BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. – Arlene Johnson knows a thing or two about helping folks. Deep passion for her hometown and unconditional love for its people pulse with the blood in her veins as the director and 23-year employee of the Hancock County Senior Center carries out her mission: See a need among her clients and fill it.
Pretty simple concept, actually, even if the execution requires the patience of Job to thread a labyrinth of government and private funding sources, stay atop myriad state and federal regulations and pay the light bill.
So Arlene Johnson wonders then why it’s so damn hard for the United States federal government to deliver a few trailers to the eight homeless folks who have been living in the senior center at 220 Bookter St. for the nearly eight weeks now since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast.
Her voice rises in anger as she recounts her baffling dealings with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has purchased thousands of trailers for people left homeless by Katrina but has had well-documented problems in delivering them.
“The people that you should have gotten to first are the people that are still homeless,” she says during an interview inside the cool brick center that withstood the relentless storm.
They don’t seem to get that on the other end of the telephone, she says. They tell her this is how things work in a disaster. That “the computer” has the information. That they need to go to lunch.
“I’ll tell you this,” she says with a hard gaze and a firm hand on a reporter’s shoulder, “FEMA is the other F-word.”
It’s an exhausting distraction from getting the senior center back to the business of helping the county’s older folks do their shopping, get meals, see the doctor.
And it comes after a harrowing struggle for survival that turned the center into a shelter and crammed it with 165 souls for days.
She chose to ride the storm out at the center because she knew that’s where her seniors would look for her when they needed her after the storm, even though she was told that the building wouldn’t survive.
“I said, ‘If this building is not here when the storm is over, then Bay St. Louis is not going to be here, and if Bay St. Louis is not here, there’s no reason for me to be here.’ Bay St. Louis is the most wonderful place in the whole world to live and work. I was born here, I was raised here and I’ve lived here all my life.”
As the winds died down, an onslaught of the newly homeless made their way through the floodwaters to the center. “We had people on the floors, we had people in chairs, we had seven infants from 3 weeks on” and one person who was 97.
“I was begging for Pedialyte and Gatorade, Pedialyte for the babies so they wouldn’t get dehydrated and Gatorade for the old people so they wouldn’t get dehydrated.”
They flushed the toilets with water from ditches. “When the ditches ran out, we’d take the truck out into the county and find artesian wells.”
When the generator quit and the indoor air became stifling, she ran mothers and their babies in shifts to the center’s air-conditioned van to get cooled down.
All she had to clean wounds -– even the long incision of a recent open-heart-surgery patient -- were small gauze pads and hydrogen peroxide.
When the clouds lifted, the center’s tattered American flag was still flapping, the last one aloft in town, she believes. She found that it had braided itself into an oddly beautiful memento of the storm that she plans to frame in a shadow box.
But first, there are those trailers to find. Last she heard, late Friday, a FEMA representative “assured us that he would be working on this this morning.” So Saturday, she says, she faxed a precise list of all the people, their addresses and FEMA case numbers.
Now, “Everyone here is still waiting.”
Five weeks in a tent and still they wait
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It's clear that Eddie Worsham and Seth do not understand that Bay St. Louis and surrounding communities were not bastions of wealth and employment before the hurricane and certainly have no jobs to offer anyone now. Mississippi has the worst poverty rate in the country; this area in particular was very poor. If there were no jobs before and people were living on the edge as it was, how are they going to find a job now, with no house, no car, and no belongings? In order for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they need to HAVE bootstraps to begin with. It's disgraceful that this country can be as wealthy as it is and offer these people so litle in assistance. They're not looking for a lifetime freebie; they're looking for help so they can get the infrastructure of their lives back together and begin providing for themselves again. This theory of not offering help because people should help themselves is what got this country and this area into this jam to begin with.
Mary Beth, New Jersey (Sent Oct 26, 2005 12:19:17 PM)
I agree with Micki's comment, do not depend on the federal government for help. It's kind of like Social Security, it would be nice if it is around in 20 years, but I certainly wouldn't count on it. I am less concerned about myself than about people with less resources, the disabled and the infirm, and the like.
There is a list of contacts on the FEMA website here:
http://www.fema.gov/feedback/#da
Here are the disaster assitance contacts:
Disaster Assistance
General disaster assistance questions: FEMA-Correspondence-Unit@dhs.gov.
