Hurricane Katrina
FRAUD COMMITTED BY
HURRICANE KATRINA
VICTIMS
INTRODUCTION
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore. The hurricane affected the states of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. In its wake, the hurricane left over 1200 dead (Dodd, 2006). It was estimated that there were half a million refugees, over one million without power, and up to $100 billion in damage (Gibbs et al., 2005).
In its attempt to get assistance to the victims quickly, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), left itself open to wide spread fraud and abuse (United States Government Accountability Office, 2006). It is estimated that FEMA lost over $1 billion dollars to fraud and errors (Hall, 2006).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to look at (1) how the fraud was committed, (2) what were the weaknesses that allowed the fraud, and (3) conclude what guidelines should be put in place to minimize fraud of emergency assistance funds in the future.
Scope of the Study
The study investigates how participants feel about the fraud that was committed by the Katrina victims and if, because of this fraud, the government should continue to supply aid to disaster victims. The study goes on to ask the participants how they feel about continuing to help those who have been caught defrauding the system in the past and also if assistance should be held up long enough to verify claimants before monies are paid out.
Sources and Methods
Research was conducted to gather all the facts presented in this study. In addition, a survey (shown in the appendix) was conducted with various residents of Corpus Christi at the businesses where the team members are employed. The following Segmented 100% Bar Chart shows the breakdown of the demographics of the surveyed participants.
Figure 1
PERCENTAGE BREAKDOWN...
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