Funds from Insurers
Insurance Journal

And that was in 2006.

Dale: A Democrat? An Independent? A Dino?
Earlier this year, the Mississippi Democratic Party leadership stood up to Dale voting to strip him of the ability to run as a Democrat. Dale had publicly campaigned on behalf of Bush and Cheney in 2004. To fight being prohibited from claiming himself to be a Democrat, Dale hired Greg Copeland, a big time insurance industry lobbyist attorney—and a Republican—to represent him in court.

Simultaneously, Dale’s Republican attorney argued that the Democratic Party MUST allow Dale to run as a Democrat AND that Dale ought to be allowed to run as an Independent because he can’t win as a Democrat. Huh?!

Dale pulled the ultimate Lieberman, as in U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman who ran on the Lieberman Political Party of Connecticut—or some such nonsense—when the Connecticut Democrats voted Ned Lamont as their Democratic nominee last year sending Lieberman packing his bags. Lieberman then started his own political party and accepted help from the Karl Rove wing of the Republican Party. Dale apparently took a page out of Lieberman’s playbook. I’m a Democrat! I’m an Independent! I’m a DINO! (Democrat in Name Only)

Conflicts, Conflicts Everywhere
On its website, Copeland’s law firm brags about its prominence within the insurance industry.

"The firm serves as general counsel to Mississippi's largest property and casualty insurer and as local counsel for numerous other insurance companies. The American Insurance Association selected the head of the firm's insurance practice group to serve as Mississippi counsel for the Association."

Regarding the fact that he was being represented by a big insurance lobbyist attorney, Dale said

"I don’t see any conflict."

Apparently, the man is blind. Too bad it is not in the way that Justice is blind.

In another glaring example of Dale’s cozy conflict-of-interest ridden relationship with the insurance industry, he allowed State Farm to pick up the tab for the attorney who was helping Dale’s Deputy Insurance Commissioner Harrell prepare for a deposition in a lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group was bringing against . . . State Farm. Ding! Ding! Ding! By now, alarms should be going off in a major way.

Yes, you read that correctly.

State Farm was paying the attorney fee for the lawyer helping the Mississippi Deputy Insurance Commissioner prepare for his testimony under oath and representing him at the proceedings in one of the large lawsuits that Mississippi policyholders are bringing against . . . State Farm.

Can you believe it?! Talk about the fox guarding the hen house!! But this is really more like a criminal defense team paying the salary of the local prosecuting attorney assigned to its case. What a whopper of a conflict of interest.

Here’s a guide to the deposition and links to the deposition itself. The only reason we found out this horrifyingly awful but important piece of information is because the Scruggs Katrina Group deposed Deputy Commissioner Harrell as part of its ongoing case of Thomas and Pamela McIntosh vs State Farm. The SKG website characterizes the Harrell deposition as "one of the most eye-popping depositions our group has ever seen." Now that’s saying something.

You know, most of us think of the insurance commission as a consumer advocate, the place where we can turn for real assistance when an insurance company isn’t treating us or our family members fairly. Unfortunately, Dale acts as if his job is to advocate on behalf of the insurance companies.

Are we in good hands with George Dale? Hardly. The man is a walking betrayal of public trust. And in a matter of days, with some effort, George Dale can be sent his walking papers when the voters go to the polls on Tuesday, August 7th.

Like George Dale’s only Democratic opponent Gary Anderson says. "You can't protect the pocketbook of consumers, if you are in the pocketbook of insurance companies."

Indeed, indeed. To bring good old-fashioned, mom and apple pie kind of justice to the people of South Mississippi, we can raise a little political hell! You know what that means. If you are a registered voter inside of Mississippià Vote. Inside or outà contribute. Inside or out à volunteer.

Turning out for this election to turn out our current insurance commissioner—who thinks he is in the business of carrying water for corporate insurance executives, is the way we stop George Dale’s permissive reign of corporate looting.

Listen to the podcast.

If you liked this piece, you may also enjoy reading the following.
George Dale is a Coward.

Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the "F" word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning!, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective.

In March, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit to their family home in Bay St. Louis--ground zero for Katrina's devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria.

She launched her blogin May 2007 and added podcasting in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina's devastation.

Not for the faint of heart, A.M. in the Morning! provides first-hand accounts of post-Katrina life written in a scathing style redolent of the region's famous cuisine--hot, strong and spicy. Nobody escapes Ana Maria's wrath whether they are the callous insurance industry, the bumbling leadership of FEMA, do-nothing politicians, or incompetent government contractors.

A progressive political blog with a decidedly activist bent, A.M. in the Morning! includes her Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides activist tools of ready-made email letters, addresses, phone scripts and phone numbers to whomever is lucky enough to be caught in her crosshairs.

From the Gulf Coast of Miss. to the heartland of Nashville, Tennessee, from the nation’s capitol to Silicon Valley, California, Ana Maria has been politically active as a professional and a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area.

Dirt, Dead Bodies, and White House Dirt bags

Ana Maria — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:35:40 -0400

Cities, counties and parishes (Louisiana’s version of counties) have been fighting with the Office of Inspector General over the federal government’s stinginess when it comes to reimbursing local governments for funds they spent on the Katrina’s clean up. My piece titled When You’re Up to Your Ass in Alligators discussed the incredible financial burden that the locals have undergone because the federal government—i.e. the Bush Administration— is making it unreasonably difficult to obtain the millions and millions of federal tax dollars that are to reimburse these funds.

Perhaps this is the administration’s unstated “hang ‘em out to dry” philosophy in action. Clearly, the net result is to have abandoned Americans in their time of need. Whether the Administration abandoned those who climbed on the roofs after the levees broke in New Orleans or those who climbed through the muck and mud to coordinate the post-Katrina clean up efforts, the way the Bush Administration continues to treat us sure does feel like this is part of the White House’s “leave all citizens behind” philosophy in action.

The stories I hear about how Bush’s FEMA and the Office of Inspector General have treated the officials who had to make do in the worst of circumstances makes my blood boil. The drone-like responses coming from agencies lead by those who rose to power through proclaiming their compassion burn me up. I’ll share a story with you.

Picture it. August 30th 2007. The day after the worst natural disaster our nation has ever seen. No phone system. Cars awash in salt water and totaled. Roadways filled with mounds of debris. No electricity. No uncomtaminated running water. For many, no place to live. Dirt, mud, and sludge many feet deep inside buildings and on the streets.

