What is the hold up??

[Brier Rose]

I am sooo frustrated with the way the housing for Katrina victims is being handled! We own a transport company that has been working with FEMA to deliver mobile homes and modular school units to AL, MS, and LA....well at least we were.

FEMA has put a hold on any shipments of homes to the area for the past week now, and no word yet on when it will be lifted. I understand that some of this has to do with the lack of locations for placement...some of it...the rest is just pure BS!

You all would be shocked(or NOT!) with some of the STUPID decisions that are being made. They claim they cannot get the houses out for lack of transport drivers and set up crews..not true!!
They are literally turning people away.

The factories are just left twiddling their thumbs waiting for word on what to do next, all the while having to sell off houses that were built for FEMA, but that FEMA won't take.

DH dedicated trucks to pull to all disaster areas, and we're just waiting to help, but can't right now because of all the red tape.

People are sleeping in tents, and meanwhile there are literally seas of brand new homes sitting in storage yards! It makes me so sad and frustrated.

 

[C.Ann]

Why am I not surprised?

 

[dixipixi]

There was a story on our local news about this. So many people waiting on trailers. They need to be at their house to do repair work, but can't stay inside the house. Lots of people sleeping in tents. Luckily, our weather has been very dry. It will start raining, though...what then?

They started out promising all the transport jobs to LA, MS, AL residents. Then when lots of drivers showed up, they were told, "sorry...we don't need you." There are lots of people around here out of work, watching people from other places come in and do work they could be doing. Why pay for hotels and living expenses for out-of-state workers when local residents could be doing the job?

Then they make it look like everyone down here is just sitting around, waiting on assistance. Lots of people want to get back to work, and get back in their homes, but how can they?

Another thing I don't understand...we had significant damage to our home, my car was a total loss, and we lost all our outbuildings and everything outside of our home. FEMA won't help you out if you had insurance. It is illegal to drive a car without insurance in LA. I had insurance, but I had to pay out of my pocket for my new car. If I had not had insurance, they would have reimbursed me (up to a certain amount)...but since I had insurance...I didn't qualify for any assistance (but it's ILLEGAL to drive a car WITHOUT insurance). Where is the sense in that? Because we had insurance on our home, no assistance there either (although we were homeless for 3 weeks due to repairs we had to make before we could stay here...once again...we paid for everything out of our own pocket).

We are much better off than a lot of people and I don't mean to complain, but we lost a month of pay (all the bills were still due), had to make extensive repairs to our home, and lost everything in our fridge and freezer. We had emergency savings that we could use...but what about the people without that?

Nothing shocks me anymore. It's been one bad decision after another. They do have places to put these trailers. There were lots of people down in NO wondering what to do because they had the area prepared for a trailer, but no trailers are available.

Brier Rose, I hope this doesn't affect your income very much. It's just wrong to promise someone something and then not deliver on it. Especially when the welfare of their family is at stake. It's frustrating when you feel like the system is set up to punish those willing to work.

 

[Zurealsoon]

dixie, thanks for your frank personal info. It's the people who weren't in shelters who are really getting "the shaft" from FEMA, as you so eloquently put it. You have to wait on the Insurance Companies who are completely overloaded, for $$$.

I see the same thing happening to my friend, as to clearing out her house before it is bulldozed-she really lives so far away that the 3 hours drive there and back takes up the whole day !

 

[Brier Rose]

Brier Rose, I hope this doesn't affect your income very much. It's just wrong to promise someone something and then not deliver on it. Especially when the welfare of their family is at stake. It's frustrating when you feel like the system is set up to punish those willing to work.

WOW, I can't believe how sweet you are to be thinking about our income with everything that you're having to deal with! Thank you.

We're doing well this year. Last year during the great mobile home migration to Florida, we were out of work for 3 months due to FEMA's use of only a large carrier versus independent contractors. All of the plants quit building for their regular buyers in order to build housing solely for disaster relief.

It actually turned out to be a good thing in the end, as it forced us to expand into other things, and this year they are calling us.

