|
The waiting game: BC couple living inside tent while help slows down
BRIDGE CITY, Oct 24, 2008 (The Orange Leader - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Benny Warr knows that many families in Bridge City are worse off than he is, but he is almost at the end of his rope.
The 62-year-old and his wife, Sherry, 55, are living in a tent in the front yard of their Hurricane Ike damaged home on Rose Avenue while they wait for insurance money to come through.
While the living situation isn't the best, the Warrs made the best of it -- buying and setting up an air mattress in the large Coleman tent and covering it with a comfortable, floral blanket.
A smaller orange tent in the yard covers what they were able to salvage from their home and another canopy was purchased to cover the kitchen table and chairs that are set up under the large oak tree.
The couple even salvaged a small television from their ruined home that they set up in their makeshift home in the yard.
But the warm, sunny skies that lingered for weeks after the storm have gone and the rains and cold have come in.
"The wind blew over the canopy and all of our papers and pictures blew through the yard," Benny said of the cold front storm that blew in Wednesday night, early Thursday morning and whipped around the tents. "We were running through the yard in our pajamas in the middle of the night trying to get all of our stuff. It was all ruined."
Benny said he's frustrated not only with his insurance company, but with the situation in general.
"Why the government has to pay for my house that was insured, I'll never know," he said. "I don't believe the government should be taking care of us anyway."
But instead of being the squeaky wheel, Benny said he's kept quite about his issues.
"I'm not on the phone bugging FEMA. We're not the only ones like this, there are people worse than us," he said.
Benny said a FEMA representative said crews would be out to his house to measure for a manufactured home -- the units FEMA is providing to hurricane victims. He knows, though, that that process could take weeks to complete and even longer before he could live in the trailer.
He explained that his sister, who lives next door, only recently got a manufactured home from FEMA. With her health problems, Benny said she is considered a higher needs victim than he is.
Until his mobile unit comes, Benny said he'll stay in the tent through the wind and rain with his wife, who is a waitress.
He said FEMA did offer rental assistance if they found a home to live in.
"There's nowhere to go. Some of my neighbors are commuting 100 miles a day (from FEMA rental properties back to town)," he said. "And we've got pets. Who's going to rent to us with three dogs and two cats?"
Benny wants to stay close to the house so he can fix it and move back in, but being on disability and with a plethora of health issues, he said his patience is thinning.
"I'm ready to throw my hands in the air," he said. "I haven't got anywhere else to go. My choices are to either move in the house and eliminate everything we've got coming or stay in the tent."
As the weather gets cooler and the days gets shorter, Benny said his options are few and with a leaky tent, he doesn't know how much more he can handle.
To see more of The Orange Leader or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.orangeleader.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Orange Leader, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To cable.tmcnet.com's Homepage ]
|