When I heard the head of FEMA talking tonight on CNN, I just got angry. Maybe I am wrong to be that way, but he sounded like he had it all down pat. Maybe they are better organized there, as they have had private companies working a year on catastrophic hurricane possibilities. My previous diary lists the 3 companies involved in New Orleans supposedly.
FEMA may have privatized New Orleans emergency management.
I do kmow they did not have it together here. Eventually they showed up. The most aid went to Miami, and the damn hurricane did not even hit there! They did help a lot in many areas, but it was NOT immedidate. There were huge delays. They had become part of Homeland Security, and just were not set up as they should be.
Now after rambling, here is my point. I think the most tragic part of this will be the new homeless class from these hurricanes. Bottom line is that when low income housing was destroyed, nearly 95% in Charlotte County where Charlie veered ashore suddenly, they consciously decided not to rebuild it. Instead they are enriching the tax base by building nicer homes and new businesses.
The people in FEMA village there, some 500 trailers, will have to get out in February. This article shows their quandary, which basically is that they have nowhere to go.
Misery Follows Charley’s Path: First of Four Hurricanes to Terrorize Florida in 2004
Unlike typical developments, though, this one bears the stamp of planned obsolescence.
The community just outside Punta Gorda, officially called the Airport Mobile Home Park, is scheduled to vanish Feb. 13 — 18 months after Hurricane Charley made landfall on Florida’s southwest coast and churned northeast through the state.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency built the 59-acre community in a cow pasture next to the Charlotte County Airport to house people displaced by Charley. The agency laid sewer and water lines, installed an electrical grid and built roads to serve the largest temporary housing center FEMA has ever built.
It was good that FEMA provided these services. I have no gripe with that. But these people on the whole have nowhere to go. Their housing needs would not override the monetary importance of businesses and fancy homes that pay more taxes.
“I’d be lost without them,” said Hurst, 38, who is legally blind and lives off monthly disability payments of $720. “I’ll stay here until I run out of money.”
Residents are only required to pay for water and electricity but can opt for cable and phone service, said FEMA spokeswoman Bettina Hutchings.
These are the kind of people the right wing extremists and bloggers call irresponsible, say they need to pay their way. I believe most have jobs and are productive citizens, but they can not find housing they can afford. It is not being rebuilt because of cutbacks in federal funding and just plain greed.
But where Rusty and his dad will live after the makeshift village closes remains unsettled. FEMA estimates that Hurricane Charley wiped out 95 percent of Charlotte County’s low-income housing.
“There’s no place to go,” Hurst said. “We can’t live anywhere down here with these rents. The prices go $800 to $1,000 down here.”
DAMAGE PERSISTS
A year after Charley, Punta Gorda is a hodgepodge of devastation and renewal, with new homes and businesses rising amid the wreckage of the old.
Some houses remain unoccupied in the historic district near Charlotte Harbor, and vacant lots signal the disappearance of others.
“We’re starting to get new businesses opened that were not here previous to Hurricane Charley,” Nemec said. “Out of the rubble, we’re starting to see a lot of positive motion.”
And out of that rubble they are building finer things, and the people in FEMA village have nowhere to go. And I have seen very few articles that point this out, and very few people who care.
lack of vision, lack of foresight, lack of compassion is all too typical for this administration. Yes it is horribly sad about these people. Will they get to keep the trailers? Or will that be taken away as well? The hard part about their moving is the lack of resources to move. How many have relatives that can give them a boost elsewhere? It doesn’t sound as though any more low income housing is being planned so move they will have to.
Their only “crime” is not having as much money as they should. There are very few people in Florida now who are not humble, and most of them are among the rich.
Our neighbor had a tree fall on his house last year during Jeanne. A neighbor on the other end of the block had a tree fall on their house. The first neighbor is a city planner. The tree was cleared and the roof was fixed within a week.
A year later, the other neighbor is still waiting to have the roof completely fixed. About half is done.
No one in the neighborhood has even mentioned that there might be something wrong with this picture.
Floridagal, this was an eye opener for sure. I have been wondering about the readiness of FEMA and figured that Bush declared an emergency in La and Miss so early because they know how inefficient it functions under Homeland Security. That was a good thing, but I can’t help but think it had little to do with the needs of victims and a lot to do with political cover. I missed your previous diary, but after I post this here, I’m going over to check it out.
When the government is corporatized and privitized like it’s become under Bush, the focus at some point ceases to be helping victims and becomes more about profit. Bush worships at the altar of money in all it’s forms, and so does his entire administration. It makes my stomach turn. I wonder about the military “Task Force” being formed now and have my suspicions. I think the Guard is so incredibly drawn down by Iraq that this is the only way the government can hide that from the public.
Thank you and please keep posting about this most important issue!
People need to know that all the stuff they see on TV about how things went here and how FEMA did well are just not that true.
There were good things that happened, I know. But mostly after the Bush Brothers handed out ice for photo ops….we were on our own. We were without power for days, no radio bothered to pre-empt their programming to tell us who had ice, if any restaurants had power, if any grocery stores had restocked. We were absolutely on our own.
There is very little attention to South Florida right now, but Katrina hit them as well. Long lines for gas and ice and water. Now it is hard to find anything in the news.
I worry about privatization and lack of oversight. I saw it happen. I am still looking for the company name that was prominent here last year, it is somewhere in my records.
It is about shelter in the end.
My town is destroying small cottages to build luxury condos, luxury town houses and monster homes. There will be no low cost apartments for the people who work for the owners of these luxury homes.
City planners and the developers of the luxury accommodations do not stop to think about the service personnel. Who is going to work in the clinics taking blood and x-rays, who is going to clean the hosptials, who will serve in the restaurants and stores? These people need homes too. No low-cost apartments have been built in my town in 25 years.
I really am convinced that they think that “those people” can simply commute from elsewhere, and otherwise simply don’t think about them that much.
Of course, with rising gas prices, I’m honestly not sure what many service workers are going to do. Very few can afford to live in the centers of employment. I can only afford to live in my downtown area because my girlfriend and I have roommates and no kids — and bills are still pushing it often, though we spend very little on anything optional.
A city gets its taxes based essentially on the worth of its housing and businesses. Which naturally encourages any city, and particularly one doing any kind of rebuilding, to build little to no affordable housing. Where, exactly, those of us who make the coffee and clean the hotels and serve the food for the new high-end citizens are supposed to live is anybody’s guess.
We stopped having a single economy quite a while ago, so far as I can tell. Don’t let discussions of “the” economy fool you; we’ve got at least two, and one of them’s been pretty fucked for quite a while.
where a forest of luxury highrises have been built. They can’t get anyone to work there because