Heightened rhetoric about FEMA's rejection of extra flood disaster help

The Federal Emergency Management Agency told Minnesota that last month's northern flood was "not of such severity and magnitude as to warrant" individual assistance to the people impacted.

For Minnesotans those were fighting words.

"It's just really cruel and wrong," Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday. Asked if he would talk to President Barack Obama about it, he said: "we'll see."

Eighth District Congressional candidate Rick Nolan, and one of the Democrats who hopes to wrest the northern seat from Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack, took the outrage further.

"Why can we rebuild Baghdad and Kabul, but not Duluth? FEMA's denial of disaster assistance demonstrates again how much we need to fix our national priorities," Nolan said in a statement.

FEMA has already approved emergency disaster assistance to help 13 counties recover from June storms that buckled roads, created massive sinkholes and flooded buildings. That aid only applies to the $100-million-plus worth of damages to public buildings.

But Wednesday it stopped short of extending that assistance to homeowners who lacked flood insurance, saying the damage wasn't bad enough.

U.S. Sens Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, both Democrats, and the GOP's Cravaack said he is right to appeal.

"We support Governor Dayton's action to appeal the decision to deny individual assistant and will be urging FEMA to swiftly consider this appeal. We will continue to work with federal, state and local officials to help families and businesses in northeast Minnesota recover," they said in a joint, bipartisan statement.

Dayton on Thursday noted that the FEMA is "under severe" budget pressures and suggested that the rejection may be the result of a dispute between the Chicago FEMA office and the DC office

"I'd like to find out more about this internal disagreement," Dayton said.