NEW ORLEANS — The only thing keeping Gerard Rigney from getting back into his home is the FEMA trailer in his front yard.
It needs to vanish so his plumber can redo the piping into the house, which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters almost four years ago. After months of calls and letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency saying his days in the trailer were numbered, he can’t wait to get rid of it.
"I’m grateful I had this. I would’ve been at the mercy of friends and strangers without it,” the 65-year-old stagehand said from his trailer’s front steps — a day before FEMA’s Saturday deadline for him and thousands of others to leave their federally issued travel trailers and mobile homes or face possible repossession.
Mobile home and trailer dwellers like Rigney were given several extensions to finish rebuilding homes or find permanent places to stay. Those who stayed on or past May 1 were given notices to vacate. And it appears the deadline is going to stick after FEMA told residents they would ask the U.S. Department of Justice to help get them out of the units.
With hurricane season beginning Monday, an estimated 3,400 households affected by those storms remain in trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi.
David Garratt, FEMA’s acting deputy administrator, told a House subcommittee on May 22 that it could take several months for any "evictions.”
FEMA has assured state officials the situation would be approached on a case-by-case basis. Agency spokesman Clark Stevens said FEMA is working with federal, state and local agencies to help residents transition into long-term housing.
by the associated press
It needs to vanish so his plumber can redo the piping into the house, which was damaged by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters almost four years ago. After months of calls and letters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency saying his days in the trailer were numbered, he can’t wait to get rid of it.
"I’m grateful I had this. I would’ve been at the mercy of friends and strangers without it,” the 65-year-old stagehand said from his trailer’s front steps — a day before FEMA’s Saturday deadline for him and thousands of others to leave their federally issued travel trailers and mobile homes or face possible repossession.
Mobile home and trailer dwellers like Rigney were given several extensions to finish rebuilding homes or find permanent places to stay. Those who stayed on or past May 1 were given notices to vacate. And it appears the deadline is going to stick after FEMA told residents they would ask the U.S. Department of Justice to help get them out of the units.
With hurricane season beginning Monday, an estimated 3,400 households affected by those storms remain in trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi.
David Garratt, FEMA’s acting deputy administrator, told a House subcommittee on May 22 that it could take several months for any "evictions.”
FEMA has assured state officials the situation would be approached on a case-by-case basis. Agency spokesman Clark Stevens said FEMA is working with federal, state and local agencies to help residents transition into long-term housing.
by the associated press
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