1.   A generation ago, disaster assistance was largely an affair between governments and the UN.

2.   Citizens would be chopping up their furniture to use as firewood, insurance companies would go bankrupt and the governor would be begging for federal disaster assistance.

3.   Clinton requested disaster assistance in early March.

4.   Clinton declared all Texas counties eligible for disaster assistance, making federal loans available to farmers whose crops have been damaged by drought.

5.   Clinton has declared a major disaster in five counties here, making them eligible for federal disaster assistance.

6.   Crop disaster assistance for farmers is not yet available -- Congress still needs to appropriate the money -- nor have eligibility requirements been finalized.

7.   Democrats and Republicans went along with Bush, although appropriators from both parties admitted that many needs were not addressed, especially for disaster assistance.

8.   Efforts in the last four sessions of Congress have failed to put the brakes on the willingness to appropriate more and more for disaster assistance.

9.   Fourteen counties were granted federal disaster assistance, and dawn-to-dusk curfews have been imposed in several areas.

10.   Gov. Pete Wilson added nine additional counties to his request for federal disaster assistance Tuesday.