Refugees not allowed to talk with reporters
Katrina survivors still in tents as FEMA trailers sit empty
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by Sandy Davis,
Baton Rouge Advocate
July 16, 2006
For nearly two months, Dekotha
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Devall and her five children were the only people living in a 198-trailer FEMA park in Morgan City.
City officials say the Federal Emergency Management Agency spent about $7.5 million to build it — and question why the 30-acre Lake End Trailer Park in St. Mary Parish, with row upon row of shiny new trailers, remains almost empty three months after being built.
"We all wonder why no one lives there. FEMA spent $7.5 million to build it: electricity, gas, water, sewer, a lift-station, roads," said Morgan City Mayor Timothy Matte. "There's about 50 more new FEMA trailers in various mobile home parks around town, and no one lives in those, either. It doesn't really make much sense."
FEMA, which says 15 families live in the Lake End facility now, refuses to say how much was spent to build the park or why 183 of the trailers are vacant.
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"You are not allowed to be here," the guard yelled. "Get out right now."
As they left, the guard refused to let the reporter give Devall a business card so she could contact the newspaper later by phone.
"You will not give her a business card," the guard said. "She's not allowed to have that."
When the reporter persisted, the guard ordered Devall to return to the trailer, saying the reporter was not allowed to talk to her.
The guard then called the police.
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And FEMA rules make it hard for reporters to talk freely to the few park residents about life there. During an interview in one trailer, a security guard knocked on the door, ordered the reporter out and eventually called police, saying residents aren't allowed to talk to the media in the park.
Similar rules were enforced in Plaquemines Parish, where 242 new travel trailers in a FEMA park in Davant recently were empty. Security guards there allowed a reporter and photographer to drive through the two side-by-side parks, but ordered them not to talk to anyone or take pictures.
And as with the Morgan City facility, FEMA refuses to say how much it cost to build the Davant park. FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi gave no reason for not disclosing how much was spent.
"We're not going to talk about cost," she said.
Rodi also said the empty trailers are going to be moved.
Rodi wouldn't say whether the actions of the security guards in Morgan City and Davant complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the media to speak alone to residents in their trailers.
"If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview," Rodi said. "That's just a policy."
Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said FEMA's refusal to allow trailer park residents to invite media into their homes unescorted is unconstitutional.
"That's a standard for a prison, not a relief park and a temporary shelter," Leslie said "They cannot deny media access. It's clearly unconstitutional … and definitely not legal."
Dekotha Devall and her five children lived in New Orleans until they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, including the family car.
She had no home and turned to the government for help, winding up in FEMA housing in Georgia.
"We were happy in Georgia," she recalls. "We had an apartment, and it was an easy walk to a grocery store or to other things we needed."
But after three months, she said, FEMA told her she must return to Louisiana.
"They said they had an empty trailer park and needed people to live there," she said. "They said I had to move back. I asked them if there would be a bus and pay phones. FEMA told me the park would have all of those things."
She arrived at the Morgan City trailer park May 19, she said, only to find no bus service, no pay telephones and no mailboxes for the residents at the park. With five children, four of them 12 and younger, life has been difficult.
"I have to walk several miles to a grocery store," she said. "My youngest child is 18 months old. That's a long walk in this heat with the kids, and you can't carry that many groceries."
Until a few weeks ago, Devall said, she and her children were the only residents in the park.
"I felt so isolated," she said.
Devall described her experience during an interview in her trailer, saying she wanted to get some help and to let others know what it's like living there.
But during the interview, a security guard knocked on the trailer door and ordered the reporter and photographer to leave "immediately."
"You are not allowed to be here," the guard yelled. "Get out right now."
As they left, the guard refused to let the reporter give Devall a business card so she could contact the newspaper later by phone.
"You will not give her a business card," the guard said. "She's not allowed to have that."
When the reporter persisted, the guard ordered Devall to return to the trailer, saying the reporter was "not allowed" to talk to her.
The guard then called the police.
Later the same day, the reporter and photographer pulled off La. 70 to talk to Pansy Ardeneaux through a chain-link fence surrounding the FEMA park. Ardeneaux said she and her boyfriend had just moved into the park.
"We had to wait about two months from the time he applied for the trailer until he got it," she said.
As Ardeneaux talked, the same security guard pulled up.
"You are not allowed to talk to these people," the guard yelled at Ardeneaux. "Return to your trailer now."
A clearly flustered Ardeneaux returned to her trailer.
Matte, Morgan City's mayor, said he is surprised residents at the trailer park were being told they couldn't talk to reporters there.
"I would think anyone who lives there would be allowed to have any visitor they wanted," Matte said.
Matte said the city leased the land for the trailer park to FEMA.
