FEMA specialists are making sure residents in Bollinger, Stoddard counties know they are eligible for assistance

GLENALLEN, Mo. -- The wind had a biting chill Monday morning when Kevin McKinnon knocked on the door of Daphne Allen's rented mobile home.

McKinnon had met Allen before. He's a Federal Emergency Management Agency community relations representative. She's a wife and mother living in a rented mobile home.

Allen has made a claim for damages, hoping to move from the mobile home that now smells of mold and relocate to Bossier City, La., where she has family. But she's upset that all she's received is $824 -- the equivalent of two months' rent and not enough to pay for both the rental truck to move her belongings and to establish a new residence.

"They told me they can't do anything to help on deposits or rent," she said. "They told me they don't help with relocating."

The inspectors, she told McKinnon, have decided that her aging pickup truck was not damaged seriously enough to make a grant for repairs -- she said it blows electrical fuses and the transmission slips since the March 18 to 19 rainstorm flooded the small community along Little Crooked Creek.

Damage to her personal property was "insignificant," she told McKinnon, and her landlord won't repair the floors of the 1960s-era mobile home, which are buckling.

"I just kind of feel like I have been dumped," she said.

FEMA community relations specialist Kevin McKinnon carried disaster aid information pamphlets Monday while walking through Glenallen.

FEMA community relations specialist Kevin McKinnon carried disaster aid information pamphlets Monday while walking through Glenallen.

The answer, McKinnon said, is to ask for another inspection of her property and, if that doesn't result in a larger grant, to pursue an appeal. He gave her his mobile telephone number and assured her she could call him anytime.

"I'm here for you," McKinnon said.

The visit to Allen's home was part of the door-to-door effort going on across 35 counties in Missouri where individuals with flood damage are eligible for help from FEMA to make their homes safe, replace lost belongings and obtain loans to make further repairs or support a business venture hurt by the flooding.

McKinnon, from Tennessee, and Abid Hussain, from New York, are among the 35 community relations specialists -- one for each county -- making the visits.

On Monday, they finished their joint effort for Bollinger and Stoddard counties and will now work separately in their assigned counties -- McKinnon in Bollinger and Hussain in Stoddard.

The visits to flooded areas will continue, Hussain said, when the number of new flood victims registering for help falls off and county officials are satisfied that everyone who needs help has been at least asked if they want to apply.

Once an area has been declared eligible for aid to individuals, he said, "we are the first to come and the first to leave."

So far, 130 people have registered for assistance in Bollinger County, 283 people have asked for help in Cape Girardeau County, 104 have registered in Scott County and 88 have registered in Stoddard County, said Jack Heesch, a spokesman for FEMA assigned to Southeast Missouri.

Statewide, 2,940 people have registered for assistance and FEMA has distributed $6.8 million, he said.

Getting word out

People like McKinnon and Hussain are a big part of the effort to aid in the flood recovery, Heesch said. "Their job is to go out and scour the community and make sure people who would not get the word or are not sure about getting assistance do so."

McKinnon and Hussain do not conduct inspections, take applications for aid or pass judgment on the decisions made about each individual's eligibility for help.

Instead, they are trying to encourage people to apply and be a sounding board for communities.

Happy with FEMA

Aside from Daphne Allen, the people they found at home Monday in Glenallen were generally pleased with the FEMA response.

At JimBob's Auto Repair, owners James and Karen Wells said their home was flooded but the business was not. James Wells told McKinnon and Hussain that he's registered with FEMA, he has already received a check for aid and he's satisfied with the results.

"To me, FEMA handled everything really well," Karen Wells said. "They were really good to us and worked really fast."

At Mo Kita Distributing on Highway 34, Myra Underwood said the floodwaters didn't reach the offices but that a propane tank from their gas distribution business floated away.

If the creek levee had given way, or if the water had risen just a little more, she said, "we would have had significant problems."

McKinnon reminded her, as he did with other business owners, that if the flood had caused her or the six employees to miss work, they could be eligible for disaster unemployment assistance, which can replace lost income for people who are not normally covered by unemployment insurance.

While some people are eager to reach for help, McKinnon said, others are reluctant and look upon it as welfare.

"It is not," he said. "It is federal tax money they have paid in every year."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126

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