Let me clarify that. More . . .

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Ana Maria authors A.M. in the Morning!, dispatches from Katrina's ground zero . . . a distinctly progressive political perspective. In March, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit to their family home in Bay St. Louis—ground zero for Katrina’s devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria. She launched her blog in May 2007 and added podcasts in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina’s devastation.

Ana Maria is committed to using her blog and podcast to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area. The blog includes the Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides phone scripts and email letters readers may use when contacting whoever is the lucky one Ana Maria targets.

Democrats Shame, Skewer Insurance Shills

Ana Maria — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:30:54 -0400

Listen to podcast.

Eloquent, down home as well as brutally truthful and direct in a classy manner, Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) shamed 6 witnesses who testified at the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee hearing on Housing and Community Opportunity. Each of these witnesses asserted that from the perspective of the insurance industry, the status quo was good enough. One after the other with painful repetition in this four hour subcommittee meeting that I watched online, each of these corporate shills reiterated the same talking points with a single goal in mind: protect the status quo.

I couldn’t have been more proud of Congressman Taylor’s performance if I myself had personally verbally skewered each of those shills. But I sure as hell would love the opportunity, and I guarantee you that I would not necessarily be nearly as nice or classy about the matter. Over and over again, these shills said the same industry-produced talking points.

The Federal Government would lose money if it got into the business of covering all natural perils.
The private market can take care of consumers.
The Federal Flood Insurance Program should be allowed to do its job.

Of course, the whole lot of them operate in a fact-free bubble which attracts those with similar inclination.

For the majority of the country that comprise the rest of us, we live in a factually-based reality in which fairness and protecting families play an important role in our core values. We believe in fiscal sanity and financial security for our families, our businesses and our country. And that is clearly the primary goal that the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 achieves.

Region-wide, private companies took premiums from families and businesses then deliberately instructed its agents not to pay on the wind policies. That’s called stealing. When the companies deliberately sent erroneous bills to the Federal Flood Insurance Program—bills for which they had engineering reports that specifically stated wind caused the damage, these companies defrauded the U.S. Treasury thus stealing from the American taxpayers through an inflated $23 billion bill.

Image at ABC's The Blotter.

ABC News was able to obtain a copy from State Farm files of the original FAEC [Forensic Analysis & Engineering Corp.] damage report, which included the image of an attached "Post-it" note that read, "Put in wind file - do not pay bill - do not discuss"

In so doing, the private insurance companies have betrayed American families and business owners. These are the values of the Bush White House. However, betrayal and theft are not mainstream American values.

The corporate shills who testified before this Congressional subcommittee had one message: keep the status quo. Basically, these corporate shills testified that insurance companies should be allowed to continue to steal from American families, businesses, and taxpayers. It’s good for their bottom lines, good for their businesses. The testimony that these shills provided merely protected the industry’s $108 billion in profits earned in 2005 and 2006. They had no concern for the very real impact that their corporate thievery had on Americans.

Does any compassionate and sane individual really believe that these obscene profits at the expense of fiscal obligations to those whom the companies promised financial security are not blood-drenched profits? These shills, these men and women who testified are compassionless corporate cronies. Yes, even the FEMA dude recited the same talking points which surely to goodness came from Bush’s buddies in the insurance industry.

Last week, former GOP Chair Marc Racicot, who now heads the American Insurance Association, sent to Congress and the media a fraudulent report with the same messages embedded in its reality-free rambling. Bush appointed Racicot to head the Republican Party in 2001. Racicot chaired the party while remaining an active lobbyist for Enron.

One after the other, in calm and deliberate fashion, Democratic Congressional members skewered those six panelists. Many of these subcommittee members drove home the reality that insurance companies cheated lower and middle income families out of their rightful claims on their homeowner wind policy provisions. These Democratic congressional members talked of families and business owners who had to hire attorneys and engineering firms to fight their insurance companies for claims that should have been paid within months after the hurricane had hit the area.

Today, many of these businesses are not up and running. Many of these families remain living in FEMA trailers or with other family and friends both inside and outside of the region. Is this the American Dream we want everyone to embrace? Cheat and be rewarded? As Taylor said, his constituents played by the rules and got screwed by the insurance companies.

The reality is that insurance companies betrayed its policyholders. The reality is that insurance companies are jacking up their premiums by god awful amounts or abandoning homeowners throughout the country from the Mid-West like Oklahoma or the West, East, and Gulf Coasts.

Look, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, 55% of us live within 50 miles of the nation’s coastline. These towns and cities are where we live, worship, educate our kids, visit with family ad friends, and work. Other than the corrupt Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who would suggest that over half of the U.S. population ought to move inland?

The enormous impact from Hurricane Katrina should leave Mississippians wondering if they should live "in harm's way."

With insurance companies failing to protect the financial stability of our families and businesses—and insurance commissioners like Dale helping companies to rip us off blindly, we have turned to the federal government to protect us through expanding the government’s federal flood insurance policy to include wind damage. Indeed, some of the subcommittee members suggested that the new legislation should also include earthquakes and fire both of which are continual threats.

Of its own choosing, the market driven insurance industry has failed to protect us.

The era of insanity of profits over people and of financial greed over family financial security is coming to an end. We will beat the drum until we have enough votes in the House and Senate to pass this bill because we must protect America’s fiscal sanity, fiscal stability for our families and businesses.

If Bush vetoes the legislation, then we will again pass this legislation under an expanded Democratic majority after the 2008 election. Then the newly inaugurated Democratic President will sign this legislation, perhaps as part of a legislative package titled something along the lines of Protecting American Families Financial Security.

That is the point of the legislation. Protecting families, protecting businesses.

Additional resources

__________________________________________________________From the coast of MS to the heartland of Nashville, Tennessee, from the nation’s capitol to Silicon Valley, California, Ana Maria has been politically active as a professional and a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels. In Spring of 2007, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit in her hometown in Bay St. Louis—ground zero for Katrina’s devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria.

In May 2007, she launched her blog A.M. in the Morning! and added podcasts in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina’s devastation. She is committed to using her blog to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area. The blog includes the Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides phone scripts and email letters readers may use when contacting whoever is the lucky ones Ana Maria targets

Bookies, Pimps, and Insurance Companies

Ana Maria — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:54:12 -0400

The insurance industry has a great scam of a gravy train going on with home and business owners. Think about it. Collect the premiums, deliberately fail to pay out the claims, pocket the profits, leave town, reduce the coverage, increase the premiums, repeat.

