if you want something really bad, that's usually how you get it

FEMA & SBA are encouraged by politicians at the highest levels to expedite the disbursement of funds. so they do ... often taking shortcuts eliminating the prudent standards which would otherwise be followed. Congress and the President want the money in circulation to stimulate the afflicted community's economy at least as much as they want to aid the recovery efforts of the disaster victims.
an example is the issuance of $2000 checks to every resident located in the 90210 zip code after the Northridge earthquake (Clinton administration). do you really think every Beverly Hills resident needed that federal money? this was the forerunner of the debit card giveaway in the gulf.

presently $7B in SBA disaster loans have been approved but only $0.5B has been disbursed. without checking further it would appear the agency was not doing a good job of funding its loans -- but just the opposite would be true. the borrowers/disaster victims have to obtain building permits and flood insurance to make sure the disaster loan funds are properly used. the delay is caused by local officials being unwilling or unable to issue permits and define present flood zones.

the point is, these agencies are criticized for being too slow to disburse funds and then when they are required to take shortcuts to overcome the ensuing political pressure they again face criticism for not assuring the funds were properly spent. its a no-win situation for the federal agencies as long as the politicians expect to have it both ways.

the real calamity is that those same politicians ignore the real problems at the SBA, which sells its disaster loans at a discount, recovering 18 cents on the dollar (before further reducing the amount taxpayer dollars recovered by enormous consultant and transaction fees). Large financial institutions buy those loans and then impose conditions on the borrowers which were not considered when the loans originated at SBA, subjecting them to higher fees, interest rates and in some cases, foreclosure. Effectively, the agency exposes the victims to further exploitation by the financial houses which want to quickly turn a profit from the assets they just bought on the cheap from SBA.

wake up America!