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requirements. At these public meetings ASCS officials from Washington 

 assured the producers that they would receive a 64% cost share for 

 debris cleanup. Hearing this, many producers made decisions to rebuild 

 and rehabilitate based on this information. 



After receiving estimates from the county and state ASCS, 

 Washington decided to reduce the cost share by 50%. The reason given 

 by Washington was that the county committee had grossly underestimated 

 the cost of cleanup after the disaster. In fact, a fax memorandum, 

 dated September 8, 1993, 9:06am clearly shows an estimate of $75mm. 

 This figure is within a few million dollars of the actual cleanup costs 

 submitted by producers. This sent a shock through the agriculture 

 community, as producers felt they were betrayed by both local and 

 Federal ASCS officials. The local office bore the brunt of many angry 

 and abusive producers who felt frustrated by this retraction of the 

 original stated cost share percentage. By this time many producers 

 had used their savings and insurance money advanced to them on their 

 private homes to take emergency measures to preserve what was left of 

 their agriculture enterprises. 



Ultimately, when the numbers are compared, the original estimates 

 by the the local committee are very close to the actual dollars per 

 acre that have been paid. In fact, the local committee's estimate of 

 damage and cost of rehabilitation was significantly more accurate than 

 the insurance industries estimates of damage from Andrew to the private 

 homeowner. In the future some method should be devised to eliminate 

 any "knee jerk" reactions by Washington to the legitimate needs of 

 producers in a disaster of this magnitude. 



