Hurricane Irma: Relief slow to come to Collier displaced who need it most, if at all

Maria Perez, Alexandra Glorioso and Brett Murphy
Naples
Eustolia Flores and her daughter Jocelyn, 1, stand in their trailer that was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Immokalee on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017. Flores and her four children are staying in their neighbor's trailer with them for now.

President Donald Trump flew to Southwest Florida on Thursday to promise help was on the way for victims of Hurricane Irma, mostly low-income mobile home residents.   

“This is a state that I know very well and these are special, special people,” he shouted above the crowd. “We’re going to be back here many, many times. We’re going to be with you 100 percent.”

But in two of Collier County’s most damaged areas — Immokalee and Everglades City — officials acknowledged that long-term help might be hard to come by.

Hurricane victims, often without power or access to the internet, must register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to receive temporary and long-term housing after natural disasters. FEMA officials urge all victims to try to register in their system so they can receive help.

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Undocumented immigrants in Immokalee, where almost half of the population lives below the poverty line, lost their homes to Irma’s 140 mph winds. If they don't live with a family member with a Social Security number, they won't get permanent housing help, FEMA said Thursday. 

Robby Daffin consoles his mother, Nancy Daffin, as she returns to her destroyed home on Plantation Island for the first time on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 in Everglades City, three days after Hurricane Irma. "I care about her more than anything," said Daffin. During the eye of Hurricane Irma, Daffin drove to his mother's house to check on it. While leaving Plantation Island, Daffin became trapped by rapid flood waters and feared for his life. After finally contacting his son on Snapchat, he was rescued from the bridge.

In Everglades City, whole communities of low-income fisherman who received hurricane relief after the last major storm still don’t have flood insurance. Those might not qualify for long-term housing assistance either. But they will qualify for emergency aid.

The county commissioner for Everglades City and Immokalee was surprised to find out both of those facts.

“Nobody is going to go homeless. I’m going to try and come from the other side to find a solution,” said Commissioner Bill McDaniel. “I just shook hands with the president. I’m going to call our congressman right now.”

Help slow to come 

Even for the hurricane victims who qualify for federal housing aid, help has been slow to come. Gas and power shortages have delayed officials trying to move supplies and conduct damage assessments across Florida’s massive and challenging geography. Thirty percent of the state is still without power. In addition, resources are stretched thin after Hurricane Harvey.

“Manpower for such (relief) effort is also being limited by almost 60 counties in Florida doing the same effort, compounded by the ongoing efforts in Texas,” said Troy Miller, spokesman for Collier County, which sustained the worst damage in the state.

Jacob Daffin starts to throw out items from his grandmother's flooded shed on Thursday, September 14, 2017, four days after Hurricane Irma.

Meanwhile, the poor and homeless, often without accurate information, are desperate for help.

Eustolia Flores and her four children spent three nights in the cramped living room of her neighbor’s trailer, next to the one that used to be their home, which Irma reduced to rubble.     

“I didn’t have anywhere to live,” Flores said.

She still doesn’t. No one has told her whether she and her children will get any help to get back on their feet. Hundreds of the displaced have crammed into the city’s only shelter, waiting for word on their fate.

Five days after Hurricane Irma, FEMA officials still haven’t visited residents in Immokalee or Everglades City, according to interviews with residents and local officials. But teams are slated to be on the ground in Everglades City on Friday. 

Officials can’t say how many people lost their homes, when those people will get any relief or what options they have for long-term shelter.

But the USA TODAY Network canvassed the Everglades City and Immokalee areas and found as many as 175 severely damaged homes. Residents said dozens of those homes are beyond repair.

On Plantation and Chokoloskee islands near Everglades City, more than 100 homes were flooded by up to three feet of storm water, ravaging the walls, floors and the residents' possessions. The mayor estimated an additional 180 homes in Everglades City were destroyed by the flood.

Flood experts said the older homes, which depreciate like a car, aren’t likely worth the thousands it would cost to repair them.

“It’s devastating,” said Frank Zeigon, an insurance claims consultant in California. “Those mobile homes would come close to being a total loss.”

At least 50 Immokalee homes, mostly trailers, were damaged or destroyed by Irma’s winds.

Audelia Diaz, 30, didn't know where she'd go with her three children after Irma ripped off the roof of her mobile home. Diaz, a farmworker from Mexico who makes $350 a week, doesn’t have any savings to fall back on now that she has nowhere to live.

“Without money and with my three children, it’s not going to be easy,” she said.

People in Everglades City, the southernmost city in Collier County, have no shelters. They don’t have flood insurance either.

“We’re not relying on help from FEMA,” said Lisa and Lee Marteeny, who don’t have insurance on their mobile home since they couldn’t afford the premiums.

Andris Flores, 8, plays in front of his family's trailer that was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Immokalee on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. Eustolia Flores and her four children set up a tent outside of their trailer to sleep in until their neighbor purchased a generator. The family is staying with neighbors in their trailer next door.

