JattVibe Com News Music Your Total one stop for All
https://jattvibe.com/live
Usa News

Texas flood survivors offer mixed reviews of FEMA as the agency awaits uncertain future




As contaminated Guadalupe River water receded following the deadly flooding in Kerrville, Texas, this month, residents returned to find their homes, vehicles and businesses destroyed. Shelled-shocked and in urgent need to rebuild, many turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the embattled organization created to assist people in the aftermath of natural disasters. The responses they received ranged from “fantastic” to unhelpful to frustrating, residents told Jattvibe News. Their experiences come as FEMA faces a future in which it may be dramatically reshaped or shuttered altogether at the direction of the Trump White House and Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency.Timothy Gloria, of Kerrsville, said his FEMA experience has been exasperating. He was called home from his job the morning of the floods by a neighbor who was hanging onto a tree as waters rose. Gloria arrived around 6 a.m. to find his friend safe, but Gloria’s and his father’s cars, his motorcycle and an outside air conditioning unit were washed away, and the fence around his home was destroyed.A few days later, on the phone with a FEMA worker, he said he answered 21 questions about the damage to his property to receive emergency relief. FEMA initially awarded him $50, he said.“That’s like gas money,” Gloria, 41, told Jattvibe News. “And I didn’t even get the $50. It was approved, but I still haven’t seen it.” He said the FEMA website indicated the money had been transferred to his account.Further frustrating him, he said, his initial contact with a FEMA representative stopped answering his calls. “She was nowhere to be found,” he said. “I was expecting a lot more from FEMA.”John Mroczek, also a Kerrville resident, lost a motorhome and two motorcycles in the flood. His head spinning, he sought out FEMA, which had set up a response center in the gymnasium at a church on Washington Street. Upon arrival, he was immediately struck by the agency’s presence.“FEMA is there waiting for you,” he said. “They were fantastic. They sign you in, you sit down, and they get right to it. They’ll do anything, from setting up your phone with its app to guiding you to whatever you need.”The stark contrast in experiences with FEMA in Kerrville serves as a case study for the agency that President Donald Trump has said he wants “remade.” DHS Secretary Noem has said the agency “should not exist” as is. On Monday, the head of urban search and rescue at FEMA, Ken Pagurek, announced he would step down amid sweeping changes at the agency, including the requirement that Noem approves contracts over $100,000. Meanwhile, despite some staff cuts, the agency plows ahead in Texas, where 132 people died. All of this comes as 20 states have announced a lawsuit against FEMA over the termination of a pre-disaster mitigation program that, over the last four years, provided nearly $4.5 billion in funding to 2,000 projects across the country.FEMA and DHS did not respond to several requests for comment. But former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told Jattvibe News that the contrasting reaction to the agency’s efforts is not surprising. ​​“Recovery is really complex,” she said. “There is a tendency by many to oversimplify what it takes to recover and rebuild a community, and especially to rebuild it in a way that makes it more resilient.”Criswell added that FEMA is not an agency that comes in and takes over. Rather, it supplements local and state authority before, during and after natural disasters. “It really takes a partnership between either the individual and their case worker or the local emergency manager and the state with their FEMA representative,” she said. “They have to work together to help rebuild the community in a way that is going to also make it stronger and more resilient to future weather events like the one they experienced.”Shortly after the flooding disaster in Texas, Kerr County judge Rob Kelly said businesses’ losses in Kerrville are likely to hover around $240 million. The county is reportedly considering raising property taxes to help with the infrastructure rebuild, which has prompted local protests. Kelly said FEMA would reimburse the city for emergency response costs. “But they’re slow,” he noted. “The last time we had a big FEMA project, it took at least two, if not three years” to receive funding, he said.Teresa Offut, the office manager at Rio Robles RV Park in Kerrville, said FEMA’s most glaring response failures — including Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi in 2005, Hurricane Maria 2017 in Puerto Rico and Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina in 2024 — were not apparent in Kerrville.