Terry Amrhein on the Gulf Coast

Katrina Newsletter (03/08/06)

A picture just doesn't display the magnitude of the situation, like trying to display the immensity of the Grand Canyon with a mire picture. You may take a picture of a collapsed house with walls and roof twisted and tangled into a pile of rubble, but here, in Mississippi, you have to search for the pile of rubble because almost all of the houses have disappeared leaving only an uninteresting slab of concrete.

I took pictures of the destroyed area, a crumbled house, a slab of concrete that was once a house, a home. But mire pictures cannot displace the immensity of the disaster. For 70 miles, from the Alabama boarder to New Orleans almost ever home within two or three blocks of the ocean has been completely obliterated.

Consider yourself as a home owner on the Mississippi coast. You live in a nice home on the coast. The Gulf coast is generally very calm and gentle. Lapping waves of warm water invite waders to enter. But then the ocean turns into a gigantic whirl pool flushing every obstacle, homes, cars, office buildings, trains, boats, all down its gaping throat. When it's gone, in a few hours, all, everything, is gone, totally gone. Not a stick remains. No pictures of the wedding. No antique china. No furniture, not even a pack of cigarettes remains. All, ALL, is gone.

I was at OutBack restaurant yesterday and my waiter came to take my order. "May I sit for a moment" he asked. Sure. "I've been working two jobs now for about 4 months, I still owe my mortgage and I can't rebuild my home because I can't get a mortgage. All I have is land left and the land isn't worth enough to serve as equity for another mortgage. I don't know what I'm going to do except keep working." "Well how about your insurance", I asked, "won't that give you enough money to get started". "Haa", he laughed in sarcasm, "the insurance companies are worthless. They say the house was destroyed by flood and I'm not covered for floods".

But some people's misery is another person's profit. The hotels and motels are 100% booked. People are scrambling for a place to stay. Motels aren't even taking reservations. If a room is vacated, there are 5 or 6 people waiting to get it. It's day to day occupancy. You show up in the morning at the Holiday Inn, Best Western, Marriott and ask if they have a room available. If not, go to another place. FEMA workers like me, and insurance adjusters and construction worker are also adding to the competition. At over $100 per night, if a hotel has 30 rooms, they're making $3000 a day, almost $100,000 per month. In a year they'll be millionaires. If you own a motel, you're thanking God for Katrina.

Restaurants too are booked solid. It's not uncommon to wait an hour for a seat, (during which time I'm usually sitting at the bar. When my set becomes available, I don't care if I get seated or not). But the consequences of the storm are even more far reaching. More to follow, stay tuned. Terry

News from Katrina, I've moved into the Jaws of Hell

On Tuesday, January 24, I moved from Hattiesburg to Biloxi. Hattiesburg is about 60 miles from the coast. The damage there consists mostly of roofs damage, broken windows and rain damage. Biloxi, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, all the cities on the Mississippi coast were hardest hit. All the buildings a block or two from the ocean have been completely obliterated, all along the ocean for about 60 miles. I wrote about this before in my letter about the "slab for sale". The winds blowing 120 to 140 miles per hour made waves up to 35 feet high. These waves smashed into the beach front. The force of the waves, knocked the houses off they foundations and then racked them back over the land. A few stronger houses stayed on they foundations but the front of the houses is smashed in, the structure unable to withstand the pounding waves. As the wave washed over beach front and the land behind the beach, the wave lost its momentum so the houses two or three blocks from the beach were not knocked down, they were flooded, flooded six feet deep. Any building not at least twenty five or thirty feet above sea level got flooded, this constitutes tens of thousands of homes and businesses. The water sat there until it eventually drained away, maybe three or four days. With the dry wall soaked, mold and mildew grows in the walls and the wooden studs inside the walls and the building becomes uninhabitable, reeking with the musty stench of mold. I visited a vacant house this week that was caught in the flood plan. In this house the water soaked 5 feet up the walls. An organization called "Hands On USA" was there removing the dry wall, removing the mold from the wooden studs and coating the studs with mold retardant sealant. The studs were covered with a smooth black felt of mold. Can you imagine living in a house like that? People who used to live there have left.

"Hands on USA" is a volunteer organization. People from all over the country come to volunteer to help with Katrina. Some of them are students, the young and idealistic, and some of them are retired, the old and idealistic. They all pay their own expenses, a truly altruistic group. On the other hand, I do not see many local people volunteering. I would expect that people whose houses were destroyed would be out working to reconstruct they community, but not so. Nor do I see much military assistance. There is a large military base near here, Kissler Air Force Base and a Navy SeaBee base, but military assistance is non-existent. There is something wrong with this picture. Most of the volunteers are out-of-staters. Local people are not out removing debris and reconstructing. I can't figure out why.

I went to Mobile, Alabama today and the first thing I noticed was that all the houses have roofs and the streets and yards are not covered with debris. I must be getting callous to the horrors of disaster to notice such a thing and to think it unusual.

December 17, 2005

Today is my 12 th day of working for FEMA.  It seems like about about 2 months.  Tomorrow, Sunday  December 18, will be my first day off since I arrived.  10 to 12 hours per day for twelve days makes thing seem like a long time.  But I'm not nearly worn out, I'm still enthusiastic.

