FEMA Center Opens in East Biloxi, But Where Are the Trailers?
17 October 2005
More than five weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed into East Biloxi, untold numbers of people are still waiting for the shelter they so desperately need.
Flies buzzed over the sacks of food in a plastic tub propped next to Edna Reynolds' knee. She was sitting hunched in the clutter outside her battered wooden house, a tear as languid as the Mississippi River making its way down her cheek.
"Hallelujah, Jesus," she said as contractors hired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrestled a long-awaited trailer through the mud in her yard in East Biloxi, Mississippi. "I was sleeping in a tent. I'm a diabetic and on kidney dialysis—waiting on the Lord."
More than five weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed into this poor section of the city, drowning the homes of thousands of people in a massive storm surge, FEMA finally came through for Edna Reynolds. But on the debris-piled streets of East Biloxi, untold numbers of other people are still waiting. It could be months before some of them get the shelters they are desperate for.
It wasn't until Sept. 29 that FEMA set up a disaster recovery center here, after weeks of pleading by local organizations and a whirlwind visit to the power brokers in Washington by Ward 2 Councilman Bill Stallworth. He made the trip with the help of Oxfam America.
Promises, Promises
"I'm tired of hearing promises that no one can deliver." Stallworth had told Oxfam after yet another ineffective meeting in Biloxi. "I want to talk to someone who can deliver. I want to talk to the rainmakers."
Oxfam heard the plea and scheduled a series of meetings for Stallworth on Capitol Hill the following week. Among the stops were the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the offices of the Mississippi delegation.
Wearing a suit borrowed from his brother, Stallworth, who had lost all his own possessions in the disaster, impressed upon the Washington officials the urgency of the situation in East Biloxi.
"At almost two hours, the meeting with the Homeland Security Committee was an extraordinary visit—nearly four times as long as what one would normally expect," said Ashley Tsongas, an Oxfam America advocate who accompanied Stallworth and his wife, Kryza, to the meetings. "It is easy to forget about people who are nameless and faceless, especially if they have been marginalized for generations. You can make promises and never keep them. It is much more difficult to dismiss someone who is looking you in the eye, shaking your hand, and saying, I will hold you to this."
Within minutes of the meetings, congressional staffers contacted both Red Cross and FEMA to press for their presence in East Biloxi, said Tsongas.
Greg the Greeter
Greg Damper, decked out in a big straw hat, was busy ushering visitors into FEMA's East Biloxi disaster relief center on a cool, sunny morning in early October. Affable and welcoming, he agreed that "Greg the Greeter" would be as good as any when asked for his title.
"Greg is my name. I'm glad you came," he said, pumping the hand of 80-year-old Annie Lee Reddix as she hobbled up with her walker and peered into the maze before her. Under camouflage tents wrapped in a band of yellow police tape, FEMA workers in tidy navy blue shirts sat at rows of tables stacked with handouts. There were tables for applicant services and exit interviews, for rural development programs and small business disaster assistance. Behind the tent complex loomed the mother ship—a lumbering recreational vehicle powered by a noisy generator and equipped with a bank of laptops and telephones.
How long would it be before the people who found their way through the hubbub of this center actually saw some benefits?
"A disaster as big as this—we've got thousands of people. I can't give you a time frame," said Damper, smiling broadly. Staked out at the end of East Biloxi's Yankie Stadium, the FEMA center is open seven days a week and has been processing the paperwork of about 200 visitors a day.
"We've been busy," added Michael Mallory, the center's manager. "There was a pretty good outcry from the community to get us here."
But folks don't have much longer to sign up for help: The deadline for applying for Katrina assistance is Oct. 28.
"A Month Late"
Walking heavily with a cane up the asphalt drive into the stadium to check on the wheelchair he applied for, Frank Barras, Jr., stopped to contemplate FEMA's arrival.
"They're about a month late, that's all," said the 57-year-old former heavy equipment operator. "I'm living in my carport in a broken-down recliner with mold on it. I've got sleep apnea."
But he has bigger worries than his own: Barras's wife is now in Texas where she was sent for treatment of a severely infected leg. She injured it during the storm while standing on a chain-link fence.
"She almost lost it," said Barras. "She spent 18 days in the hospital and is still on antibiotics." What he needs now, he added, is wheels—anything to make it easier to get around.
"Is there anyone helping with secondary transport—something that runs?" he asked, turning slowly and limping into the stadium.
For Dede Murray, a wiry 42-year-old bartender who lost her job when the storm wiped out her employer, there's no excuse for FEMA's performance.
"They should be more prepared," she said with disgust in her voice. "They're supposed to be professionals." Murray isn't taking any chances on what fate—or FEMA—might bring next. She has stashed away every penny of the $2,000 grant the agency awarded her shortly after Katrina hit.
"When you ain't got no regular income, $2,000 ain't no money," said Murray. "People with no sense is spending all their money."
Patience is what the Rev. Kenneth Haynes of the Main Street Missionary Baptist Church has been counseling as the weeks wear on and the hardships feel endless.
"You've got to understand. You've got to give them time to respond," he said.
38 Days and Counting
But on Elmer Street, patience is running thin for Moni Harris and her neighbors. Tents and a van have been their homes since early September. The debris on their street and in their yards is piled so high and so wide they had to pitch one of their tents partially on the road.
"It's been 38 days since Katrina hit. I've been writing it down," said Harris, whose house got ripped off its foundation. Its floors buckle, its ceilings collapsed, and the only way in is through a side window. Daylight from a gaping hole in the roof streams onto a moldy mess of upended furniture.
"This house was my mom's and dad's house," said Derek Pride, Sr., Harris's husband. "This house has been in the family since 1932." But Katrina has brought an ugly end to those seven decades of security and comfort. The house is totaled.
"It done happen," said Pride with quiet resignation. "But I want to rebuild." And a trailer would be one way to get a start.
Address Claimed
But when Harris went to FEMA to apply for one four days after the storm, she got some unpleasant news: Someone else had already claimed to live at her address.
"We're going to have to wait til they come down and figure out who's telling the truth," said Harris. "We have deeds to our property."
Deeds or no deeds, there is no telling when FEMA may deliver a trailer for Harris and her family, though the agency did come and mark the utility outlets in the yard. FEMA's backlog for Harrison County is enormous. As of Oct. 6, the agency had processed 8,447 applications for trailers in the county—with many more filed electronically and still uncounted—but had delivered only 2,115. And of those units, people had been able to move into just 664 of them.
"I just want somewhere to put my kids," said Kala Willis, whose tent was pitched halfway onto Elmer. One daughter has asthma, another a cold.
With winter around the corner, the prospect of a long way wait for decent shelter is already sending shivers down the spines of newly homeless people.
"Even if it gets down to 50, it feels like 30 when you're sleeping in a tent," said Dede Murray.
