That “Fishy” Smell At FEMA
It’s official: Larry, Curly, and Moe are running FEMA. Fresh off the spectacle of a fake press conference the tools at FEMA are raising incompetence to a new level. Enter the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.
When Katrina hit New Orleans it knocked out power to the Aquarium, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city. Four days later when the staff made their way back they found almost all of their sharks, tropical fish, jellyfish, and thousands of other creatures dead in their tanks. FEMA quickly promised more than $600,000 to repopulate the Aquarium.
The staff members had another idea. Do the work themselves and not wait for help from the feds. You know, what we hear all the right wing gas bags (Rush, Beck, Hannity, and Savage) say people in New Orleans should do. "Don’t look for government handouts. Pull yourselves up by the boat strips and fend for yourself."
To save precious time (time was actually money for them in a real sense), aquarium staffers improvised and went fishing, snorkeling, and scuba diving for the species needed in multiple expeditions to the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, and Bahamas. After weeks of effort they returned with 1,681 species. The total cost $99,766 (keep in mind FEMA was willing to pay $616,000).
Great news right? Well in the reality based world of course, but not in the bizzaro Bush world we currently live in.
When the Audubon Aquarium filed the invoices with FEMA they were told (via email mind you):
FEMA does not consider it reasonable when an applicant takes excursions to collect specimens. They must be obtained through a reputable sources where, again, the item is commercially available.
You don’t need an advanced math degree to figure out that FEMA is refusing to authorize invoices that would save American taxpayers more than $500,000, simply because the aquarium didn’t comply with shit-all-stupid FEMA regulations. Not to mention that the Aquarium was able to open much faster then if they would have waited to purchase what they needed through "reputable sources."Sixteen months after the above email was sent the Aquarium still has not been paid!
This is all happening because of the Stafford Act. The Act does a lot of bizzzare stuff, but one of them states "facilities can not be improved beyond their pre-storm conditions." So according to FEMA that meant the aquarium would have to find fish, through a commercial vendor, the approximate age and size of those that were lost. Of course multiple experts told the Association Press (AP) this isn’t close to impossible, it is impossible.
The citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are dammed if they do dammed if they don’t. They try to do something on their own so it gets done faster and for less money they run into mountains of red tape. They don’t do anything and wait for the government to do as they promised, and they wait and wait and get called "lazy."
The situation is a perfect example of FUBAR (Fu*^ed Up Beyond All Reason)!
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