It's good that Vice President Joe Biden is coming to Georgia today to learn about the tremendous flood damage in Cobb and across the metro Atlanta area.

It's good that President Obama took time to telephone Gov. Sonny Perdue on Tuesday to promise prompt attention to the governor's request for aid and then on Wednesday issued a federal disaster declaration for four counties - Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas and Paulding - out of 17 included in Perdue's request.

It's good that the U.S. House of Representatives paused Wednesday in its fight over health care proposals to adopt a resolution recognizing our state's staggering losses and promising relief services.

It's good that the federal declaration covering four counties provides individual assistance and, according to Perdue's office, "can include grants to help pay for temporary housing, home repairs and other serious disaster-related expenses." In addition, low-interest loans will be available "to cover residential and business losses not fully compensated by insurance."

However, it's not good that the declaration failed to provide anything whatsoever for the other 13 counties - Carroll, Catoosa, Chattanooga, Clayton, Crawford, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Newton, Rockdale, Stephens and Walker. In other words, only 23.5 percent of the affected counties were covered.

Clearly, the governor had sufficient cause to ask that 17 counties be covered in the emergency relief order. It's not as if everybody in the counties would suddenly get a check from the government.

But in each of the counties on Perdue's list there undoubtedly are individuals in urgent or desperate need of immediate assistance for temporary housing, repairs "and other serious disaster-related expenses." There undoubtedly are individuals who need low-interest loans for repairs or replacement of their homes and businesses.

These citizens should be just as eligible for federal assistance as their fellow citizens in Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas and Paulding counties even if those were the hardest hit by the flooding. And that assistance was needed immediately.

It's also not good that the disaster aid declaration failed to cover assistance to local governments that face urgent problems in repairing or replacing bridges and roads. That part of the governor's request was "still pending" as of late yesterday.

What's the problem here? Do the bureaucrats think Perdue is trying to pull the wool over their eyes or doesn't know the situation in Georgia?

When disaster strikes, the victims need help immediately.

That's why the partial response to the governor's request makes no sense -except in the world of Washington bureaucracy where the red tape is endless and the paperwork ever mounting and all the "t"s have to be crossed and the "i"s dotted and, as Mom used to say, forty-eleven dozen people have to approve before anything happens.

It makes you remember all the bad stuff about help that didn't come or came too little and too late after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. And the delay this time is not George Bush's fault.

But not to worry. Vice President Biden is coming to town.

dmckee9613@aol.com