I'm living in a pull trailer.  It turns out that all the people who lost their homes in the hurricane have migrated north from the coast to places like Hattiesburg so there aren't any hotel rooms available.  FEMA imported a few trailers for their staff so I got one of them.  I'm actually living in a small village called Purvis, about 20 miles south of Hattiesburg.  They have established a massive problem to house those people who lost their homes.  In a field near here, they have accumulated about 3000 trailers to be distributed throughout the area.  I saw a line of trucks pulling trailer yesterday.   There must have been 150 trailers in line.  Some pull trailer and some mobile homes.  FEMA has placed orders for trailers/mobiles home with every manufacturer in the country.  They're coming in from everywhere.  They arrive at this big depot and are then dispensed to the people who lost their houses.  Someone told me that there are 40,000 trailers on order.  Massive.

Most of my time has been spent on training, who is eligible for what and how to operate the computer systems they have.  I did get assigned my first applicants, (FEMAism for public agencies applying for aid) this week.   I have two school systems.  One in a little town called Leaksville and the other in Rushton, both just east of Hattiesburg.  The damage here is not really severe, mostly blown off roofs, broken glass and water damage to the interior due to the leaking roofs.  My job is to assess the damage and to estimate the cost to repair it.  I go around with maintenance staff, they show me the damage and I measure it and then prepare as estimate to fix it.

I love dealing with the people.  Many people here, the natives I reckon, speaks with heavy southern accents.  Although I was raised in the south, it is a challenge for even me to understand some of them.  I met Mr. XXXXX in Leaksville.  A black man with a 46 inch wais but very proud of the fact that he was a wide-receiver on the high schools football team, apparently several years and many pounds ago   It turns out that he's the county supervisor.  He went around with us, myself and my FEMA mentor, and showed us all the damage to his schools.  As a side trip, he took us to the county jail and showed us where they used to hang people, the eye bolt in the ceiling where they attached the noose, trap steel trip door in the floor and the lever handle that was pulled to open the door.  Sort of gruesome, sort of a strange thing to be proud of, but it was interesting.  I took pictures.

We had a meeting in Rushton the next day with the school superintendent and his staff.  I was 15 minutes last because the trip was longer than I anticipated. As I entered the room and the super and his clerk were already involved in conservations with my coordinator about the potential reimbursement the school might get from FEMA.  In the corner sat a gentleman with a graying goatee and farmer overalls.  He sat quietly.  The superintendent and my coordinator talked about the school damage and what would be reimbursable.  He wanted to start repairs to upgrade the school's gymnasium but was afraid to start the repairs until he knew what funds might be made available.   When he got to the details, the supervisor spoke to the goateed man.  Mr. Mitch, Mitch is his first name, spoke about the damage.  He spoke with a deep southern accent, full of southern images and colloquialisms, but make no mistake, this guy was a smart cotton picker.  He spoke knowledgably about the roof damage, the air conditioning, the spayed on insulation in the gym, the safety glass, power systems and communications systems.  When I indicated that the roof insulation might contain asbestos, Mr Mitch said, "Nope, my daddy done instaaalled this here insoolation, it made of wood cheeps, ground up newspaper and far reetardant glooo".  Not only was Mr Mitch the school maintenance man but he also runs a farm.  He raises cattle and he brands all his cattle.  "You brand your cattle, I thought only the westerns branded cattle", I said.  "Nope", he says, "I once took my cows to the feedin lot to get fatten up without brands and the cow got all meed up.  I got cheated out of sevin thousand dollars."  "You know", Mr. Mitch says, "a mistake that don't cost you nutan, you don't remember, but tho'in that costs you, you'll larn from tha dar meestake"  Wye, yes you will. 

Today, I'm going to New Orleans and the Mississippi coast to see what the really damaged areas look like.  Stay tuned.

December 10, 2005

I'm here in Mississippi.  I arrived here on Tuesday Dec 6 in the afternoon and got my portable computer, cell phone, printer-fax-copier and GPS.  All this in one day.  Who needs Christmas?  I also spent time trying to get my computer User ID and password and doing other BS type stuff that you have to do when you start a new job.

On Thursday, we started training.  Thirty eight new FEMA engineers from literally all over the country.  One guy worked in Alaska and was on vacation in Colorado when he got a phone call asking him to join FEMA.  He had to flight back to the State of Washington and then return here.  Another guy had two hour notice, can you be on an airplane in two hours? Yes.  A guy from Florida, a women from Maine.  And the ethnic mix is amazing.  A few women, a man of oriental decent from Northern California.  Several blacks, and a few southerners.  "How deed yawl git dawn har?" "Wy I done flood on an harepline", even I can hardly understand them.  But even though they talk funny, these 38 people are smart, they were picked out of about 3000 applicants.

Contrary to what we see on TV, the way FEMA handles disasters really makes since.  I'm working the Public Assistance unit that gives assistance to public entities, not individuals, another section of FEMA deals with individuals.  We go out and look at the disaster, estimate what needs to be done to fix the structure, the bridge, hospital, school etc, and how much it will cost.  Now a person, we call them applicants, shouldn't make money on a disaster, so any insurance they get is substracted from the FEMA money they get.  Also, the applicants shouldn't be able to improve their facility because of a disaster, so FEMA will only restore the facility to its condition before the disaster.  On the other hand, if the actual repair is more that the FEMA cost estimate, FEMA will give them more money to make up the difference.  An applicant cannot lose money when recovering from a disaster.  The whole system, covering many difference situations really makes sense, unlike other government agencies I'm familiar with.

On Monday, I move down to Hattiesburg, MS.  Hattiesburg is about 100 miles from the ocean where most of the disaster occurred but that's where they need me to that's where we'll go.  When we finish with the Hattiesburg area, I'll move down to the Biloxi area.  I hear the area is entirely devastated but we'll see.  Stay tuned.

Pictures

Coming soon!