The Wall Street Journal ran an
opinion piece today on one of my favorite subjects, the barking madness that is our federal emergency management jurisprudence:
Hurricane Harvey shows what can go wrong. It lumbered through Texas, unloading 5 feet of rain, one year ago. Yet 8% of survivors have not returned to their homes, as per a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Some low-income families had their aid requests denied by FEMA because of “insufficient damage” to their homes. But FEMA also denied aid to homes with roofs blown off or mold creeping up the walls.
A plausible explanation for at least part of the discrepancy is that FEMA’s comparatively strict aid policies are in conflict with Texas’ minimal housing regulations. FEMA aims to restore property to “safe and sanitary” condition while being careful not to make “improvements or additions to the pre-disaster condition.” At the same time, Texas allows families to build their homes to a lower standard than what FEMA considers “safe and sanitary.” In other words, a house can be good enough for Texas but not for FEMA. Consequently, the only way FEMA can rebuild it to the “safe and sanitary” standard is by contradicting the “no improvements” rule.
Pro-regulatory do-gooders will respond by suggesting that benighted Texas should ramp up its housing standards. Here's what I would prefer: amend the FEMA rules so that federal emergency aid is available to return houses to FEMA's standard of "safe and sanitary," or the local code-mandated standard of "safe and sanitary," or the home's pre-existing condition, whichever is least. Even a bureaucracy need not tie itself up in this kind of Catch 22 unless it's plain bloody-minded.
10 comments:
So if the Texas-code-rebuilt house caves in, does FEMA have a liability if FEMA dollars were used?
If FEMA rebuilds a house in a floodplain, does FEMA have to re-rebuild the house after the next hurricane, or flood (which happens in a FLOODplain)?
Yes, to both. There are better ways to encourage States to improve State housing standards than to hammer those too poor to meet their Betters' whims.
I'll ignore the hysteria surrounding the claim that code-built houses, in Texas or anywhere else, simply cave in.
Eric Hines
I remember when I first talked about Bella Dodd's 1930 School of Darkness and debriefing to the Vatican that the Leftist alliance had infiltrated hundreds if not thousands of homo or pedo or Leftist priests into seminary. The ranking authority for the production of priests and later bishops and archbishops and cardinals and Popes.
People thought it was crazy talk. It's pretty good to see when the Normals are forced into being slapped enough times to consider the crazy to be the new normal. Or perhaps that was just ironic hilarity...
As for Texan's topic: look up weather warfare or geoengineering... heh
Also gotta love the Georgia Guidestones since after all it is in Georgia.
So you think that every taxpayer in the USA should build, re-build, and re-re-build homes in floodplains.
Please up your Social Security tax payments. There are old people who need more money because they didn't plan very well.
I can't speak to how well a house should be expected to hold up to a storm surge, but I can say that post-Andrew houses held up very well in a direct eyewall strike of a Cat. 4 hurricane. The windstorm codes do work. Our house was nearly unscathed, even though it was surrounded by dozens and dozens of very large destroyed live oak trees.
Still, I wasn't happy to hear quite a number of reports in my county that FEMA would not classify a home as uninhabitable when its roof has lot all integrity, lots of water came in, and mold was growing uncontrollably. Clearly something was wrong with that system. I won't say FEMA should pay to rebuild homes in flood plains. I do think, if the idea is to provide storm-devastated household with money for temporary housing following an emergency, then any home that was habitable before the storm and uninhabitable after the storm should qualify. Whether the habitability of the home made either the state or FEMA happy before the storm should be irrelevant.
As I said, there are better ways to help States qualify their poor for Federal assistance than for Know Betters to hold those poor hostage and homeless until Know Betters' whims are satisfied.
Eric Hines
I feel your pain. I'm on the board of a non-profit that has been dealing with FEMA since 2010 regarding a flood damaged building that can't be repaired according to their rules due to various issues, and faces repaying a significant sum due to it.
I also noted that the author wants the US Taxpayer to reimburse Puerto Rican squatters for losses on property that they do not, in fact, own.
"So if the Texas-code-rebuilt house caves in, does FEMA have a liability if FEMA dollars were used?"
I fail to see how, anymore than an owner who paid a contractor would be liable for the buildings collapse and not the contractor. Oh, and the code is NEVER responsible for anything, nor are the employees of the building department. That you had approval doesn't mean it's ok, it' just means they approved you. If they later realize it's not ok, that approval isn't worth the paper it's printed on. People have been made to tear down portions of permitted structures because they were across a setback or some such, but were originally approved.
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