Just as a bookie collects from its gamblers, these companies collect money from us, the home and business owners of America. If we never have a situation where we need to make good on our policy, the insurance company has kind of made out like a bandit. All of this is legal and above board. We understand it’s a form of legal gambling, and we know the risks of what may happen if we don’t participate.

In essence, we’re essentially betting that we may one day need to tap into our policy, our legally biding contractual agreement with our legal bookie. When something happens and we need our gamble to pay off, we expect our insurance carriers—our bookies—to make good on our legally binding agreement.

Here in the Katrina-ravaged region of the country, our bookies are skipping town with our money pointing their proverbial fingers to the water in the Gulf of Mexico. If a drop of water hit our property, then the insurance carriers said that ALL of the damage would be paid from the U.S. Government’s federal flood insurance program. Remember, the private insurance companies were adjusting claims for their own wind insurance policies and for the federal government’s flood insurance program. A conflict of interest that has become apparent in Katrina’s aftermath. [See Wind? Water? More like a Bunch of Hot Air! for more information on that end.]

Since the private insurance carriers were adjusters for the same properties and these companies lack integrity or ethics, it was easy for them to fraudulently claim that the damage was from water and to hand their own bills to the U.S. government to the tune of $23 billion. With each home and business owner claim that these companies fraudulently denied, they have betrayed our trust.

New research from the University of South Alabama’s Coastal Weather Research Center is proving that the insurance industry’s profit generating plan doesn’t hold water.

Dr. Blackwell works at the Coastal Weather Research Center.

Winds battered residents long before water came ashore. This past May, the university announced the discovery of a “Second, Devastating Eyewall Inside Hurricane Katrina”. The university’s “hurricane expert Dr. Keith Blackwell used the latest in microwave satellite technology to look inside Hurricane Katrina’s storm clouds, leading to the discovery of a second, or outer, very potent eyewall, which extended severe hurricane winds far outward from the storm’s center.

Blackwell’s research concluded the following.

Before landfall, Katrina was a Category 5 storm with . . . sustained winds of 175 mph.
The hurricane’s highest reported surface gust was 135 mph, in Poplarville, Mississippi; many weather stations were destroyed, so Katrina’s highest gusts were not measured.
Video evidence from storm chasers suggests gusts on the ground in Gulfport, MS, could have been as high as 150 mph.
The hurricane spawned 22 documented tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama.

FACT SHEET: Double Eyewalls and Hurricane Katrina
Coastal Weather Research Center
May 17, 2007

Dr. Blackwell’s documented research concluded the following.

“Initially, high winds in the outer eyewall struck the Mississippi coast up to three to four hours before the highest water arrived. The problem with water created by the storm’s devastating tidal surge arrived later,” explained Blackwell.
[Emphasis added.]

What does this mean?
Well, Poplarville is inland by about 60 miles from Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of the tiny coastal beach towns that comprised Katrina’s ground zero. So if Katrina’s gusts were 135 mph after it had been over 60 miles of land and these massive winds were battering homes, businesses, schools, fire and police stations, and other government buildings for THREE to FOUR hours before the surge came ashore, Katrina’s winds did plenty of damage for which the private insurance companies are financially responsible. That’s what this research means.

This research takes the wind out of the insurance industry’s argument that it was the water and NOT the wind that caused the enormous damage to homes, businesses, etc.

This means that the insurance companies have defrauded the federal government possibly by many billions and billions of dollars with its failure to pay on damages that wind, and not water, caused.

Image at ABC's The Blotter.

That’s what this research means. It’s fantastic news for home and business owners as well as schools, cities, towns, counties and other governmental entities that have been going up against the insurance industry and its reported $108 billion in profits that it made in 2005 and 2006 alone.

With this new evidence from the Coastal Weather Research Center coupled with the RICO lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group has filed [See State Farm, Partners, and RICO: What a Racket!] in which it has uncovered evidence that the companies deliberately failed to pay wind policy claims it knew that it was responsible for paying, this may also mean that that policy holders with settled claims may seek out attorneys to reopen their cases. Sure would be a pity were the insurance companies to find themselves in a whole lot of hot water.

The gig is up. As this information comes out more and more, these really bad bookies—the insurance companies peddling their property and casualty insurance wares—will continue to be exposed.

Like a bookie, insurance companies are running a numbers game on its property and casualty customers—residential, commercial, government, you name it. They're scamming us. But the big pimp daddy-O is out in full force protecting them.

So why be skeptical of several insurance companie being supportive of the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007? Ever heard of a bookie willingly giving up territory? How ‘bout a pimp that lets a prostitute get out of the business and on to a more respectable profession? Yeah, me, neither.

Since the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 would severely cut into the insurance bookies’ ability to run this numbers game on American families and businesses, they are transforming themselves from bookies to pimps. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, the industry is taking solace in the fact that they have the big insider Daddy-O of a Pimp out there hustling inside the political trenches.

The Insurance Industry’s Big Daddy-O Pimp
In 2005, Marc Racicot, the former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), became the president of the American Insurance Association. When George Bush named his buddy as chair of the ReTHUGlican party, Racicot continued as “an active, registered lobbyist . . . for the Houston law firm of Bracewell & Patterson, personally representing the controversial energy firm Enron.” I suppose there’s something to be said about being upfront with one’s lack of good ethics and integrity. Not much to say, of course.

When Racicot became the president of the American Insurance Association, he characterized the association as being “widely regarded as one of the most effective business advocacy groups in state capitols and in the halls of Congress.”

Today, Racicot is pimping the association’s fraudulent Towers Perin report that tells Congress that the proposed Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007 is on shaky financial ground. What a load of baloney. Their analysis is on shaky ground and when the dust settles on the court cases that are pending, I’m personally hoping the companies’ financial positions are below the ground. What they have done here in Katrina Land is sinful and criminal in every sense of those words. Do I hear an Amen?!

Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) sent a letter to the Racicot requesting that he “retract and disavow the fraudulent Towers Perin report.” Taylor stated, “the assumptions, scenarios, and conclusions in the report are impossible under the bill.”

In other words, Bush’s Boy—the big Daddy-O Insurance Industry Pimp Marc Racicot—is pimping the industry’s trade association’s fraudulent information.

So here’s where we come in with today’s Political Hell Raising Activities.

On Tuesday, July 17, 2007, the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity will hear testimony regarding the proposed Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007. Below are the members of this committee. Are any of these members your congressional representative? If so contact them, inform them that you are you their constituent, and that you support the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007.

