Frustrated by bureaucratic red tape and the sluggish trickle of federal dollars into hurricane-ravaged areas, state lawmakers are considering pumping $100 million into a statewide disaster recovery fund and creating the state’s own disaster housing program.
Rep. Sylvester Turner, the chair of a House of Representatives committee charged with investigating the response and recovery after Hurricane Ike, said the committee will recommend setting aside at least $100 million over two years for cities and schools to dip into as they await reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Legislators created the fund in the 2007 session, but did not fund it, said Jack Colley, chief of the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management.
“There’s nothing more important (after a disaster) than to immediately inject funds to a local leader to do what he or she deems necessary,” he said. “I don’t want to beat up FEMA. They do great work and they’ve done a heck of a job for a lot of Texans. But what works best is how we do it in Texas.”
Norman Desormeaux, the director of finance for Bayou Vista, said small towns are especially hurt when the federal government drags its feet on reimbursements.
“We’re looking at budget cuts and layoffs waiting for FEMA,” he said. “It’s been road block after road block, one story after another.”
Lawmakers will also consider initiating contracts with mobile home or travel trailer companies to provide immediate housing options for state residents displaced from their homes by a disaster.
Almost three months have passed since Hurricane Ike roared ashore Sept. 13, flooding 75 percent of the island and forcing people to move into hotels, shelters and with family members, but only 82 families are living in FEMA-issued mobile homes in Galveston County.
If the state had contracts for mobile homes, cities could order them immediately after the storm and have them in place quicker than FEMA, bogged down by federal rules, can set them up.
Mike Gerber, the executive director for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, said he strongly supports a housing contingency fund that would allow the state to move mobile homes and trailers into a disaster area without waiting on the federal government.
“There’s a need for speed,” he said. “We need to get people out of living in tents and shelters and the back seats of their cars and that all depends on the availability of quick and temporary housing.”
In the almost three months after Hurricane Ike, more than 2,000 Galveston County families are still living in hotels.
The agency has blamed the delays on challenges posed by putting the temporary housing units in flood-prone areas, especially on Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula. The agency has also faced roadblocks as some local governments have blocked sites already approved by federal assessment teams.
County commissioners have been reluctant to lease land in front of the County Criminal Justice Center in Galveston for a mobile home community, and the city of Hitchcock rejected a plan to put a community at Jack Brooks Park. Galveston public school district rejected two sites, and instead offered up one site for 35 mobile homes near Scholes International Airport on the West End.
Meanwhile, the federal government has installed 1,007 mobile homes in Orange, Jefferson and Chambers counties.
Rep. Craig Eiland, joking that the “E” in FEMA stands for “eventually,” said the federal government’s sluggish response to reimburse communities and provide them with mobile homes is hindering recovery efforts. He urged state lawmakers to push President-elect Barack Obama’s administration to revamp FEMA.
The committee on Hurricane Ike devastation will meet in Galveston at 10 a.m. Jan. 7 at the Island Convention Center, 5600 Seawall Blvd.
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Recommendations
Recommendations from local and state leaders, include:
• Require the General Land Office to have pre-positioned contracts for beach cleaning.
• Require that the Texas Department of Transportation have pre-positioned contracts for debris removal on major thoroughfares.
• Elevate FM 3005.
• Initiate contracts with agencies to provide sheltering in Galveston after a hurricane or other disaster. While Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said the state shelter was beautifully run and very effective — “They ran those tents like they were off in Afghanistan, like an army base, and people felt very comfortable there” — she said the island needs pre-positioned sheltering contracts.
• Find money to give to Galveston citizens to elevate and rebuild their homes to new standards.
• Create a setback line as far away from the Gulf of Mexico as possible and restrict people from building in front of that line.
• Develop a better way to track resources and store emergency supplies year-round in key areas, such as San Antonio and Lufkin.
• Develop a better way to identify people with special needs, who live at home or with family members, and help them evacuate. An unprecedented amount of the 51,000 Texans sheltered during Hurricane Ike had special needs, Colley said. The state must provide shelters with better resources to help those with medical needs, he said.
• Review the expectations of distribution points where the state hands out water, ice and food. There were 70 distribution points to serve 5.6 million Texans during Hurricane Ike, Colley said.
• Develop a uniform identification system for people legitimately responding to disasters, such as firefighters, police and search and rescue teams.