It's such a double-edged sword. I'm so grateful for the work that we've had, and that I know is eventually coming. It's just so tiring and frustrating to see the total waste of resources and complete incompetence that we have seen.

There are so many people, that KNOW what it takes to dispatch housing, and set up parks, and get the permits, etc...., they do it everyday! But instead they have people that have no clue about any of it trying to get things done, and it's one stupid move after another. Leaves everybody in the industry just ....

I truly admire you. You sound like such a strong and compassionate person.
You have been through so much, and I pray that things will be much better for you soon.

BTW...we got word last night that their ready to start rolling em' out again. This time to holding yards in AK and TX.
Of course then after they sit there, they'll have to dispatch somebody a second time to take them to another holding location a little closer, and then finally a THIRD dispatch to the actual location. What are they thinking???

 

[arminnie]

Last weekend as I was driving from Dallas to Little Rock I saw many, many mobile homes in transit on I30. They were all labeled FEMA.

I couldn't figure out where they were taking them. Wrong direction (N.E.) as far as I could tell.

 

[Rhongepooh]

I have a good friend who lost a camp on the coast and an apartment an hour above the coast. He has been living in the back of a warehouse where he works. He gets a promise from fema almost every week. Has a place to put a trailer/camper but still hasn't gotten one and there are no vacent apartments and the like!

 

[dixipixi]

Thanks for the nice comments, but if you all had been around me many times over the past couple of months....I wouldn't have seemed so sweet.

I do have to say that today I was on I-55 and I saw several trailers headed south. To where, I don't know...but at least I saw them.

It's really frustrating to see the people who need help not getting it and people "ripping off the system" getting thousands of dollars when the worst thing they experienced was no electricity for one week.

I went to Wal Mart today to buy Star Wars III (had to go at 8 am so Wally World was my only option). I saw two people ahead of me check out DVDs, game systems, video games, sparkly feather boas (no joke), halloween candy, a plasma light thing, and one had halloween make up (I thought that was yesterday), only one of them checked out 1 bottle of shampoo and 1 can of hair spray. No groceries. No necessities. No clothing. They checked out using Red Cross Cards. Just seemed wasteful to me.

Then, when I come home this evening I see on the news how so many people are riding the bus from Baton Rouge to NO everyday in order to find work and try to clean their houses and get a little of their life back. The buses are a good idea. They are free and provided by the state. That's how money should be spent. Of course, it was an idea of our local and state govts (who have been projected as incompetent to the rest of the world). Sure, they made mistakes, but overall they have done a fantastic job in the recovery process (especially with no revenue coming in).

Sorry if any of this seems mean spirited. I truly don't mean for it to be. It's just extremely frustrating to watch them throw money away where it does the least good and leave those who truly need help waiting and wondering.

 

[Brier Rose]

I do have to say that today I was on I-55 and I saw several trailers headed south. To where, I don't know...but at least I saw them.

All of the factories around here started shipping out again today. We've been told to dispatch the houses to holding yards in Port Charlotte, FL and somewhere south of Selma, AL. They are looking into holding yards in Texarcana, Tx and somewhere in Arkansas.

We have a friend who has crews in NO right now setting up the houses once they FINALLY get to the end location. He said there are about 30 trucks delivering from a nearby holding yard to the trailer park they are working on.
He said rather than spread the houses out among those in need, they have been instructed to only work on one park, and it must be completed before they can move on to another location.

 

[dixipixi]

I heard several people on the local news this morning saying they either had their trailers or were very close to getting one.

I just don't totally understand the "trailer park" concept. It makes more sense to me to have the trailers at the individual homes where the people can return to work and clean out their homes. I know some areas were completely destroyed and are unhealthy to be in, but not all areas.

Most of these parks are in rural areas. Without transportation, these people are stranded once they are in the park. They are hours away from NO, so it's impossible for them to return on a daily basis to either work or clean up their property. Just another one of those things that doesn't seem to make much sense.