MSNBC/AP
Hurricane Katrina made them worthless feds in windbreakers, a four-letter agency for which some couldn't find enough four-letter words. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, FEMA is again the easy target for displaced residents and frustrated local authorities.
"Where's FEMA?" some evacuees have asked. Houston Mayor Bill White complained FEMA wasn't bringing ice, water and meals fast enough, while the county administrator personally took over the coordination of efforts to hand out relief supplies.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is quick to defend the agency he started reforming after its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. He knows full well that it's far too easy to shout "It's FEMA's fault!" whenever anything goes wrong on the ground.
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For days, hot, hungry and thirsty victims of Ike's strike have waited hours for handouts and scrounged for fuel. Phone lines were overburdened as evacuees tried, unsuccessfully, to register for help. Others denounced the suggestion to go to a Web site, impossible when they still had no power.
"They're still screwed up. They haven't remedied their problem," said Galveston nurse Reginald Cleveland, one of thousands of evacuees stuck at a shelter in San Antonio. He signed up with FEMA when he checked into the shelter, but then was told to call a number at which no one answered. "I say, put the people out. They obviously don't know what they're doing."
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