BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. -- Marian Davis replaced the roof on her Bay St. Louis house after Hurricane Katrina unceremoniously ripped it off last year. Now she’s worried about the tree next door that is leaning toward her house, threatening to fall on it when next strong wind comes along.
No one is home next door. The owners left ahead of the storm and Davis has seen them only once, briefly, in the 11 months since. A jungle of weeds engulfs the house, its second story framed only by rafters. Inside, furnishings left in a heap by the flood waters are caked with mud and mold.
“It was a mess before,” says Davis, who had never thought much of her neighbors’ yard maintenance. “Now it’s really a mess.”
Betty Garcia, who lives on the other side of the abandoned house, is also grumbling. She’s especially unhappy about the rats and raccoons have set up residence in the mess.
“I’m afraid it’s going to be a health hazard,” she says.
The really vexing thing is that the owners not only did not return to renovate, as they had suggested they would, or even gut the structure, but they disappeared from the radar screen. And because they never signed a “Right of Entry” form allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to demolish the house and remove the debris — at no cost to the owners or the local government — it remains untouched.
Now the clean up cost will fall to local governments, many already deeply in the red because of Katrina. Hancock County alone estimates it has more than 2,000 properties that, like this one, would be judged unsalvageable. But without the owner’s permission to remove them, the Corps will leave the problem behind when it pulls out of the area on Aug. 29. That means cash-strapped local governments will have to grapple with the cost to condemn the properties — possibly $6,000 per home.
The town of Bay St. Louis, already $2 million in debt and sinking fast, is requesting that FEMA reopen the right of entry process. FEMA did so earlier, for two weeks at the beginning of June, but Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre says the window needs to be longer and better publicized to make a significant difference.
It’s unclear why so many home owners have failed to sign the right of entry documents, since doing so doesn’t cost them anything.
“Some people are just coming back now,” Favre says. “Some may be thinking they can salvage their houses, especially if they didn’t have insurance and got nothing from FEMA.”
They may abandon their renovation plans after they get a closer look at their houses. For now, he hopes owners will at least get the muck out of the damaged homes.
“If you’re going to try to salvage the house, you at least need to gut it,” he says.
As it stands, FEMA has given no indication that it will reopen the right of entry process. It already granted a request to extend the Army Corps of Engineers work in the area by one month. Now the Corps is working on its final sweep of Hancock County, picking up eligible debris from rights of way along major thoroughfares.
The local governments eventually could recoup some of the costs of cleaning up derelict houses. But that will come only after a lengthy process of condemning properties, and then assessing the cleanup against the owners’ property taxes. A failure to pay would translate into a lien against the property.
For now, the problem is one more competing for funds that city and county governments on the Gulf Coast don’t have to spend.
11 months: Debris down, debt up
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Being from the area, I would love to be able to contact these people and offer to possibly buy there property. There are so many people looking for places to live and as the area re-builds and comes back there will be others looking for places to live. I would love to see these places being redone instead of just rotting away, and creating uglyiness to our neighbors. These abondoned homes also bring in rats and bugs which we do not need either.
Helen, Waveland, MS (Sent Nov 1, 2006 4:01:29 PM)
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