FEMA policy complicates searches for loved ones

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is restricting the release of information on Hurricane Katrina evacuees, complicating efforts by families to find loved ones and by law enforcement officials searching for parolees and convicted sex offenders.

Citing privacy concerns, FEMA has rejected a request by Texas officials for access to its database of the more than 100,000 evacuees who have registered for state aid, according to the governor’s office. FEMA has also declined requests from five states to cross-check a database of convicted sex offenders and parolees against a list of evacuees requesting federal assistance.

FEMA officials have started prohibiting workers at a large shelter in San Antonio from sharing information about evacuees even with family members unless the evacuees had signed release forms. In many cases, relief workers said, such forms were lost or never presented in the chaos of the exodus. FEMA authorities made similar restrictions when they took over management of shelters in Beaumont, Texas, last week.

“If we find someone, we’ve been instructed to tell family members, ‘He or she is alive and well in San Antonio,’ and that’s it,” said Rene Gauna, a city employee working at a FEMA-managed shelter at the old Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. “We’re no longer allowed to release new addresses or telephone numbers or tell people where their loved ones have moved.”

Jack Heesch, a FEMA spokesman in San Antonio, said it is standard agency policy not to release “any information on anyone” to protect a person’s privacy, a position generally supported by civil liberties groups. He said FEMA is prohibited from releasing information on Katrina’s victims to facilitate family reunification or even to prevent “double-dipping” – the abuse of federal aid by victims.

Federal privacy law is intended to protect people from identity theft and from other violations of their personal information, but state aid officials say the regulations should be balanced against the enormity of Katrina.

FEMA is beginning to take over more shelters to lessen the financial burden on states and local communities, prompting concern that it will become even more difficult for families to find loved ones.

Edwin Coleman’s family has already run into obstacles. Coleman, 80, a retired inventory clerk, was rescued from his New Orleans home four days after Katrina flooded the city. His daughter, Edwina Coleman, had been looking for him ever since and heard from friends that he was in San Antonio. When she contacted the city’s biggest shelter, officials refused to release any information on her father, saying they could not find proof that Coleman had signed a privacy waiver.

After questions from a Washington Post reporter on Monday, the shelter released information on Coleman, and the two were reunited by telephone. “I’m glad I was found,” chuckled Coleman, who said he signed a waiver, but apparently it was lost. “People have been good to me, but things have been awfully confusing.”

“We were doing these kind of ad hoc reunifications all the time before FEMA came in,” said Gauna, the San Antonio official. “Now we’ve been told it’s against the law.”