Generators and other reimbursement of disaster purchase questions: FEMA-Correspondence-Unit@dhs.gov.
Appeal and denial questions: FEMA-Correspondence-Unit@dhs.gov.
Where is my claim in the process? -
https://www1.disasteraid.fema.gov/IAC/isaacHome.jsp
Register for disaster assistance online: http://www.fema.gov/register.shtm
Register for disaster assistance over the phone: 1-800-621-FEMA
John Stevens (Sent Oct 26, 2005 2:23:59 PM)
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES.
Carole Graves, New York (Sent Oct 26, 2005 3:58:21 PM)
Where are the trailers? I'll tell you where 50-100 of them are right now waiting for delivery; Dallas, Oregon on the properties of Forest Industries, Inc. The trailers have been done for weeks, but they cannot find "volunteers" to drive them all the way to Louisiana. Drivers have to have special licenses and bonding (at their own expense). FEMA has generously offered $1.25 a mile to these folks. With out-of-sight gas prices, every one trying to keep their jobs, and only meager compensation and red tape offered for those dedicated few who have the time and the willingness, it'll be a wonder if any of these brand new RV's are delivered! Nice work, FEMA!
Cindy Birko, Dallas, Oregon (Sent Oct 26, 2005 5:21:58 PM)
We are all the "government" and should be ashamed that more personal planning was not done. This country is not set up to save everyone nor to solve each individual's problems. A disaster of this magnitude takes a long time to cleanup and get help to people.
D. Roberts (Sent Oct 26, 2005 7:51:38 PM)
I'm down in Mississippi, too, and can add another horror to the FEMA trailer mess. We are still waiting for ours (8 weeks later), but our neighbor across the street got his about 3 weeks ago. However, he didn't move in until this week because FEMA didn't leave the keys. There are many more like him that have trailers sitting in their yards and are still sleeping in tents because FEMA hasn't delivered the keys! I'd like to know who the heck has the frickin' keys!
Lanie (Sent Oct 27, 2005 1:12:15 AM)
I've heard alot recently, about all of the "help" that we give to other countries, and how we fall down on the job when helping our own. I agree with the second part of that...we do indeed overlook our own citizens, and we've been doing that since I've been on this planet...52 years. I would beg to disagree on the amount of "help" that we actually provide to other countries though. Somehow I find it hard to connect "help" with the killing and maiming of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else. The $billion$ a day that we spend on murder and mayhem in these countries could most certainly have provided ALL the assistance necessary to help every single victim of every natural disaster we've encountered in the past 6 months.
Carla (Sent Oct 27, 2005 3:14:11 AM)
My thanks to Arlene Johnson of Bay St. Louis for her inspiring attitude to the Katrina disaster. Her statement about surviving the storm, and staying in the senior center is the attitude that should be driving every member of FEMA. What a sad comment on a government agency.
Ron Morrison, Cherry mHill, N J (Sent Oct 27, 2005 6:16:36 AM)
I wanted to share with you all some shocking stories about the absurd RED TAPE that some of the MS. residents have to endure. First of all, you cant rebuild unless your new home is on at least 13 foot stilts in Bay St Louis!! Most of the homes were on 5 foot stilts before..So most residents dont want to rebuild (makes you wonder if this was proposed so some Casino can cheaply buy up all the land).
My sister in law went to get a permit to built an out building, to put their washer and dryer in. They couldnt get a permit, due to the fact that you need an actual home, before you can build an out building. So, their washer and dryer are out in the yard, next to the trailer..uncovered..
Next red tape story..My cousin and his family were living in a FEMA tent on their land in Pass Christian, he lost his home also. He got on the FEMA trailer list, when his number came up to get a trailer, they wouldnt put it on his land, due to the fact he didnt have water or electricity. So, he wanted to have it taken across county line to Bay St Louis (close to where his mother lived). They said they couldnt take the trailer over county line..He would have to go get on the list for THAT county, and start over again..waiting... They finally after 8 weeks, got a FEMA trailer in Bay St Louis, for a duration of 18 months..which is the time limit for ALL the trailers from FEMA. So what happens after 18 months? (I guess everyone should have their new homes built by then on their 13 foot stilts? What a joke)..