Contact Chairwoman Waters and any of the others and inform them that you support the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. This hearing is an important step in the road to stopping the bookies from ripping off any other families and business owners. Sharing our perspective on this critical matter is how we protect our families through expanding the flood insurance program to include wind coverage. Sharing our perspective is how we put a gust of powerful wind under our political sails.

[Here are political hell raising email and phone activities.]

Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA), Chairwoman
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (NY)
Rep. Julia Carson (IN)
Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (MA)
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO)
Rep. Al Green (TX)
Rep. William Lacy Clay (MO)
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY)
Rep. Gwen Moore (WI)
Rep. Albio Sires (NJ)
Rep. Keith Ellison (MN)
Rep. Charles A. Wilson (OH)
Rep. Christopher S. Murphy (CT)
Rep. Joe Donnelly (IN)
Rep. Judy Biggert (IL)
Rep. Stevan Pearce (NM)
Rep. Peter King (NY)
Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (OH)
Rep. Christopher Shays (CT)
Rep. Gary G. Miller (CA)
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV)
Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ)
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (TX)
Rep. Geoff Davis (KY)
Rep. John Campbell (CA)
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (MI)

Listen to podcast.

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From the Gulf Coast of Miss., to the heartland of Nashville, Tennessee, from the nation’s capitol to Silicon Valley, California, Ana Maria has been politically active as a professional and a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels.

In Spring of 2007, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit in her hometown in Bay St. Louis—ground zero for Katrina’s devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria.

Katrina's Bigger Picture

Ana Maria — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:16:27 -0400

Clearly, the Democratic debate on PBS hit a bit of a raw nerve with me. The debate question and candidates’ answers reflected the framework for our national discussion, which has been too narrow, too tiny when discussing who Hurricane Katrina impacted and what the impact was, as well as the solutions offered. So let’s put on a lens through which we can see Katrina’s bigger picture.

First, Hurricane Katrina itself destroyed the Mississippi Gulf Coast. However, the New Orleans disaster was another matter. As so aptly stated on Levees.org, “New Orleans was destroyed primarily by bad engineering and not bad weather.”

Moreover, “[r]esponsibility for the levee failures on August 29, 2005, in New Orleans rests squarely on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on Congress. This means that the federal government bears primary responsibility for the flooding of metro New Orleans and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes and livelihoods.”

When Hurricane Katrina breached the levees in New Orleans, the floods indiscriminately drenched Republican and Democratic, wealthy, middle class, and low income homes and neighborhoods as well as every ethnic group in this international city. However, had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carried out its responsibilities, these New Orleans residents would have been spared this horrendous flood. To carry out their responsibilities, of course, requires financial resources as well as solid policy based on sound engineering and environmental principles.

The Washington Post reported

Bush repeatedly requested less money for programs to guard against catastrophic storms in New Orleans than many federal and state officials requested.

When disclosures like this came out in Katrina’s immediate aftermath, the Army Corps of Engineers defended the Bush Administration. "It was not a funding issue," said Carol Sanders, the chief spokeswoman for the corps. "It's an issue of the design capabilities of these projects." What a disingenuous though unsurprising answer since the Corps “worked closely with White House officials” on the responses to these tough, important questions regarding the Bush Administration’s responsibility in deliberately cutting the corps’ budget.

The Washington Post article continued.

Local and federal officials have long warned that funding shortages in the New Orleans area would have consequences. They sounded the alarm as recently as last summer [meaning 2005] when they complained that federal budget cuts had stopped major work on New Orleans east bank hurricane levees for the first time in 37 years. Al Naomi, the senior project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, reported at the time that he was getting only half as much money as he needed and that much of the funding was being used to pay contractors for past work.

"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them," Naomi told the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief in Jefferson Parish (county), at the time linked the funding shortfall to the cost of the Iraq war. "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," he told the newspaper. Maestri added, "For us, this levee is part and parcel of homeland security because it helps protect us 365 days a year."

Indeed, if this city had had the kind of protection that the Netherlands has, my family members who live in the Big Easy would have had it easy after the storm. Here are pictures that demonstrate the difference between the levees in New Orleans and those in the Netherlands.

New Orleans Levees
Photos by National Geographic.

The repaired Industrial Canal levee wall in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward is green with new turf in July 2006 (top). The U.S. government says the city's levees are back at pre-Katrina conditions.A school bus sat stranded near a breach in the same levee on September 12, 2005 (bottom). The embankments were built to endure Category Three storms, yet several crumbled after Katrina's Category Three assault, perhaps as a result of poor design and construction.

Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Workers rebuild the levee along New
Orleans' Industrial Canal in the Lower
Ninth Ward

Netherlands Levees

Photo Credit: By Molly Moore -- The Washington Post Photo
Ted Sluyter, who organizes school tours of the Dutch sea defense system, says the calamitous 1953 flood bears clear parallels to the New Orleans disaster.

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) led a 40 member delegation from Louisiana to the Netherlands to tour the world's largest levee system.

"When the unprecedented disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the subsequent levee breaks struck Louisiana, the Netherlands was one of the first nations to come forward to offer their support," Sen. Landrieu said. "The Dutch know all too well the challenges we face, having lived for centuries under the threat from similar vulnerability themselves."

Protecting a world class city like New Orleans with a world class levee system like the Dutch have is what we need to do to protect this national treasure. A Netherlands-type of levee system will protect residents, neighborhoods, and businesses in New Orleans. That’s what homeland security is about. It is the smart, savvy, and environmentally sound thing to do. Plenty of good jobs and spin-off business will come from investing in this.

The wider view is that our nation will once again be demonstrating a commitment to investing in the best here at home for our own people, using information rooted in scientific fact.

The wider view still is something I learned from Levees.org. Twenty eight (28) states have at least 120 levees that are vulnerable to the same catastrophic failure New Orleans experienced. One hundred and twenty potential government-created environmental and economic disasters?! Holy Moly!
The spin off benefits of this kind of a levee system will be fantastic. What an awesome boon to our educational system alone with a renewed national commitment to math, science, and technology. Remember the seven-year old African American girl whom I had met at the Bay St. Louis library? She had proudly shared with me that she gets “A’s in math and science!”

With these kinds of projects in 120 areas across the country, little girls and boys in the surrounding areas would grow up with dreams of being engineers and scientists who work at world class facilities just down the street. This is a way we build great communities in which families can live, work, and play generation after generation after generation. What a concept, huh?!

