ado-damaged Desha County, and he called for a Senate committee hearing on the agency's performance since the Feb. 24 storms.

Photo: Residents of Dumas, Ark. sit among the debris littering the front of their home, after a tornado hit their town on Feb. 24. (By Ralph Fitzgerald, Pine Bluff Commercial/AP)

Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., whose district includes Desha County, also announced that a hearing he requested to look into the federal agency's response will be held March 15 before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"It has been 11 days since these two tornadoes hit Desha County and FEMA has done nothing," Ross said in a news release. "This is a symbol of what is wrong with FEMA and why so many people have lost confidence in their government."

Speaking to reporters in his weekly teleconference, the Democratic senator from Arkansas said he would work with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who chairs the Senate's homeland security committee and with ranking member Susan Collins of Maine to schedule a hearing.

"It is an outrage. It is inexcusable. This is a community that needs government assistance," said Pryor, who also is a member of the panel.

Since the storms, Pryor has been working with Ross and U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., for a federal disaster declaration for the south Arkansas region. The two tornadoes last month injured 27 people in Dumas, destroyed or damaged 150 homes, and put at least 800 people out of work in the small town. For days, the town was without electricity and residents had to boil their drinking water as a health precaution.

"If they can say it doesn't qualify for federal assistance, it's just beyond me," Pryor said.

Ross cited a news article quoting FEMA spokesman John Philbin as saying "the damages or need for federal assistance are not readily available."

But James McIntyre, another FEMA spokesman, said earlier this week that the request was still under review and a decision would be announced when it is made. He said the agency would not comment in the press on comments from the congressional members or Gov. Mike Beebe, who also has asked for a federal declaration.

Pryor said Wednesday that he has spoken several times with FEMA officials and agency Director David Paulison and that they have given him "lame excuses" for not sending federal assistance. He said other agencies, including the Small Business Administration, have been more receptive.

Pryor said FEMA apparently has decided that Arkansas doesn't meet the threshold for a disaster declaration, pointing out to him that residents there have homeowners insurance and that the state has projected a surplus of $845 million.

Pryor called this reasoning "bogus," adding that the federal government shouldn't punish property owners for having insurance and shouldn't penalize the state for doing well economically and returning money to taxpayers this year in the state's largest tax cut.

The government's reasoning was even harder to understand, he said, since Georgia and Alabama have been getting federal storm relief under a disaster declaration.

Pryor said that FEMA's criteria in advising President Bush on disaster declarations need to be reviewed and that he hoped the response to Arkansas' storms wasn't based on partisan politics.

"I don't want to believe that. If that's true, it's criminal. I certainly hope it doesn't have anything to do with how the people of Arkansas vote," Pryor said.

Democrats dominate Arkansas politics and all but one member of Arkansas' six congressional members are Democrats.

Wednesday, both Ross and Pryor repeated their calls for FEMA to move government trailers parked at Hope to Desha County for displaced residents there. The trailer were originally intended for Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Pryor said that while Arkansans opened their homes, churches and shelters to help Katrina evacuees after FEMA failed to respond quickly to the 2005 disaster, the federal agency now won't move the trailers 100 miles from Hope to Dumas to help Arkansans.

"It's just bewildering," Pryor said.

Paulison has told the senator, Pryor said, that the agency can't move the trailers to Desha County until Bush makes the disaster declaration. Pryor challenged that reasoning, saying Congress passed legislation last year to allow for the "common good use" of the trailers.

"They could use them if they wanted to," Pryor told reporters. "That's a bunch of mumbo jumbo. They have the regulatory authority to do this ... they just don't have the will."

Pryor said a group from Monticello and Drew County was in Washington on Wednesday to lobby for assistance on south Arkansas' behalf. The senator hopes to visit Desha County on Friday or Saturday, and Lincoln said Wednesday that she also would tour the region Saturday morning.

Also Wednesday, the Arkansas Senate passed a resolution calling on the federal government to supply aid and move some Hope trailers to Dumas. The Senate resolution, sponsored by Sen. Hank Wilkins IV, D-Pine Bluff, noted that the town doesn't have much rental property for those displaced by the storm.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/tornados/2007-03-08-fema-response_N.htm