Gov. Riley ignores federal red tape to speed aid to Katrina victims

It's called leadership. Apparently, Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco is still waiting on the memo. (See bold below.)

PELHAM, Ala. (AP) — With federal government under fire for a sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, Alabama did an end run around red tape to get victims into temporary housing in state parks, where about 500 evacuees are living.

What the state did wasn't that big of a deal when compared to the size of the disaster: Acting at the direction of Gov. Bob Riley, park workers let scores of people move into government travel trailers days before the Federal Emergency Management Agency granted permission.

But that simple act touched a chord with evacuees fed up with what they describe as FEMA's inept response. And it made a huge difference in the lives of dozens of families from Louisiana and Mississippi who needed shelter after the storm.

"We'd still be waiting on a place to live if FEMA was running it," said Stuart Breaux, who is staying in a small, white trailer with his wife Evelyn and their three dogs at Oak Mountain State Park in suburban Birmingham.

With as many as 1 million people displaced by Katrina, FEMA has purchased thousands of new and refurbished travel trailers to use as temporary housing. Contractors have placed many of those trailers in campgrounds, including 13 Alabama state parks.

But of 1,350 trailers that were in Alabama parks by Friday afternoon, FEMA had inspected and approved only 365 for occupancy, according to the state. A total of 98 trailers were occupied in two parks, and state officials said many of those people moved in before they were supposed to.

In some cases, delays left evacuees living in tents in 90-degree heat near trailers with air conditioning and water already running.

Operating under the governor's "Operation Golden Rule" policy of helping storm victims as quickly as possible and handling paperwork later, park workers last weekend began letting evacuees move into the temporary housing without FEMA's blessing.

Evacuated from their home in Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, Breaux said his only contact with the federal government was with a FEMA inspector who got angry after learning he and his wife had moved into the trailer without federal approval.

"He was hot because you had all the people living in trailers that FEMA hadn't inspected," Breaux said.

"These things were here, they were up and running with air conditioning andsewage, and people were living in tents. What's wrong with this picture?" he said.

Living with about two dozen relatives in eight trailers at Oak Mountain, Catherine Menesses of St. Bernard Parish, La., has high praise for the Alabama workers who opened the campers and the dozens of volunteers who stocked a large pavilion with food, clothes and hygiene items for evacuees.

"We want for nothing. They have brought us everything," she said.

Menesses is frustrated with constant busy signals on FEMA disaster hotlines and the lack of information from her hometown. But rather than hoping for more federal aid, she worries FEMA involvement would just mess up a good system operating at the state park...

About 155 people have occupied 40 of the 81 FEMA trailers parked at Oak Mountain State Park. More evacuees are expected this week as word spreads about the availability of the campers, according to Jimmy Shivers, the park superintendent.

Jerry deBin, a spokesman for the state parks and conservation system, said additional trailers could have been delivered to parks earlier if not for FEMA bungling at a staging site in Selma.

There, federal workers spent time trying to assign specific trailers to camp sites rather than getting the housing on the road to parks as quickly as possible, according to deBin.

"They assigned 40 trailers to one camp site in Wind Creek (State Park)," he said. "If just defies common sense. Bureaucracy and disaster don't really go well together."

About 2,500 people are living in state parks in Louisiana in their own campers and tents, and the state hasn't decided whether to allow FEMA campers, said parks spokeswoman Sharon Broussard.

"We're in discussions with FEMA about whether they will bring trailers in here," she said.