Through the lens of the Katrina travesty, we have learned that we need to reform our national priorities to invest in world class levees in over half the states in our nation. We have also learned of another national problem requiring a national solution. Insurance carriers are jacking up premium costs or not covering homeowners here in Katrina Land . . . and all across the country.

This is the fourth in a series of five to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Listen to podcast.

Tomorrow, Part 5: Insurance Reform . . . It’s good for America
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

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She launched her blog in May 2007 and added podcasts in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina’s devastation. She is committed to using her blog to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area. The blog includes the Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides phone scripts and email letters readers may use when contacting whoever is the lucky one Ana Maria targets.

The "F" Word: FEMA

Ana Maria — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 03:32:53 -0400

All of the FEMA shenanigans have been unnecessary and avoidable. Unfortunate for us, Mr. Compassionless Conservative Bush apparently has a sadistic side to himself which he plays out in public, on the public, and at the public’s expense. FEMA is a case in point.

Fix
Everything
M y
Ass
Bumper Sticker on the window of a BIG truck on Hwy 90, Waveland, Miss.

Listen to the podcast.

Hypocritical Leadership
The White House that is hell bent on handing no bid multi-billion dollar contracts to the largest Bush-Cheney campaign contributors (i.e. Halliburton) has insisted that in the days after Katrina, the ravaged areas impacted should have gone through a traditional bidding process complete with re-bidding when the cost became pricey. Bush’s "do as I say, not as I do" perspective joins his "you’re on your own" Republican version of government. Hypocrisy is no way to run a government.

Bush’s administration insists that the towns and cities of Mississippi and Louisiana paid too much money to remove Katrina’s debris. We’re sure that our cities did pay too much. Private industry price gouging the American public is everywhere. Been to the gas pump lately?

Nevertheless, Bush’s FEMA is questioning whether the federal government will reimburse these Katrina ravaged cities and towns. We’re not talking chump change, either. FEMA owes these cities and towns millions and millions of dollars for disaster clean up costs. The Washington Post reported the following.

St. Bernard Parish, La., just outside New Orleans, is among the communities waiting for a check. FEMA paid the parish about href="00 million for debris removal but still owes about $70 million, said David Peralta, the parish's chief administrative officer. St. Bernard also is waiting for "0 million in reimbursement for sewer repairs, Peralta said.

Peralta said FEMA has "kind of implied" that it is looking into whether the parish paid reasonable rates. Peralta defended the Katrina contracts, saying officials tried to solicit competitive bids without delaying the work.

"We didn't have a whole lot of choices in those first few days," he said.

It’s a toss up on whether the Bush Administration’s hypocrisy or compassionless actions are more galling.

Promises, Promises
FEMA promised cities and counties money to repair sewers and drains, pave streets and rebuild schools. Bush’s FEMA has been reneging on its word. What a shock, huh?! On Good Morning America, Bush stated "I hope people don't play politics at this time of a natural disaster the likes of which this country has never seen." Yeah, well, if actions speak louder than words, the actions of Bush’s FEMA are screeching loudly, indeed.

Let’s look at what FEMA has been doing to Hancock County, the county where I was born and raised and from which I am now blogging and podcasting. Speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) described Hancock County as a place "where 90% of the residents lost everything, or at least substantial damage to their home." [See the video.] Like everywhere else in Katrina Land, any and all assistance is immensely appreciated.

So when FEMA promised the county $33 million to rebuild a school, this was terrific news! For over 22 months, FEMA repeatedly reassured the county that the money was theirs, and the county complied with the agency’s requirements. The county board of supervisors, families, and community depend on that school getting up and running as soon as possible.

The Sea Coast Echo reported, "Repeatedly over the past 22 months, FEMA officials said in public meetings the school board could build the schools." Then, just as the county was about to break ground, Bush’s FEMA reneged on the deal pulling the $33 million rug out from under everyone.

"FEMA has changed the rules in the middle of the game. Every single step in the process involved reps from MEMA [Mississippi Emergency Management Agency] and FEMA. It was our understanding from them that we could build above the ABFE [Advisory Base Flood Elevation]."<div align="right">School District Attorney Mark Alexander </div><div align="right">Sea Coast Echo

These and other financial horror stories are happening on Bush’s watch. Appropriate leadership from the White House would solve this FEMA issue. Alas, we don’t have that. We have Bush and Cheney.

Mr. Compassionless Vetoed Katrina Financial Relief
When he vetoed the Iraq Accountability Act, Bush also vetoed money for Katrina relief including waiving the 10% matching requirement that was putting a great deal of unnecessary burden on the towns and cities in the Katrina-ravaged area.

Cities, towns, and counties didn’t have an extra 10% hanging around to match the federal monies needed to rebuild. Bush should have automatically waived the requirement like was done for New York after 9/11. He did not. Thankfully, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) included the waiver in the Iraq Accountability Act. When Bush vetoed that legislation, the good Democratic leaders attached the waiver to another bill which Bush finally signed.

H-E-L-L-O?! Anybody there?!
At the celebration of the new bridge, I believe it was Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre who said that the foot of the bridge was the only place in the Bay-Waveland area where there was some cell phone coverage. (See bridge photos on original blog.)

Because the Bush Administration had no emergency communication system in place, the only cell phone reception was at the foot of this bridge.

He told the story of walking to the foot of the bridge where others had also arrived to try to talk with their family and friends across the country to let them know they were ok.

He overheard a man tell his brother, "no, mom didn’t make it. She died in the storm." The story chokes me up eve as I write this deeply personal and sad story, one that is surely to goodness shared by others, too many others.

Can you imagine the horror of going through the storm, losing loved ones in the hurricane’s wrath, and having to walk through miles and miles of debris to get to the one place where it was rumored that cell phones work? Then, calling family and friends to talk of the deeply personal tragedy and to do so without the privacy we normally expect with personal news of this nature? The only comfort, perhaps, was that everyone was in the same boat, no pun intended.

Where was the nation’s emergency communication system?! This isn’t leadership. This is the result of the absence of leadership. Another of George Bush’s FEMA and homeland security failures. Bush already skimps on protecting our ports, railroads, nuclear facilities, and the like. Skimping on developing a national emergency communication system is par for the course from a guy who didn't get into the White House in a forthright manner in the first place.

