by EILEEN SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency ignored the law and misused millions of dollars to build two warehouses after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to government investigators.

Some of the money FEMA misused should have gone toward Katrina victims in Louisiana, according to a Homeland Security Inspector General report obtained by The Associated Press. The report is expected to be released Thursday. Emergency Mgmt. Degree 100% online emergency response education. Enroll in our courses! www.APUS.edu/EmergencyManagement Government IT Continuity.

"FEMA had no authority to use appropriated funds to construct the two buildings," the investigators said, adding that the agency violated a prohibition against agreeing to spend money without congressional authority.

In the summer of 2006, FEMA spent more than $7 million on two warehouses the agency said it needed to repair trailers and mobile homes used by disaster victims. One of the warehouses was paid for from federal disaster relief fund, which investigators say is not permitted. The other warehouse was paid for with proceeds from sales of travel trailers and mobile homes — also not allowed.

The report says senior officials at FEMA rejected the proposals for these warehouses, but they were built anyway.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said this report confirms his ongoing concerns about FEMA's lax contracting policies.

"It shows, in this instance, FEMA's disregard for the law," said Thompson, who chairs the House Homeland Security committee. "This is another example of FEMA gone wild."

After the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, FEMA set up 12 sites to store emergency housing units. Once hurricane victims left the disaster housing, the units were moved to these storage sites to be cleaned, repaired and refurbished. FEMA wanted to put up maintenance buildings at two of the sites — Selma, Ala., and Cumberland, Md., the report said.

FEMA officials told the inspector general that senior agency officials "disallowed" the proposals to build these sites, but "eventually the projects were approved and funded," the report said.

The Cumberland building was delivered without electricity, lighting or other utilities and couldn't even be used for repairs, the report said.

FEMA spokesman Clark Stevens said he could not comment on a report that hasn't been released.

But, he said, "FEMA does not tolerate wasteful spending and is committed to making sure that any past mistakes are not repeated."

By Chris Umpierre

Gulf temperatures along the Southwest Florida coast hovered above 91 degrees Sunday afternoon, a development that could lead to more intense hurricanes should one reach the Gulf of Mexico since warm water intensifies tropical cyclones.

But James Franklin, the branch chief for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, said Southwest Floridians shouldn't be concerned by the warmer-than-usual water temperatures.

"Yes, there are locations (in the Gulf) that are above normal but overall we expect water temperatures to reduce hurricanes this season rather than enhance them because water temperatures in the (Atlantic) basin as a whole are below normal," said Franklin, a nine-year veteran of NHC's hurricane specialist unit.

Thanks to a lack of rain and a heat wave that walloped our region the past two days, the water off Naples and Fort Myers beach rose to 92 and 91 degrees, respectively, Sunday afternoon. Naples' temperature was 6 degrees above normal for this time of the year; Fort Myers was 1 degree above normal.

Gulf temperatures were similarly above normal in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina infamously used the Gulf's warm water to evolve from a Category 3 storm to a Category 5 behemoth in nine hours. Katrina then undermined the levees in New Orleans and killed about 1,580 people in Louisiana.

But warm water is just one factor involved in hurricane development, Franklin said.

"Positioning of loop currents in the Gulf and how storms pass over them is one factor," Franklin said. "There's no way to tell in June how storms might pass over these loop currents in July, August, September or October."

Tropical cyclones also require low vertical wind shear, or winds that are uniform through the atmosphere, to intensify. Winds that change significantly with height tend to rip storms apart.

Charlie Paxton, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Southwest Florida had high vertical wind shear recently.

Franklin added he expects the Atlantic basin to have more wind shear than normal this hurricane season, which began two weeks ago and runs until Nov. 30, because of a potential El Nino weather pattern developing in the Pacific.

An El Nino event occurs when water temperature in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean rises abnormally. The movement of warmer, moist air to the east leaves drier weather in the western Pacific.

In an El Nino year, there are typically more hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific and, conversely, fewer such storms in the Atlantic.

"If we go into an El Nino pattern, which is looking increasingly likely, that will give (the Atlantic region) characteristics of high wind shear that tend to suppress hurricane activity," Franklin said.

