Getting surprisingly little attention from major media was the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s decision to deny financial assistance to Washington state’s Okanogan County residents where more than 300 homes were lost in wildfires, notes Grumpy Editor.
The Wall Street Journal, however, reported the rejection, pointing out in addition to the lost homes in the state’s worst fire outbreak on record, “more than 100 outbuildings were destroyed, hundreds of cattle died and thousands of acres of rangeland and farmland were burned.”
The Republican-dominated county with 41,000 residents is the largest in the state.
WSJ reporter Jim Carlton said Elizabeth Zimmerman, FEMA deputy associate administrator, denied assistance for “individuals and households” in the county near the Canadian border because “damage assessments determined the impact to residents was ‘not of the severity and magnitude’ to warrant FEMA assistance.”
Carlton added Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said, “We don’t always ask for help, but when we do we would have expected a little more help from the federal government.”
An appeal is pending on the FEMA decision.
DID YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISS THESE?
The evils of hiking sales tax: After Japan raised the national sales tax to 8 percent from 5 percent on April 1, corporate investment dropped, households cut spending and gross domestic product fell an estimated 7 percent in the second quarter…Of interest to U.S. households that find raising kids is becoming increasingly costly: A Reuters/Ipsos poll tallied 51 percent of Americans believe children who crossed the border illegally from Mexico “should be allowed to remain in the country for some length of time”… Good time to ask for a bank loan. U.S. banks posted $40.24 billion in net income in the second quarter, the industry's second-highest profit total in at least 23 years, according to research firm SNL Financial…A Rasmussen Reports survey found a whopping 83 percent of American adults believe English should be the official language of the United States. (The U.S. government has yet to take that step.) “Most also agree overwhelmingly that it’s important to know the language to get ahead in today's world,” added Rasmussen…An ABC Radio news report on unusually heavy rain on New York’s Long Island worked in mention that the cause was attributed to --- global warming…To illustrate an Associate Press story on increasing numbers of Cubans migrating to Florida, a photo showing a Florida Straits rescue in rough seas by the U.S. Coast Guard was found deep in the files --- from 1994. It ran complete with AP photographer’s credit line…Debuting in the news field, Austin Beutner, 54, former Wall Street investment banker and a former Los Angeles deputy mayor, was named CEO and publisher of the Los Angeles Times…Another case of a burglarized TV van. This time while the news crew from CBS affiliate WUSA was in the Petworth neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. conducting interviews, most of their gear was stolen from the locked van. Some items were recovered from dumpsters.
Current line tossed to media when details from the Pentagon are unavailable: “We’re assessing the situation.”