So when FEMA got here, what did they do to facilitate these good people in getting all the help FEMA had to offer? Their idea was to somehow set up shop where folks could come to them and they would provide phone numbers to call FEMA and web addresses to apply for FEMA assistance.

Never mind that folks had no electricity, no phone lines, and, of course, no Internet access. Whether computers had survived the devastation was another matter altogether and another area in which Bush’s brilliant folks had no concern or care on the impact to American families. Oh, yeah, remember that the cars had been submerged in the salt water pushed ashore. Transportation was scarce.

Since these federal fools couldn’t look around and see the obvious, Congressman Taylor’s office suggested that rather than waiting for folks to walk for hours on end to get to where FEMA set up a make shift station, that these bureaucrats travel by foot with a pad of paper and a pen and from each person impacted take down the information that they themselves could then input on behalf of the survivors whenever the feds were able to finally get to computers that worked.

I don’t know whether Bush’s agency actually listened to such obviously solid advice. What I do know is that if this is the best and the brightest our federal government can provide in an emergency, we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

FEMA to Katrina Survivors: About that Money We Sent You . . .
FEMA claims that it overpaid some Katrina survivors and began demanding survivors repay the money to the federal government. The checks ranged from $2,000 to $ 26,200. FEMA said that folks whose insurance companies eventually provided some daily expense money were ineligible for the federal money.

Ocean Springs resident Leslie Keller said she cannot afford to repay the $2,500 she
was given for rental assistance. She said FEMA originally told her she didn't qualify for the money because she was living in a FEMA trailer. But because she was still paying a mortgage on her destroyed home, she said, FEMA relented.

"Then six months later, they said I had to give it back," said Keller, a 45-year-old
mother of three who attends school during the day and works at night.

"I can understand going after the ones that fraudulently (received money)," she
said. "But as far as the people who accepted aid and then FEMA says it's the wrong type of aid, it's not right."

Thankfully, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered Bush’s agency to stop.

Although FEMA gives aid recipients a chance to appeal, "the process, if it can be
navigated at all, takes months," U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan wrote in her order.
"In the meantime, the defendants appear to treat the plaintiffs' and their prospects of homelessness and despair and stress of such added worries as if it were gnats to be brushed away, while the defendants busy themselves with creating more bureaucratic regulations."

What a blatant example of Bush’s utter betrayal with all of his blubbering about compassionate government. Cruel and compassionless are more apt adjectives. The FEMA nightmares continue on Bush’s watch from the formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers to an inept debris removal process that may be creating contaminated water. (See my pieces titled Coffee, Tea, Contaminated Water? and Formaldehyde-Filled FEMA trailers.)

Awakening our American Ingenuity to See the Bigger Picture
As Bush sleeps comfortably in a White House that I believe should be the residence of President Al Gore, families and businesses in and around New Orleans and all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast suffer needlessly.

In spite of the miserable state of affairs in this region, I see folks everywhere who are taking whatever emotional, mental, and physical resources they can muster up to carry on day-to-day in a set of circumstances that are unfathomable, yet Bush and Cheney have allowed to linger and expand in the most unconscionable of ways. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A little bit of compassion coupled with genuine American ingenuity and good old fashioned elbow grease and out of these worst of times can come a renewed commitment to work diligently and consistently to the America in our hearts and in our dreams both inside and outside of Katrina Land.

Through the lens of Katrina, we can see a much bigger picture, if we look for it.

This is the third in a series of four to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans. Tomorrow: Part 4: The conclusion: Katrina’s bigger picture
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the "F" word
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
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From the coast of MS to the heartland of Nashville, Tennessee, from the nation’s capitol to Silicon Valley, California, Ana Maria has been politically active as a professional and a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels.

In Spring of 2007, this native daughter drove from her home in Silicon Valley, Calif., to surprise her mother with a visit in her hometown in Bay St. Louis—ground zero for Katrina’s devastation. The surprise was on Ana Maria.

In May 2007, she launched her blog A.M. in the Morning! and added podcasts in June 2007 to express her dismay and provide detailed, poignant, on-the-ground accounts of what the people of the Gulf Coast are still experiencing nearly two years after Katrina’s devastation. She is committed to using her blog to reinvigorate the discussion and generate a renewed national sense of purpose to efficiently and effectively rebuild the area. The blog includes the Center for Political Hell Raising, which provides phone scripts and email letters readers may use when contacting whoever is the lucky ones Ana Maria targets. A.M. in the Morning!

Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word

Ana Maria — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 07:17:22 -0400

This is the second in a series to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Listen to podcast.

Our recovery has two speeds: s-l-o-w and s—l—o—w—e--r. One reason is a lack of money both from the insurance companies and from FEMA. Today, we’ll talk about money and the insurance industry.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the other reason for this unacceptably s-l-o-w recovery: the abysmal lack of appropriate and innovative leadership from those sitting in our White House. Hands down, there is no better example of this than Bush’s FEMA. But we’ll just have to wait ‘til tomorrow to skewer that subject.

Money
Money would solve nearly all of the problems we face in reviving our lives, jobs, communities, cities, and region and to do so in innovative ways so that we protect the wetlands throughout the region while implementing a world class environmentally sound levee system like that in the Netherlands.

Money will help us to recover in a way that adopts the best of the best practices for everything from low income housing to public education. Rather than the painfully s-l-o-w way experienced since Bush finally decided to end his infamous month long vacation a few days after Katrina ravaged the area, money will infuse the area with much needed cash . . . and infuse the area with a much needed emotional and psychological lift in spirits.

We need money to rebuild the infrastructure of our cities for things like roads, firehouses, school buildings, drains, street signs, stop lights, stop signs, and light posts. We need money to rebuild public buildings such as court houses, city halls, and other government offices Katrina destroyed.

Businesses need money to rebuild their buildings and replace the contents inside of those buildings.

Families need money to rebuild their homes whether those homes were in the 9th Ward at one end of the economic spectrum or in Lakeview, a New Orleans neighborhood at the other end of the economic spectrum. Families need money for their homes located in Slidell, Louisiana, which is just east of New Orleans or Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula, Miss., on the far east of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Money is needed to completely rebuild the towns of Pearlington, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Pass Christian, Miss.,— each of which Katrina wiped clean and which comprise Katrina’s ground zero. (Yes, Katrina’s ground zero was in Mississippi, about 60 miles or so east of New Orleans.)

