VA. OFFICIALS HIT FLOOD PROGRAM:

Two Virginia members of Congress are asking U.S. officials to take a closer look at possible mishandling of flood claims by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-1st, and Sen. George Allen, also a Republican, wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft to complain about FEMA’s actions following Hurricane Isabel, which struck Virginia on Sept. 18, 2003. Davis also sent a letter to Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security, whose department oversees FEMA. In that letter, Davis said she was concerned that apparent conflicts of interest within FEMA and its National Flood Insurance Program may have hurt policyholders, including those who contested insurance settlement. “Rather than conducting an independent review of claims as directed by the Senate, I understand FEMA’s contractor assembled a team of reviewers comprised largely of adjusters and adjusting firms who originally handled the claims,” she wrote in the letter. After receiving complaints about unfair settlements earlier this year, FEMA reviewed 2,267 cases from Hurricane Isabel victims. In about half of those cases, people received additional money that totaled $8.6 million. James McIntire, FEMA spokesman, confirmed that the government’s review team included some of the original adjusters who had handled the first round of Isabel claims. But each adjuster was strictly prohibited from handling the same cases twice, he said. The pool of available adjusters was too small to allow FEMA to pick completely different people for the review team, McIntire said. In September, U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland asked the inspector general and Ashcroft to look into similar matters involving residents of their state.