Red Tape Swamps Relief Agency

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is so understaffed and snarled in red tape that tens of thousands of victims of Hurricane Andrew are unlikely to receive immediate financial help, the New York Times reported Sunday.

It said government relief checks were not reaching victims of the storm that swept through parts of Florida and Louisiana causing an estimated $20 billion in damage.

Officials at one major area bank in operation since the day after the Aug. 24 storm told the newspaper that while numerous insurance company checks had already arrived, there had been no sign of government relief checks.

The newspaper reported that victims of the hurricane were unlikely to receive immediate help and predicted that more than a month would go by before relief checks would begin to arrive.

It reported that FEMA, by the middle of last week, had paid out only $500,000 in several hundred checks to grant applicants in Florida.

It called the sum minuscule, citing the fact that more than 80,000 homes were destroyed or damaged by the storm.

A spokeswoman for FEMA was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the agency had been writing checks “faster than in any other disaster.”