The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel has been doing a fantastic job watchdogging hurricane-related fraud in Miami-Dade County, Fl. A summary of “Cashing in on disaster:”

Hurricane Frances hit South Florida Labor Day weekend, 100 miles north of Miami-Dade County, but Sun-Sentinel reporters found that the federal government approved $28,000,000 in storm claims there for new furniture and clothes and thousands of new televisions microwaves, refrigerators and other appliances. The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid for new cars, dental bills and a funeral, even though the Medical Examiner recorded no deaths from Frances. In an ongoing series of reports, the newspaper also found that FEMA inspectors were given only cursory training and attributed damage to tornadoes – there were none recorded in the county – and in six instances listed “ice/snow” as the cause. The reports have prompted calls for investigations by federal and state officials and the beginnings of an inquiry by the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security…

FEMA is now in CYA mode:

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on Thursday defended the disaster declaration.

“I think it was absolutely appropriate,” Brown said in a meeting with the newspaper’s editorial board. “They [the state] asked for it. They had a valid basis for asking for it. And we certainly approved it.”

Brown did say his agency is looking into the validity of the Miami-Dade claims. “People think there’s something funny going on in Miami-Dade County,” Brown said. “I’m instructing the staff to go back and dig into those numbers and find out what’s going on and make sure that we’re still doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Reps. Clay Shaw and Mark Foley, Republicans from South Florida, this week requested investigations, saying they were particularly outraged that FEMA had thus far approved more money to residents of Miami-Dade than some Treasure Coast counties that were in the eye of the storm.

As of last week, FEMA had approved 9,801 Miami-Dade grant applications for housing assistance, storm-related bills and replacement of household items for a total of $21.5 million. Residents of hard hit Indian River County, by comparison, had received $12.5 million.

FEMA officials stopped releasing updated numbers this week, saying they could no longer provide county breakdowns. “We’ve been told not to give them out,” said spokesman Jess Seigal…

Other media outlets should join the Sun-Sentinel in keeping the heat on FEMA–and on Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush. Moreover, the newspaper’s reporting should serve as a model as massive disaster aid pours into south Asia. Somebody needs to track where all the money is going–and God knows we can’t trust the sticky-fingered bureaucrats at the United Nations to do it honestly.

(Hat tip: Florida Cracker, who lampoons greedy Miami-Dade residents here.)