Liz Kansas City, MO (Sent Oct 28, 2005 11:53:27 AM)
We would be better off living in a 3rd world country. At least the aid would be readily available at the blink of an eye. This administration spends valuable time dealing with the affairs of others while we continue to suffer. God forbid if we ever are hit with a nuclear disaster and we all have to depend on them. It's a travesty and it's embarassing to be associated with this presidency.
K.Curtis, Greensboro NC (Sent Oct 28, 2005 4:28:03 PM)
it is just crazy to think this still going on, and i though that this was going to be taken care when our president said that he was going to take care of it personaly. we can't trust this president, and this gov.
TEOFILO RODRIGUEZ NYC (Sent Oct 28, 2005 9:06:36 PM)
I've listened to people who ask why don't the people who have been displaced by Katrina help themselves instead of asking for handouts. My question to these individuals is, "when was the last time you were displaced? What do you know about psycological depression? Their gross insensitivity of people is shameful.Empathy is a necessary mindset we must all have at this time, not criticism. I know there are people who take advantage of any situation but, we must not throw the baby out with the bath water either. No personal harm is intended, just some thing to simulate the mind.
Elder E.C. Muschette (Sent Oct 30, 2005 8:17:13 AM)
WHY IS IT THAT NONE OF THE RADIO TALK SHOW HOSTS ARE SPREADING THE WORD ABOUT THE TRAILERS' SCANDAL?
Jane Forwith (Sent Oct 30, 2005 1:32:19 PM)
Maybe there's some good news in all this. Yes, Uncle Sam is slow and clumsy in relief. But the outpouring of private help is nothing less than inspiring. Our group, http://sistercitysupport.net/, is camped right behind the Bay St. Louis Sr. Center and works with Arlene to send out help.
Is it enough? A hundred times our effort wouldn't be enough but there are http://www.myporttownsend.com/index.php?id=16 other organizations down there too. It is time that we all start getting involved even if it is only writing a note to our legislators to fix the problems. If we don't show some gumption, if we don't get involved, how can we expect our government to?
Michael McKee, Port Townsend, Wash (Sent Oct 30, 2005 9:47:36 PM)
I worked in Waveland Ms for two weeks! cooking and listening to the residents. Handing out supplies and going back forth from memphis Tn hauling supplies. I have six trucks all new that have certified to haul anything that is ready to haul. But fema and the corp of eng. would not put us to work. gave no reason other than it is our way or the highway. not only did i set in line for 28 days there was 5 miles of equipment waiting on our gov. I love my country.
Donnie Webb Horn Lake Ms (Sent Nov 1, 2005 7:23:30 PM)
Fema says they have put people in 35,000 R/V's in Mississippi. The post is on the fema news release.gov I know for sure there are no beings in outer space, because fema has not sent federal aid yet. Oh well!
donnie webb (Sent Nov 1, 2005 7:49:13 PM)
I live in Canada, Calgary to be precise, I follow with much intent the reports, musings, the heartfelt stories, comments, and of the diverse problems, the people have faced and are facing with Katrina and its aftermath.
It is repulsive, revolting and disgusting that these so called Government, its politicians and their money making agencies have no empathy, they have their high paying leisure laden jobs and comfort and don’t care about the people who elected them and pay them to serve the very people they now disregard.
I read with much disgust how the poor police forces is disseminated and what little resources they have and are left with to continue their work, I am sure similar situations exist in all the other towns departments.
As for your retrieved FLAG of the USA I noticed something very poignant-- what remains of it is the STARS there are no STRIPES left. To me it says every single star that is on it represents every single human Star remaining in these stricken places, the Stripes I feel are the government of the US of A, and they are twisted up - just like the twisted, sick, careless government and their representatives.
Keep up the good work “You shinning STARS”
Bernie Bastien, Calgary, Alberta Canada (Sent Nov 10, 2005 1:37:03 PM)
It is really sad that we cannot take care of our own people. Every time there is a natural disaster of any kind in any other country our government rushes to its aid. We the People of the USA. Not the government take care of own. The government needs to wake up and smell the coffee. They need to quit worrying about lining their pockets and worry about others for a change. All those jobs you continue to outsource overseas you look good bringing them back and giving them to OUR PEOPLE who are without
Dawn Cassell, Littleton CO (Sent Dec 14, 2005 3:47:51 PM)
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