“It seems they are determined to get this one right,” Offut said. “They’ve been incredible in helping people get settled after this tragedy. They are helping with insurance claims, walking people through that process to make sure all forms are complete, all processes are done correctly. They’re helping with contacting the right people and just settling people down because they’ve lost so much and it’s so overwhelming.”John Mroczek’s motorcycle was covered in water after the flood and severely damaged. He says his experience with FEMA has been largely positive.Courtesy John Mroczek / Jattvibe NewsMroczek, the Kerrville resident, said he has been in hurricanes and tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico, wildfires in Montana and an earthquake in California. “I hope these natural disasters aren’t following me,” he joked.But in the aftermath of each case, he did not have to work with FEMA; only insurance companies.Mroczek said FEMA’s response in Kerrville has been so strong that he “can’t even describe how helpful they are,” he said. “They’ll rearrange your phone, if you’re old and not very tech savvy. They will stay with you for hours until you understand what can happen and what they can do. They give you the websites and they lead you off to the right agency to help with your concerns.”Public perception of FEMA is sometimes fueled by a misunderstanding of what it does, Criswell said. Lorena Guillen, owner of Blue Oak RV Park and Howdy’s restaurant in Kerrville, for example, was expecting FEMA to aid in the recovery of her businesses. All 28 motor homes on her property were washed away in the floods and her restaurant next door suffered severe damage. The land could not be insured against damage from a flood, she said.However, FEMA typically does not provide businesses with cash but guidance and other resources. In this case, it directed her to the Small Business Administration, which Guillen said could supply her with a loan. “How the heck am I going to get a freaking loan that I have to pay back on top of my mortgage?” she said. “My business is gone. It’s going to take about a year to get it up and running again.”Her restaurant suffered damages from the flooding, including “holes the size of buses in the walls,” and electricity and plumbing outages that Guillen has paid to fix. She was astounded to learn FEMA does not help small businesses with financial assistance. “But what about us?” said Guillen, whose restaurant employs 16 workers. “We bring in the tourists. We hire local residents. Many, many, many businesses are in the same boat. So to get nothing from FEMA? Crazy.”Following disasters, FEMA becomes “a reimbursement agency,” Criswell said. States and local governments spearhead rebuilding and FEMA reimburses them for rebuilding damaged infrastructure that everyday people deal with. On top of that, individuals can also ask for assistance, which pays for things like a place to stay. The view from Timothy Gloria’s house during the flood. The water receded, leaving filthy mud under his home’s foundation.Courtesy Timothy Gloria / Jattvibe NewsAfter a few days, the “waist high” water that infiltrated Gloria’s home receded, he said, leaving a filthy collection of mud and water under his 11-year-old daughter’s bedroom.“You walk into my house and you smell some dirty river water that we’re just living on top of,” he said.Like most residents in Kerrville, he did not have flood insurance on his home. And he is desperate to have the potentially hazardous “gunk” removed from beneath his daughter’s bedroom. At the end of last week, FEMA said he would receive $6,719 toward home repairs, which have been estimated to cost $50,000, he said.He called the FEMA support of his home “a joke.” Gloria said he’s applied for five different types of aid, but has been frustrated by the bureaucracy and red tape he’s encountered every step of the way. Criswell, though, said FEMA is set up this way for a reason.“There are checks and balances, and so people get kind of frustrated with the type of documentation that FEMA might ask for to prove occupancy or to prove home ownership, or the types of losses,” Criswell said.The overall losses and the back-and-forth with FEMA have taken a toll on Gloria, he said. “I fall into depression, so I keep working because if I sit still, I have to look at the flood damages,” Gloria said. “And I don’t know when it will ever get back to normal — or if FEMA will help me get back to normal.”

Related posts

Teddi Mellencamp’s Los Angeles house target of burglary as she was home with kids and husband

jattvibe

House cancels votes amid fight over Jeffrey Epstein files

jattvibe

U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee will comply with Trump’s ban on transgender women in women’s sports

jattvibe