It Figures

$309 Million
The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 households wrongly received $309.1 million in grants related to Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to rise. According to the Associated Press, in the New Orleans neighborhood President George W. Bush visited after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But official figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time. The pattern was repeated in nearly 100 neighborhoods damaged by the hurricanes. At least 162,750 homes that did not exist before the storms may have received a total of more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments, the AP found. Now the government wants back a lot of the money it gave out across the region. The Justice Department so far has prosecuted more than 400 people for storm-related fraud, and $18 million has been returned to FEMA or the American Red Cross, according to a recent report by the department’s Katrina Fraud Task Force.

23
23 out of 69 smoke alarms were found not to be working in a recent survey by firefighters in Farmers Branch, Texas. The Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) reported that the firefighters said most of the homeowners had no idea that the smoke alarms were inoperable. The Farmers Branch Fire Department recently installed 160 new smoke alarms inside the homes of 41 senior and low income families as part of program sponsored by the ICT called “We’re Out to Alarm Texas.” Farmers Branch was one of seven Texas fire departments that have received hundreds of smoke alarms donated by ICT, Travelers Insurance and First Alert. Inside each home firefighters tested existing smoke alarms and installed new smoke alarms if needed. Of 69 existing smoke alarms, firefighters found 23 that did not work. Sixteen of the non-working smoke alarms had either missing or dead batteries. Of the 160 new smoke alarms that were installed, five of them were found to be defective. Fire investigators say a smoke alarm could have saved the lives of four people, including three small children, who died recently in a house fire in Fresno, Texas. Texas lawmakers have discussed mandating smoke alarms in new Texas homes beginning in 2008.

1
The Internet again was number one on Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s list of sources for complaints to his office last year. The AG released his Top 10 list of consumer complaints at the state’s third annual Consumer Protection Day at the Capitol. The list is compiled by Edmondson’s Consumer Protec-tion Unit. The CPU received more than 900 Internet-related complaints in 2006. The AG’s Top 10 list of consumer complaints for 2006 is as follows: 1. Internet; 2. credit; 3. automobile; 4. communications; 5. services (non-professional); 6. sales (general); 7. home repair/construction; 8. health/medical; 9. lending/mortgage; 10. electronic equipment.

9
Arkansas ranked ninth in the nation in a study of traffic related fatality rates in the U.S. Accord-ing to the Associated Press, Arkan-sas’ traffic fatality rate was 40 percent higher than the national average. Crashes killed 3,230 people in Arkansas between 2001 and 2005, an average of 646 fatalities per year. The majority of those killed were on rural, non-Interstate roads. The study, “Getting Home Safely: An Analysis of Highway Safety in Arkansas,” was released by the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit TRIP and commissioned by the Arkansas Good Roads Transpor-tation Council.