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Tsunami warning funds squandered in American Samoa

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Uh Oh
User ID: 512476
10/28/2009 6:53 PM
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Tsunami warning funds squandered in American Samoa

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[link to edition.cnn.com]

Report: Tsunami warning funds squandered in American

SamoaBy Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick, CNN Special Investigations Unit
October 28, 2009 -- Updated 1231 GMT (2031 HKT)

Pago Pago, American Samoa (CNN) -- When an earthquake-triggered tsunami cascaded into this tiny island in late September, the result was 34 lives lost and untold millions in property damage. But a CNN investigation to air on tonight's "AC 360" has uncovered an array of unsettling facts that point to a single conclusion: this natural disaster was in many ways a man-made tragedy.

Public records show that the Department of Homeland Security had awarded millions of federal dollars in grants for disaster preparedness here, including the construction of an island-wide siren warning system. But all the federal funding was frozen in early 2007 after DHS inspectors found that the local American Samoan government had been diverting millions of those dollars for its own uses.

Birdsall Alailima, director of American Samoa's territorial office of Homeland Security from 2003 through 2007, now lives in southern Illinois, not far from St. Louis, Missouri. He showed CNN on a map exactly where on the island the sirens were to have been placed. Thirty towers in all, he said, with 30 sirens that could have been activated by the push of a single button.

"You're saying that the systems should have been in place?" CNN correspondent Drew Griffin asked him.

"Absolutely," Alailima said.

"And people died as a result?"

"Yes."

He's not the only one who thinks so. Federal sources told CNN they believe that had the warning system been built, the death toll would likely have been lower.

In American Samoa, however, territorial Gov. Togiola Tulafono, told CNN that he knew of no viable plan for the siren system.

"There was a study, I believe, but never a plan for a system," the governor said. "I was trying to get verification of what happened to that system, but I could not get the definite information."

Alailima said he was fired by the governor when the federal funding was frozen, and that the governor was aware of the preparations.

"I'm not going to fault them for freezing the funds," Tulafono said. "These are federal funds that they have oversight responsibility for and they saw fit to freeze the funds."

The governor told CNN he had tried to correct the problem by firing his entire homeland security staff. But, he said, that failed to solve the problem.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 805190
10/28/2009 7:04 PM

Re: Tsunami warning funds squandered in American Samoa	Quote
But the gummint is gonna fix the health care mess, fer sure. You betcha.

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