If Wisconsin had voted for Bush, I bet help would have been there instantly. This will teach them a lesson, says the neocons.....
Where do we go from here?
Already reeling from August tornadoes, victims were hit again: no federal aid.
By MEG JONES
Posted: Nov. 3, 2005
Town of Dunn - The 27 twisters that tore through Wisconsin Aug. 18 flattened subdivisions, leveled farms and left municipal budgets in tatters, but, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it wasn't enough to warrant federal aid.
Wisconsin Tornadoes
Stripped trees remain Wednesday as a reminder to Cindy and Jim Ace of the destruction tornadoes caused to their Dane County home and farm more than two months ago. The Aces have been trying to sort out how to rebuild their lives and business after federal aid for storm victims was denied.
Nearly 25 years of work on Jim and Cindy Ace’s farm was wiped out when tornadoes hit Aug. 18. The couple’s farm machinery was damaged and they lost 13 of 17 buildings. The couple figure they’re underinsured by $150,000 to $175,000. "We’re not looking for a handout," said Cindy Ace. "But a low-interest loan...that would be a godsend to us."
Wisconsin's History of Federal Aid
Don't tell that to Cindy Ace. Driving up to their Dane County farm just hours after the storm, she and her husband, Jim, found farm machinery tossed like toys, trees snapped like matchsticks and a brand new shed picked up and dumped on a pickup truck. Of the 17 buildings on their farm, just four were still standing.
The tornado that devastated the Ace farm plowed through the towns of Dunn and Pleasant Springs, north of Stoughton, killing a man, destroying 69 homes and damaging 304 others, causing almost $34 million in damage in Dane County alone. It was just one of 27 tornadoes that whipped through Wisconsin that day. Damage estimates statewide topped $40 million.
In the past five years, FEMA had approved Wisconsin aid for storms that caused quite a bit less damage than that, and the agency has recently come under fire for approving millions in aid in other states for people who weren't directly affected by disasters.
Given all of that, many Wisconsin officials expected that FEMA would declare a disaster here and open the federal spigot for reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cleanup costs and offer low-interest loans.
Then, almost two weeks after the tornadoes, Hurricane Katrina hit. A few weeks later, Wisconsin's disaster request was denied.
Hurricane influence denied
FEMA said the mounting costs of Katrina had nothing to do with Wisconsin being shut out. The tornado damage, the agency said, "was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments."
Officials in the Town of Dunn disagree. The community of 5,300 is facing a cleanup bill of $273,000. The Town of Pleasant Springs rang up cleanup costs of $945,000. Same thing in Viola in southwestern Wisconsin, where the cleanup cost $1.3 million. The village of 700 has an annual tax levy of about $57,000.
Those communities cannot pass the bill on to property-tax payers. Because state law limits how much communities can raise the tax levy, local leaders are hamstrung, said Rick Stadelman, executive director of the Wisconsin Towns Association.
If they cannot get other aid, such as Small Business Administration disaster funding, communities will have to borrow. But if they're nearing their debt limits, that's another problem.
"I don't know that there's a lesson to be learned. I think those towns did what they had to do," Stadelman said. "It may show that we can't rely on FEMA."
A FEMA spokeswoman said the agency used a number of criteria to determine whether Wisconsin was eligible for federal aid. Among them: state and local response to the disaster, available assistance from charities and other federal agencies and whether most victims had insurance.
"The fact that there were hurricanes in the Gulf states had nothing to do with the decisions made in our district," said Gay Ruby, public information officer for FEMA Region No. 5, which includes Wisconsin. "We look at each disaster totally on their own merits, and we did so in the Wisconsin tornadoes."
For uninsured losses, FEMA looks at the per capita cost for the entire state. At the time of the tornadoes, the threshold was $1.14 in uninsured damages per person in Wisconsin. FEMA inspectors determined that the tornadoes caused only 58 cents per person in uninsured losses.
"It's not that we begrudge the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Rita or Wilma, those are truly disasters as well," said Kathleen Falk, executive of Dane County. "For the same reasons we think the federal government should help those citizens, so should they help ours."
Gov. Jim Doyle immediately appealed the denial Sept. 23, and a FEMA team was in Wisconsin this week to gather more information before ruling on Doyle's appeal. Few past appeals by Wisconsin governors have been granted, however.
Little to appeal
Not that Wisconsin has had much to appeal in the past.
In the five years before the tornadoes, the state requested nine federal disaster declarations and was denied just once.
"We don't apply every time there's a storm for federal disaster aid," said Lori Getter, Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman. "With the magnitude, the number of homes damaged and destroyed, the fatality, the economic impact and agriculture loss, we really believe we were eligible for federal disaster assistance."
The toll of the Aug. 18 tornadoes is more than $40 million statewide - easily dwarfing other bad weather damage that in previous years quickly earned federal disaster aid for the state:
• In 2002, victims of tornadoes and storms in 19 counties that caused $27.7 million in damage got federal assistance.
• Victims of flooding and storms in June 2002 that caused $14.3 million in damage in eight counties received federal aid.
• Heavy rains and flooding that caused $8 million in damage in 10 northern counties in July 1999 earned a federal disaster declaration.
Ruby said it's possible the uninsured losses in the flooding incidents were higher than they were for the Aug. 18 tornadoes.
Elsewhere, FEMA has come under fire for being overly generous. An investigation this year by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that the federal agency had paid millions to people who had been virtually untouched by major disasters, including $32 million to Miami-Dade County for Hurricane Frances, even though the storm came ashore 100 miles to the north of Miami.
News like that makes FEMA's denial that much harder to swallow in towns such as Pleasant Springs, where much of a subdivision full of two-story homes was wiped away. The town will probably lose as much as 15% of its equalized value because of all of the vacant lots, said Donna Vogel, the town's clerk/treasurer.
While a disaster declaration often means municipalities will get help to rebuild, it also often paves the way for low interest loans for people such as Cindy and Jim Ace.
The couple figure they're underinsured by $150,000 to $175,000.
"We're not looking for a handout," said Cindy Ace. "But a low-interest loan, if that would be available - that would be a godsend to us."
Though the Aces are staying, they won't build new tobacco sheds and won't rebuild two greenhouses that Cindy Ace used to grow flowers for a side business. When the tornado swept away their farm, it also destroyed the business and life they had worked so hard to achieve.
"Jim and I have been married almost 25 years. It has taken all of that to get where we are," Cindy Ace said. "We're back to square one."
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