Lisa has been sleeping on a drenched mattress and Lee on an office chair since they rode out the storm at home, nearly drowning before they made it to a neighbor’s house. Their mobile home is now caked in a layer of mud, thick as wet concrete.

“I don’t know what we’ll do next,” Lisa said. “But God does.”

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who was with Trump during his relief speech Thursday, said he is working on a solution for residents either without flood insurance or Social Security numbers.

“Our office has already contacted FEMA on both of these issues,” said Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, the representative for Immokalee. “These individuals are in a terrible situation, and we must help them, one way or another.”

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who will be in Immokalee on Friday, could not be reached for a comment on this story.

What's causing delay?

Most blame the slow relief response on one main culprit: gas shortages.  

Since Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005, the state has had a coordinated evacuation plan with fuel retail companies, fuel distributors and counties.

The goal was simple: Provide enough fuel to major gas stations in affected counties and along evacuation routes so people could safely leave during a disaster.

Florena Galindo, 17, and her sister Jocelyn Flores, 1, take a break from the heat outside their trailer that was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Immokalee on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. The family is staying in their neighbor's trailer with them for now. They lost power in the storm.

Gov. Rick Scott acknowledged that despite all the preparations for Irma, there still wasn’t enough fuel to meet the public’s intense demand.

“While we are making progress, unfortunately, you will see lines or outages,” Scott said Sept. 7, three days before the storm.

Gas shortages have made it difficult to transport supplies coming mostly from Central and North Florida to remote Everglades City. After the electricity went out Sunday, cellphone service followed shortly thereafter; gas is needed to run generators that are powering them.

Limited communication has made coordinating relief more difficult among the county, state and federal governments.

By Thursday evening, county officials hadn’t finished assessing damage in some high-flood areas in the state but said they couldn’t confirm where. Everglades City, Goodland and Bonita Springs all had serious flooding. In Bonita, dozens of homes were destroyed, leaving hundreds displaced.

Each county’s assessment reports are only the first step in getting shelter to those who need it. After the county finishes its survey, it sends it off to the state, which aggregates the data and files a report with the federal government. FEMA uses that report to determine who is in the most need of temporary housing but still hasn’t gone to Everglades City or Immokalee to meet with residents.

Jade Daffin, 10, draws hearts in the sludge left in her grandmother's destroyed home on Plantation Island on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 in Everglades City, three days after Hurricane Irma. Nancy Daffin returned to her home three days after the storm to find it in ruins.

FEMA spokesman Mark Peterson said the agency was on the way. He acknowledged fuel shortages and unsafe driving conditions in hard-hit areas might have contributed to the delay.

“We do know Everglades City and Immokalee are the worst hits,” Peterson said, noting the $10 million in approved federal funding that has been diverted to Florida relief efforts.

“We are doing everything we can to move staff as quickly as possible down to those impacted areas," he said.

Peterson said victims need a Social Security number to register with FEMA and receive temporary housing. But everyone affected by Irma, regardless of citizenship status, is eligible for emergency help, such as food, water and access to shelters.

Even when FEMA knows whose homes were destroyed and where, it won’t provide housing until residents register in its system.

“People do not need to wait to see FEMA to register for FEMA,” said Peterson. “We will be there, but they don’t need to wait.”

The power outages have also hindered residents from registering with FEMA because the internet is down all over Everglades City and in many parts of Immokalee. Residents don’t know they have to register or how.

Rob and Carol Sykora have been holed up for three days in what used to be their living room. Now it’s a sweatbox of mud, sludge and seawater. The smell has gotten worse each day.

Rob said he is afraid to leave because he is waiting for a FEMA representative to come with supplies and a temporary trailer.

When reporters told him he needed to register for FEMA assistance, which likely would come in the form of a subsidy for a rental, he and Carol looked at each other.

“We don’t have power,” she said. “No computer or any cellphone service.”

FEMA itself is already facing an uphill battle. The agency is still responding to those affected by flooding in south Texas from Hurricane Harvey, where as much as 52 inches of rain fell in the areas around Houston and Corpus Christi after the storm made landfall near Rockport on Aug. 25 as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds.

On Sept, 7, after the Senate approved an aid package of more than $15 billion to assist in Harvey recovery efforts, and 13 days after Harvey initially made landfall, FEMA ordered 4,500 manufactured-housing units to help, in addition to their current inventory of 1,700 units, far fewer than the roughly 560,000 families who the agency said were registered for their housing assistance program.

Although FEMA response times have reportedly improved overall since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it’s not fast enough for those who need it the most.

"You're the first person I've seen," Jeremey Kee, a local airboat captain and crabber near Everglades City, told reporters. After losing his home to the surge, Kee hasn't heard much about federal help outside rumors from neighbors.

"I don't have any insurance," Kee said, "so I just don't know what I'll do."

FEMA sends disaster strike teams to the hardest-hit areas to expedite temporary housing. FEMA said those officials are in Collier and other counties in Southwest Florida.

But as of Thursday, they haven’t been seen in Immokalee or Everglades City.   

Naples Daily News reporters Patrick Riley and Greg Stanley contributed to this story.