Money will help the Katrina region retain the dignity of its residents be they a disabled veteran, a senior citizen, a working class laborer, a computer geek, hair dresser, janitor, teacher, nurse, doctor, realtor, oil rig worker, etc. and so forth.

A major bottleneck for getting money to where it needs to go rests with Bush’s FEMA and the insurance companies. We certainly pay plenty enough taxes to expect FEMA to be here pronto stat when we need the agency to help communities, businesses, and families get back on their feet. We don’t expect amateur hour or some version of “Whose job is it anyway?” to be played.

We expect insurance companies to own up to their financial obligation and promptly pay on the wind insurance policies when its customers appropriately submit claims. We need that kind of confidence in our financial markets. Insurance companies are part of our financial security be it for our health, car, life, or home.

If we are going to insure what is clearly the greatest financial asset for most American families—our homes, then we must have insurance entities in whose hands we have complete confidence and on which we can depend–just like a good neighbor.

The way that insurance companies have turned their backs on the very customers who have paid the premiums that created the industry’s $108 billion profit in 2005 and 2006, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Their greed is downright sinful, and the means by which the companies attained their wealth seems criminal. As a result of failing to pay on the legitimate wind claims, families and businesses cannot return to their homes, livelihoods, communities. What’s happening here is not unique except in its scope.

Private insurance companies are raising rates to astronomical levels for significantly less coverage for commercial and residential policies. They are also choosing to stop writing new policies not just here along the Gulf Coast but also all over the country from the West Coast to the Mid-West to the East Coast.

The private companies have not just failed us but also are deliberately abandoning American families and businesses everywhere just as it did in the 60’s with regard to flood insurance. The private sector simply begged off of it. That is the reason that the federal government stepped up to the plate and began its flood insurance program in 1968 . And so it is again with Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor’s proposed Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007 to include windstorms, floods and other purposes in the Federal Government’s Flood Insurance Program. The insurance industry’s insatiable insanity demands we act quickly to protect our families, our homes, and our businesses.

The Insurance Industry’s Insatiable Insanity

Insurance Company Documents
Nationwide on 9/4/2005: "if loss is caused by both flood and wind there is no coverage."
State Farm instructions to adjusters on 9/13/2005: where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage.”

The documents from which the above excerpts have been taken, certainly appear to indicate that the insurance companies have deliberately directed its workers to refuse to pay legitimate claims from its policyholders. No wonder we need to pass the Multiple Insurance Act of 2007! (For more information on these documents, read Wind? Water? More like a bunch of hot air!

When these private companies refuse to own up to their financial responsibilities, who do these companies stiff with their financial tab? That’s right! The federal government’s flood insurance program and policy holders like you and me.

The federal government contracts with the private insurers to adjust the claims for the federal insurance program. The private companies send the bills to Uncle Sam’s insurance program for payment. That sounds all fine and dandy until something like Katrina hits and the insurance industry ends up in a position where it determines whether to pay the full amount of wind damages for which it is fully responsible or to shift its own costs to the U.S. taxpayers through pushing off claims to Uncle Sam’s federal flood insurance program.

This is an obvious conflict of interest that Gulf Coast Congressman Taylor proposes to remedy with passage of the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. The amount of damages not covered by the flood insurance are born by the policy holders themselves. There are two reasons for this. First, for those permitted to buy flood insurance, the policy severely limits coverage and whenever damages exceeded the limits, those costs were then shifted to the policyholders themselves.

Secondly, many businesses and homeowners were prohibited from buying flood insurance because their homes and/or businesses were not in a flood zone. So when an insurance carrier wrongfully (and deliberately) asserts that the damage came from flooding and not from wind, the policyholder is left to finance the damages.

We can participate in stopping these financial shenanigans. We can do our usual political hell raising to make this a legislative reality for our families and businesses all across the country. Call or email your congressional representative to voice your support for Taylor’s Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. The bill will be discussed in the next few weeks when the Flood Insurance Program comes up for reauthorization. Click on the hyperlink to go to a page with a sample email and phone script you are free to use as you desire. There is also a link to find your representative’s contact information. Just let your fingers do the walking.

<strong>Congress Dems and the Katrina Task Force</strong>
As far as I’m concerned, Congressman Taylor is THE Congressional Democratic expert taking the lead on Katrina recovery. When the Democratic Caucus created a Katrina Task Force right after the hurricane hit, Taylor stepped up to the plate to chair it. The task force has issued an 18 page report of legislative recommendations. Katrina and Beyond: Recommendations for Legislative Action which included the following.

Investigate the Katrina claims practice of insurance companies that contract with the National Flood Insurance Program.
Repeal the federal antitrust exemption as it relates to price-fixing, bid-rigging, or market allocation in the market for property insurance.
Establish all-perils disaster insurance coverage backed by the federal government.
Rebuild levees and flood controls to higher standards.
Relieve FEMA of its recovery mission and reassign those responsibilities to the appropriate federal agencies.
Reform FEMA contract procedures to eliminate cost-plus noncompetitive contracts.

These are practical steps to remove the barriers to returning home and rebuilding communities and cities after natural disasters such as Katrina.

The staff of NPR and the Democratic presidential hopefuls would do well to call Taylor’s office to talk with even the most junior member on staff whom I am certain can cite chapter and verse of what is wrong and how to solve the problems. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) who was raised and has strong family roots in New Orleans, is also a strong leader in Katrina recovery. Her office is surely to goodness another fabulous resource that researchers should tap for real-time information and solutions that address problems stemming from Katrina.

Preventing Collusion in the Insurance Industry
Closing the insurance industry’s loophole on anti-trust laws is another solution to the problems we’ve uncovered down here. The goal is to make it so that the insurance companies cannot engage in such things as price fixing or bid-rigging. At present, they are only one of two industries allowed to engage in any of these things and to do so with impunity as far as the law is concerned.

Let’s think about this a minute. Here at Katrina’s ground zero in Bay St. Louis, Miss., we’re in the middle of casino country. Can you imagine how many customers casinos would have here or in Vegas if they rigged everything and wouldn’t pay out the winners? Casinos don’t engage in this behavior, because the industry is regulated like crazy, as it should be. We need insurance reform to protect American families and businesses in both the property and casualty and health care insurance arenas. Insurance reform is a bread-and-butter issue for families and small businesses that the Democratic Party should immediately embrace and aggressively push.

