(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Beltway bureaucrats have a way of making government employees at other levels seem, well, downright efficient and reasonable. Earlier this week we learned the folks at the Federal Emergency Management Agency had denied federal assistance for storm and flood-related damage in Doddridge, Jackson, Mingo and Wyoming counties from mid-July to mid-August. Their reason? Well, the storms that caused the damage did not occur all at once.

“FEMA and the National Weather Service (have) classified these storms as four separate events, which has played into part of their decision,” said West Virginia Division of Emergency Management Director G.E. McCabe.

This comes after also denying Kanawha County federal assistance, but APPROVING a disaster declaration for McDowell County for damage done by storms on July 12 and 13, and Fayette County for Aug. 14 and 15.

McCabe explained Monday the ground in the counties for which a disaster declaration was most recently rejected had remained saturated throughout the series of storms, compounding the problems caused. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that needs to be explained, particularly to those whose job is to understand weather-related and other disasters.

“It’s not fair in my opinion,” Gov. Jim Justice said. “Washington can be Washington, guys.”

Not fair, maybe. But also giving the appearance of, at best, deliberate incompetence.

McCabe and other state officials will keep working to pull together more information for an appeal. But it doesn’t sound as though information will be helpful to the kinds of people who would make a decision like this one. Still, they’ve got to try. And perhaps our Congressional delegation can weigh in.

In the meantime, those in the affected communities had better figure out how to plow ahead without counting on help from Washington, D.C.