"FEMA pays us $2,000 a month for the park," he said. "At the end of 18 months, FEMA will turn the park over to us, and we're going to use it as a campground."
The federal Government Services Administration writes the monthly check, he added.
"That's the United States government," Matte said. "It's public property. There's no question about that. You would think the people would have the same freedom there as everyone else has."
Matte said that when FEMA approached the city to lease the land, city officials stipulated the park had to be built "a certain way."
"They made it exactly how we asked them to," he said.
Still, he was surprised it took so long to build and so few people live there now.
Matte also said he was surprised at the lack of services at the park. Before Morgan City officials accepted FEMA's proposal, they visited Renaissance Village, the Groom Road trailer park in East Baton Rouge Parish.
"We wanted to know what services they had there," Matte said. "We found there were other contractors there to provide services at Groom Road. We were told most of the same services would be available here. I'm sure it's hard on those who live there that there aren't any services."
As in Morgan City, the 334-trailer FEMA park in Davant in Plaquemines Parish is greatly underused.
The north side of the park is empty, and 92 families live in the south side, said Rodi, the FEMA spokeswoman.
The park sits on the east bank of the Mississippi River roughly half way between Chalmette and Venice.
The main way people in Plaquemines Parish get to Davant is by ferry. One ferry crosses the river in Belle Chasse and the other in West Pointe a la Hache. Residents can also get to the east side of the river through St. Bernard Parish, but call that route "the long way."
A FEMA trailer park downriver in Diamond is on the west bank in a more-accessible location. Of its 451 trailers, 416 are occupied.
The 242 empty trailers in Davant are lined up in neat rows with new wooden stairs attached to each. Some have long ramps for handicapped access, and the trailers appear to be hooked up for electricity, water and sewerage.
The empty trailers are going to be removed, Rodi said.
"We put them there at the parish's request," she said. "Now we've found that the need is not as great there or that people don't want to live there."
The trailers are going to be put on private property or in private parks in the parish as needed, Rodi said. She refused to disclose how much the park cost to build.
But Plaquemines Parish President Benny Rousselle is talking about money, and says he's angry at FEMA for wasting so much.
"Right now we have hundreds of trailers that are going to waste, and the reason for all of that is ridiculous and frustrating," Rousselle said.
Rousselle partly blames FEMA for the parish's slow recovery.
"We asked for these trailer parks," he said. "We thought our people would return sooner. We wanted them out of churches, off of floors and cots."
But many parish residents who fled the storm have not returned.
Rousselle said FEMA knows where many of those people relocated after the storm but won't give that information to parish officials.
"FEMA told us because of privacy issues, they can't give us the addresses of our residents who are spread out in all 50 states. And no one but FEMA has that information," Rousselle said. "If we could contact them, I think a lot of them would come back if they knew we had places for them to live."
Rousselle said dealing with FEMA has been frustrating.
"Money has just gone out the window," he said. "My biggest disappointment has been the inexcusable waste of public funds … and the fact our people aren't back yet."
Rousselle said he doesn't know how much the trailer park cost to build. But he added that he was told the contract was awarded to an out-of-state company that bid $2 million more than a local company that wanted the business.
On La. 23 in Plaquemines Parish, another 21 new FEMA mobile homes sit haphazardly in a field. Factory tape is still on the trailers, which appear to have never been leveled or hooked up to utilities.
Even with all the unused trailers, some people left homeless by the hurricane say they are still waiting for help.
Matthew and Shawn Cheramie Dupre have lived in a tent for five months in Venice without electricity while waiting for a FEMA trailer.
"We lost everything in the storm. And living in a tent has been really hard," Matthew Dupre said in a recent interview. "FEMA's told us for months they didn't have a trailer for us."
When asked whether FEMA told them about the Davant trailer park, Dupre said: "They've never said anything about it to us. They never told us there were trailers there."
As originally published
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We appreciate the heck out of everyone who helps.
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Did you wonder why FEMA disallowed bottled water, and cut the local emergency communications?
Why, even before the hurricane hit, FEMA told first-responders not to respond?
Did you wonder why FEMA wouldn't let hundreds of eager airboat skippers search for survivors?
Why Homeland Security kept the Red Cross out of New Orleans, while people were starving, drowning, dying of thirst?
Have you tried to understand why, as people were still drowning and unfed, firefighters were ordered to undergo an all-day seminar in Atlanta, before being sent to New Orleans ... to hand out fliers?
How come day after day after day, FEMA couldn't or wouldn't airdrop food and drinking water into New Orleans, but the U.S. military was there for "combat operations"?
I'm not an expert on search and rescue or military operations, but it just seems to me, people who haven't had food and water for five or six days could be quelled with food and water, instead of "combat operations."
Excerpted from"Mission accomplished" for FEMA
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