THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030342
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 62 lines
Hurricane Fran's destructive power has lawmakers asking how much help the federal government should give people who insist on rebuilding homes and businesses in vulnerable coastal areas.
The hurricane, which struck in early September and brought devastation to North Carolina, killed 24 people. Crops were severely damaged in the eastern part of the state, and more than 1.3 million people were affected by power outages. The storm also caused serious flooding in Virginia, and to a lesser extent, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Federal relief is estimated at more than $1.5 billion, about half of which is for North Carolina. The total does not include the claims expected to be paid under the federal crop and flood insurance programs.
Now that the disaster is over, it's time to look to the future, the government's top emergency coordinator said at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
``Addressing the urgent needs of our citizens and communities is essential. However, the important long-term issue in response and recovery is to prevent it from happening again,'' James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
``In the wake of Hurricane Fran, we now have an opportunity to take action and reduce our risk from future disasters,'' Witt testified.
In these budget-cutting times, North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth, a Republican, is looking closely at the bottom line in federal disaster relief.
Saying he understood the need to alleviate suffering, Faircloth asserted that, at the same time, federal taxpayers shouldn't have to repeatedly help replace homes and businesses in vulnerable coastal areas such as North Carolina's barrier islands.
``How long will the taxpayers of this country continue to maintain oceanfront property?'' asked Faircloth, who is the subcommittee's chairman.
H. Martin Lancaster, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, agreed that policy-makers need to look at how federal disaster dollars are spent, ``so we don't put people back into the same situation.''
The federal government shouldn't carry the whole burden, Lancaster said, and there are appropriate roles for local property owners as well as state and local governments. Noting that the Clinton administration has reduced spending on shoreline protection programs, he cautioned that such programs still were needed to avoid severe damage to beaches.
A similar debate arose after the big Midwest floods of 1993, when many questioned whether people who keep going back to live and work in flood-prone areas should expect the government to always bail them out.
In addition, the government is prodding farmers to take out federal crop insurance by offering only emergency loans - not payments - if they are uninsured and hit by disaster, two Agriculture Department officials said.
Despite some complaints, Faircloth and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., expressed overall satisfaction with the federal government's response to Hurricane Fran.
``From the president on down, the government has played a constructive role,'' Warner said. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
House in North Topsail Beach...
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FRAN COSTS by CNB