Progress in Getting FEMA Help for St. Augustine

Documenting data required to get FEMA trailers and other FEMA help takes effort. The process is not helped by noisome nasty nattering nabobs of negativism like demagogic Flagler College Professor JOE SAVIAK (see his screeds, quoted below) and his unseemly, unhinged attacks on reform St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver.

Posted October 15, 2016 12:02 am
By JARED KEEVER jared.keever@staugustine.com
TABULATING THE DAMAGE: Agencies fan out to assess storm’s impact in hardest-hit areas

With recovery efforts in full-swing a week after Hurricane Matthew made its run up Florida’s east coast, teams of officials from agencies large and small fanned out across St. Johns County to assess damage to private property in the hopes of securing federal assistance for homeowners and renters whose homes suffered severe damage.

“We go to the counties that appear to have the most damage first then work our way down from there,” Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Hughes said Friday.

Hughes spent the better part of the day with two other FEMA representatives, a representative from the State Emergency Response Team and a member from the Small Business Adminstration. Led by St. Augustine Fire Chief Carlos Aviles, the team visited some of the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods.

Hughes said FEMA has been visiting counties throughout the state this week.

After an organizational meeting around 9 a.m. at the county’s Emergency Operations Center, five other teams of similar makeup headed to other areas of the county that also suffered heavy damage.

The purpose of the “preliminary damage assessment teams” was to verify the damage reported by the initial teams that the county sent out in the immediate aftermath of the storm, according to St. Johns County Emergency Management Director Linda Stoughton.

Friday’s teams were looking for homes that suffered damage in the “major and destroyed categories,” she said.

That information will get reported back to state officials who will compile the data and decide whether the state qualifies for the “individual assistance” component of the federal disaster declaration, according to Hughes. If the hardest hit areas do, that will get reported to Gov. Rick Scott’s office who will request the relief.

“Once all the tabulations are done that should take less than a week,” Hughes said.

He expected there was one or two days of information gathering left before those tabulations could begin.

If the individual assistance declaration is secured, the federal government can get homeowners financial assistance to make “initial repairs” to homes and get them assistance for temporary housing while repairs are being made. The support would only apply to primary residences and is not intended to fully rebuild a home, Hughes said.

“FEMA does not make a person or family whole again,” Hughes said. “Our role and responsibility is to help a person get back on their feet.”

The Small Business Administration was on hand, Hughes said, because they can offer low-interest loans to help supplement losses for homeowners and businesses that insurance might not cover totally.

In the Fullerwood neighborhood, north of downtown, the team following Aviles was finding plenty of homes that met the “major damage” threshold. Roaming the streets, stacked high on both sides with piles of soaked furniture and ruined appliances, team members asked questions about how much water had been standing in homes and just what had been damaged.

By early afternoon, the team had made it through Fullerwood and a large part of Lincolnville. They were also planning on hitting the Davis Shores neighborhood, which many officials feel was the hardest hit with flooding. It was slow going at first, because, Aviles said, some people were not as quick to return to certain neighborhoods and the damage was not readily apparent until people started pulling items from their home. But, he said, he wanted to make sure the state and federal officials got to see the damage.

“Davis Shores is a largely impacted area; it’s easy for FEMA to just drive through Davis Shores and assess the damage,” Aviles said, standing on the side of the road in Fullerwood. “This is really important because we want to make sure that sections of the city don’t get missed, and the more representation that we can have, the easier it is for them, hopefully, to get that declaration made.”

In Lincolnville, at the corner of De Haven and Riberia streets, Gladys Garris was cleaning out her home that was badly damaged by flood waters. Standing next to a high-water mark nearly 4 feet up the outdoor wall of her garage, she said she would welcome any help she could get. Inside her home, her carpets were ruined and wood panelling was buckled from moisture wicking up the walls.

“We’ve been waiting on them,” Garris said as team members looked her house over.

“I just wish they can do something for me,” she said. “Because I want to come back and stay in my house.”

Garris said she has lived in the home for 50 years. She’d seen water come up her driveway and to her doorstep, she said, but it had never flooded her house. She left the Wednesday before the storm, when officials warned of a coming mandatory evacuation order. She said she put items on her beds, but the mattresses soaked up so much water that many of the belongings got wet. She was throwing away shoes and clothes but was thankful she was able to save two rocking chairs and some dining room furniture.

“I don’t care how late it is, it can be a year,” she said of returning to her home. “Just as long as I get back. I’ll wait. I got patience.”

Travelling the streets with FEMA and the others, Aviles said, he was getting a chance to make another pass through impacted neighborhoods. Apart from his role as Fire Chief, Aviles also serves as the city’s emergency management coordinator during times like these, and getting back into the streets helped him see who else in the city might need additional help.

“It’s sort of a two-pronged attack in what we are doing,” he said.

That community support is also what Emergency Management has shifted to, Stoughton said.

She and others at the EOC have been playing a “coordination role” between the county and municipalities to get the damage assessments done.

“It is also Emergency Management’s responsibility to request the FEMA teams to come to St. Johns County,” she said.

Since Monday, Emergency Management has been at work calculating the numbers for the “public assistance” side of the disaster declaration which includes damage to government buildings and roads as well as costs associated with debris removal and “protective actions.”

“We have two main focuses, one to support the community and to bring that declaration to St. Johns County,” she said. “The next will be long term recovery.”