Disaster Agency Probe Hit for Ignoring Riots

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will come under unprecedented scrutiny in coming months as congressional investigators try to determine why the agency was unprepared for the onslaught of calamities that struck the nation in 1992.

But in a turn of events that some observers see as ironic and shortsighted, FEMA’s response to Los Angeles’ cataclysmic episode of 1992--the spring riots--is not scheduled to be the focus of any federal review. The investigations and hearings will target only FEMA’s handling of natural disasters in Florida, Louisiana and Hawaii.

Many Los Angeles officials are particularly upset by the federal government’s narrow focus because they believe that the city’s civil disturbances, the first riots ever to be declared a federal disaster, can offer lessons about the needs of inner-city residents after such upheavals.

Much of the sharpest criticism of FEMA’s relief programs has come from Los Angeles, where 50% to 60% of riot victims were denied disaster aid. Given the depth of social conflict in urban centers throughout the nation, experts say, FEMA could be called on to provide aid again to residents in many cities.

Incensed at what they believe is the snub being given the city, Los Angeles officials say they will push for federal hearings that deal exclusively with FEMA’s handling of riot victims.

“I can assure you Los Angeles will see a very serious and profound hearing on FEMA’s response or lack of response (to its crisis),” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D--Los Angeles).

Deputy Mayor Linda Griego said: “If Congress is going to be changing policy, then they do need input from us.”

The federal investigations of FEMA include one by the General Accounting Office, which was commissioned by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D--Md.) and several other members of Congress. In addition, about 10 congressional oversight committees have indicated a desire to hold hearings on the beleaguered agency’s response to the year’s most devastating natural disasters.

Although GAO officials said they could not discuss the investigation until it is completed, a preliminary report concludes that FEMA is not prepared for large-scale emergencies and suggests that the federal government develop contingency plans to suit specific kinds of disasters. FEMA officials also declined to discuss the inquiry, pending release of the GAO’s final report.

Stan Czerwinski, who is heading the GAO investigation, said his agency confined the scope of its investigation to natural disasters at the request of Senate and House members. He confirmed that no investigators have been sent to Los Angeles, although state disaster officials were contacted.

Aides to Mikulski and other members of Congress said the investigation was sparked by FEMA’s widely criticized response to Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida, and to a lesser extent, Hawaii’s Hurricane Iniki. Both storms caused extensive damage to residences, leaving thousands of victims homeless, whereas the violence in Los Angles was primarily upon businesses.

A press aide to Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), who, as chairman of the House Investigations and Oversight subcommittee, was the only Southern California representative to call for the FEMA review, said there was no intent to slight Los Angeles.

“Hurricane Andrew was handled in a manner that was not good for the victims and we didn’t want that to repeat,” said Melissa Dollaghan. “It’s not an omission of L.A, it’s just that the scope was limited to the natural disasters.”

But local advocates see the federal government’s exclusion of Los Angeles from the federal reviews of FEMA as part of a pattern of disregard and rejection of inner-city residents, one that has cast Los Angeles’ riots victims in a highly political light.

They argue that the federal response is no surprise when, even at the state level, virtually every piece of legislation designed to speed the city’s recovery has failed to pass.

The unpleasant truth of the matter, community leaders say, is that riot victims are viewed less sympathetically than the victims of natural disasters.

“The bottom line is that most of the victims are people of color,” said Assemblyman Curtis Tucker (D-Los Angeles), chairman of a state committee that reviewed the causes of the Los Angeles riots. “Many of my colleagues in Sacramento asked why they should lift a finger to help when (the city’s residents) brought it on themselves.”

Waters said she has encountered the same view in Washington.

“As a representative of this area, I have to explain not only the root causes of the riot but that a lot of people are innocent victims who should not be penalized,” she said.

Griego said much of the focus on hurricanes Andrew and Iniki may have to do with the perceptions formed by televised images of wrecked homesteads and scattered personal belongings. She disputed assertions that more attention might have been paid to Los Angeles had city officials been more vocal in their criticism of FEMA.

“I suppose we could have taken the position of bashing FEMA but I don’t know that that gets the check here sooner,” she said. Instead, city leaders tried to exert pressure behind the scenes but consistently ran into resistance from federal officials.

“The attitude was that this wasn’t really a disaster and that FEMA really shouldn’t be here,” Griego said.

President Bush declared Los Angeles a disaster site after a highly publicized visit to the city a week after the violence had ended.

But state emergency officials say that federal authorities had to be persuaded that the Stafford Act, which controls declarations of a natural disaster, applied to Los Angeles.

Under amendments made in 1988, the act could be applied to a situation where fire, regardless of its origin, caused widespread destruction. This clause was used to make the case for Los Angeles.

Still, at the onset of FEMA’s response to the Los Angeles riots, federal officials wanted to restrict its relief programs to those who suffered fire damage, insisting that the agency would not extend aid to victims whose homes or businesses were looted, said Richard Andrews, director of the state Office of Emergency Services.

“It is just one example of the extreme legalistic view they wanted to take,” he said. “We told them it made no sense at all.”

Andrews said the federal agency has also balked at reimbursing the state for more than $1 million in costs incurred staffing 10 disaster application centers and fencing about 60 demolition sites.

“FEMA has tended to view the application for assistance with a great deal of suspicion whether it is individuals or local governments, and has tended to act as if their sole responsibility is to protect the federal treasury,” said the state’s disaster chief.

Andrews said he has been asked to testify before a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing about FEMA’s handling of the Loma Prieta earthquake, but will bring up the Los Angeles crisis on his own if no one asks about it.

Frank Kishton, deputy director of disaster programs in FEMA’s San Francisco office, said the agency is attempting to settle a number of outstanding eligibility issues with the state. He declined to comment on other criticisms directed at the agency. Almost from the outset, those who lost homes, livelihoods or loved ones during the riots criticized the relief effort’s limited outreach to victims, the lack of bilingual staff and inability to overcome bureaucratic red tape.

Those problems prompted Los Angeles legal aid groups to file a petition against FEMA on behalf of disaster victims nationwide, calling on the agency to speed its relief efforts and provide more equitable treatment.

Disaster officials respond that statutory limitations prevented them from changing requirements that would have opened up more aid to victims.

Riot victims complain that now, when those statutes are undergoing review, they will be ignored during the process.

“I’m shocked and disappointed,” said Bong Hwan Kim, a community leader who has negotiated with FEMA on behalf of Korean-American riot victims. “The federal response . . . has been far from adequate. We have data to show that too many people have fallen through the cracks. For any investigation of FEMA to ignore (Los Angeles) is something we will strongly protest to our elected representatives.”

It is the consensus of people who have dealt with FEMA that the agency must be revamped or its procedures improved.

Los Angeles’ riot victims and their advocates say they want to ensure that this city’s painful experience informs any recommendations or proposed reforms.

“I think the majority of white voters in the state and the country . . . have to recognize they had a role in the creation of this disturbance and are going to have a stake in its outcome,” Kim said.