Editorial: Can FEMA weather storm?

Saturday, June 17, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

Investigators this week announced that money intended for hurricane victims did not always go to victims, and the disaster assistance cash was not always used for necessities. Congressional investigators provided some outrageous examples of how as much as $1.4 billion was misspent: football tickets, adult erotica items, champagne and even the services of a Houston divorce lawyer.

Government Accountability Office investigators who posed covertly as victims said it was not hard to obtain FEMA money with a fake address.

The GAO uncovered ruses that included people who had used prisoners' names to obtain money, and one man who used 13 Social Security numbers to score $139,000 sent to him by FEMA - to the same address.

But perhaps the most outrageous revelation was the bottom line: As much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars that FEMA doled out to individual victims was unnecessary, according to the GAO.

FEMA officials say they are taking steps to correct the problem, a familiar refrain.

Agency officials have identified more than 1,500 examples of possible fraud, but just $16.8 million in misspent money. The GAO says it is between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

That discrepancy seems emblematic of a core problem at FEMA: The people in charge do not know just how big their problems are and seem incapable of fixing them.

FEMA itself has weathered a torrent of deserved criticism since Hurricane Katrina.

The agency will continue to find itself battling the storm until its managers can right the ship and again establish FEMA as the government's swift and efficient first responder in major disasters, as it was during the Clinton administration.

We are fearful that current management is not prepared for the hurricane season that is just days old.