The Senate’s Democratic Leaders have put together legislation S.618 to strip the insurance companies of its 62-year old exemption from the nation’s anti-trust laws. U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Trent Lott (R-MS) are among its four co-sponsors. To close the loophole, click here for delightfully fun political hell raising activities. Turning up the heat is as easy as cutting and pasting into an email and reading a script into your phone. It’s hot as you-know-what down here in Katrinaville. Let’s help Washington DC feel the heat.

Between the increase in health care costs and increases in insuring our homes—in those areas of the country where we can still purchase it, this bread-and-butter issue is ripe for the Democratic Party to embrace and run on to expand its control of Congress and to recapture the White House. One or both of these areas impact each American some way or another. It’s certainly an issue that hits home with most folks, as long as we articulate our framework in a way that is smart, savvy, and sophisticatedly simple.

Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Tomorrow: Part 3: The “F” Word: FEMA

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Mr. "I can do my job" isn't doing his job.

Ana Maria — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:42:48 -0400

Our state’s insurance commissioner, George Dale, has been rather busy of late speaking before audiences spewing forth one or another talking points provided by the insurance industry with which he is in the preverbal political bed. In his latest appalling display of happily carrying water for the insurance industry, Dale told the Clarksdale Noon Lions Club Katrina [was] "the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.”

What?!

This publicly elected official is unapologetically expressing concern over Katrina’s devastating impact . . . not for families, neighborhoods, communities, and cities all across the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the state in which he is elected to protect consumers from corporate insurance running amok over them? That would be empathizing with the folks with whom we would expect him to empathize. After all, he is the insurance commissioner for the people of Mississippi.

No, sir. Dale has the gall to reserve his empathy for the industry which all through the Katrina ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast region has been ripping off consumers, families, businesses, right and left, Republican and Democrat, rich, poor and middle class. In his official capacity, Dale expresses concern for the corporations which boasted obscene billion dollar profits in the aftermath of . . . now, how did Dale characterize it? Oh yeah, “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.”

A friend too shy for direct attribution and to whom I’ll refer to as a gloriously delightful celestial spirit who came to me in the night summarized Dale’s disgusting public betrayal.

”This is unbelievable. George Dale told the Clarksville Lions Club that Katrina ‘put an undue burden on insurance companies.’ If people pay premiums year in and year out, how is it an ‘undue burden’ for insurance companies to keep the faith with policy holders? I guess George thinks that it is an undue burden for a casino to have to pay off when someone pumps their dollars into a slot machine and hits the jackpot.”

Insurance Companies Hit Billion Dollar Jackpot
With a government insurance commissioner gleefully bouncing around the state touting the latest round of talking points the industry supplies him, no wonder the insurance corporations have been able to hit the billion dollar jackpot.

The Insurance Industry Institute reported that the private insurance industry boasted $44.2 billion in after-tax profits in 2005 and $63.7 billion in after-tax profits in 2006. That’s some heavy profit making. These profits were after the companies had paid out $40.6 billion in Katrina claims. Of course, that wasn’t all of the Katrina-related claims. The industry sent the U.S. federal government flood program a $23 billion bill.

So far, claims paid out on Katrina add up to $64 billion— and this amount only accounts for those who’ve been paid on their claims through 2006. By the end of last year, the private insurance companies had paid $41 billion. These same companies essentially handed a $23 billion bill to American taxpayers for damages that these private companies determined for themselves that flood waters had caused. How generous that the private insurance industry only stiffed the U.S. taxpayers for 36% of the bill, so far.

On his official government website, Congressman Gene Taylor, a good Democrat from the Katrina ravaged Gulf Coast of Mississippi, has an incredible collection of “documents that suggest fraud by insurance companies in the handling of Katrina wind and water claims.” These documents appear to officially direct claims adjusters with such doozies of corporate policies like this one from Nationwide “if loss is caused by both flood and wind there is no coverage.”

NO coverage?!

Or this doozie from State Farm that instructed adjusters that “where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage.”

Dale’s Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Dale’s insults to Katrina’s survivors continued. The Clarksville Press Registry reported

The enormous impact from Hurricane Katrina should leave Mississippians wondering if they should live "in harm's way," State Insurance Commissioner George Dale.

Let’s see now. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

“Populations and built environments in coastal watersheds are growing rapidly, with 55 percent of the U.S. population already living within 50 miles of the coast.”

“The Coastal Community Development Partnership”

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

The Coastal Community Development Partnership brings together NOAA and EPA offices to better support state and local governments as they promote safer and smarter development along the coast.

Is Commissioner Dale suggesting that 55% of the U.S. population move inland? Katrina’s devastation went well over 100 miles inland. How far inland would he recommend that over half of America’s families move? 150 miles inland? 200 miles? How would he recommend accomplishing that? If it isn’t hurricane country, it’s tornado country or blizzard country or earthquake country.

Dale should focus on doing the job to which he was elected rather than pretending to be the grand master of city planning.

Mr. “I-can-do-my-job” shouldn’t have one
In his impromptu speech before the state’s annual Municipal League conference held on the Gulf Coast this week, Dale repeated this mantra many times “I can do my job.” Thanks to John Leek at Cotton Mouth Blog, another Gulf Coast blog, we have video of Dale’s public admission.

Considering the man has been in the pocket of the very industry he has been responsible for regulating in the 32 years Dale’s been elected to this office, I’m glad to hear him admit that he can do his job. The question, of course, is “when is he going to start?”

Verrrrry Interesting
Before the Lions Club, Dale continued his showmanship in demonstrating his expertise in the foot-in-mouth department. "Can we survive another (Katrina) . . . ?" Excuse me?! This from a man who has all but prostituted himself for the insurance industry that has made recovery all but practically impossible for everyone involved?! Thanks to Dale’s buddies in the insurance industry and their shameless flakey with this Mississippi Insurance Commissioner, surviving Katrina has yet to come to a resilient conclusion.

When I read those highly insensitive words, I thought of the ever popular 1970’s comedy show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. The show had a character named Wolfgang, the Nazi soldier who would pop up behind bushes to say the infamous line "Verrry interesting...but schtupit!"

Yep. That's schtupit, alright. George Dale needs to voluntarily retire and work directly for the insurance industry he has protected from any real regulation.

Personally, I think the real question is this. "Should the good people of Mississippi even entertain the thought of surviving another year with an Insurance Commissioner who is a mouthpiece for an industry that ripped off the families and businesses of the Katrina-ravaged regions of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans?!"

The answer is no.

Dale’s handling of the Katrina disaster alone should have the Democratic voters in South Mississippi sending this guy packing come the August primary.

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