In May, the National Hurricane Center predicted an average hurricane season for the Atlantic basin. Forecasters said then that there was a 70 percent chance of nine to 14 named storms developing. Four to seven of those could become hurricanes, forecasters predicted.

"Since May, the likelihood of an El Nino has increased. If our forecast was issued today instead of last month, I think it would have been shaded to an even more quieter (hurricane season) prediction," Franklin said.

Nevertheless, Floridians should take the necessary steps to prepare for hurricanes. Devastating storms can develop during supposedly quiet seasons, Franklin said.

"Look at 1992. That was supposed to be a quiet year," Franklin said.

In 1992, Category 5 Hurricane Andrew caused $27 billion in damage and killed 15 people, mostly in Miami-Dade County.

Despite all of the technological advances in hurricane prediction, tropical cyclones continue to be difficult to prognosticate, Franklin said.

"Folks are always looking for little tidbits, like looking at warm water in the Gulf, to anticipate hurricanes, but there isn't a lot we can say about tropical storms and hurricanes well in advance," Franklin said. "You have to get up to the event to have a feel of what's going on.

"These little clues that often get a lot of attention (in the media) don't tell us very much. The bottom line is that regardless of what the water temperature is here or there, everybody needs to be prepared for hurricanes this season."

By MICHAEL NEWSOM - mmnewsom@sunherald.com

A bill with $439 million to restore the barrier islands and $80 million worth of housing vouchers to be divided between Mississippi and other states is headed to President Barack Obama’s desk.

The president is expected to sign the $106 billion defense appropriation containing the Mississippi funds after it passed the Senate 91-5 Thursday. Supporters had to overcome some GOP opposition to non-defense spending in the bill and some Democrats’ objections to war funding. The resistance was much stronger in the House, which passed the bill in a narrow 226-202 vote Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran — ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee — pushed for the money. U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, Sen. Roger Wicker and Gov. Haley Barbour have also been lobbying for the funds.

“We can be proud of the progress we have made since Hurricane Katrina, but there is still work to be done,” Cochran said. “The funding that was approved today will help storm victims find permanent housing, restore facilities that were damaged and protect the Coast from future hurricanes.”

With Obama’s signature, Mississippi would get $439 million toward fixing Hurricane Katrina’s heavy damage to the barrier islands, which weaken the effects of hurricanes that threaten Mississippi’s coastline. The work, which is expected to cost $1 billion total, was recommended in a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study. “The barrier islands act as Mississippi’s first line of defense against the storm surge of a hurricane, and it is critical for their restoration to begin immediately,” Wicker said.

The bill also includes $80 million for housing vouchers. The money would go to households making $20,000 a year or less in several states hit by recent hurricanes. About $30 million of the total would allow Mississippi to fund 5,000 vouchers.

The bill also contains an extension of FEMA disaster-housing case management for the state until March 2010, as some, mostly elderly and disabled Katrina victims, still need help finding homes.

After Katrina, much of the local emergency communication infrastructure was down and in other cases, those who came from outside the area often weren’t using equipment compatible with what locals had, leaving them disconnected. But the bill also contains $100 million that would allow the state to finish a $177 million “Mississippi Wireless Interoperability Network” for emergency communications.

There’s also $49 million to repair the now-vacant Army ammunition plant at Stennis Space Center, which was built in the 1980s but closed by the Army after only a few years. During the 2005 round of the federal Base Realignment and Closure commission, it was recommended the plant be given to NASA, but Hurricane Katrina damaged it and it hadn’t been occupied for several years. The work could cost $114 million. Wicker and Cochran, the states two Senators, voted for the bill Thursday. In the House, U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, from Central Mississippi, was the only Mississippian on Capitol Hill to vote against the money. In the House, Harper is the state’s lone Republican. Taylor and U.S. Reps. Bennie Thompson and Travis Childers, all Democrats, voted for the bill. Harper said he didn’t oppose the money for the Coast, but was against much of the measure’s non-defense spending.

Besides funding for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the measure contains $7.7 billion aimed at preventing pandemics, $5 billion in loans to aid underdeveloped countries and $1 billion for a “cash for clunkers” program, which would give grants of up to $4,500 for car owners to trade in their gas guzzlers for fuel efficient vehicles.