FEMA Answers Earthquake Disaster With a Blizzard of Aid Checks
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — The way governments show disaster victims
they care is to write checks. And in response to the Northridge
earthquake, FEMA officials have issued nearly a quarter-million
of them and are continuing to crank out thousands more each day.
Administering that dose of concern requires linking telephone
operators in Texas and Virginia to a vast computer network
cobbled together in a leased Redwood City office building. The
system relies on powerful hand-held computers and on damage
inspectors who earn more the faster they work. It tries to sort
out the greedy without discouraging the truly needy.  Eleven
weeks after the most expensive disaster in U.S. history, more
than 2,000 FEMA workers continue working long days, processing
the requests of those who were displaced, those who need help in
making repairs--and some who officials say are merely angling
for a sliver of the multibillion-dollar aid pie.  Residents of
the area affecte