FEMA offering in-person support for Irma-afflicted individuals in Manatee County | Bradenton Herald

Manatee

As focus has turned to Hurricane Nate and its impact on the northern Gulf Coast, Irma is hardly a distant memory for some Manatee County residents.

The empty shell of a store at the DeSoto Square mall on Saturday became a temporary disaster recovery center available to those seeking in-person federal help. Children crawled over foldable chairs as handful of adults, quiet and patient, clutched papers, waiting for answers on when relief would come. Coordinator Rafael Velez with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, expected more to arrive in the coming days.

The disaster recovery center will be open through Tuesday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at Unit 277 near Sears to lend a helping hand for anyone affected by Irma.

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Velez said a range of assistance can be offered if someone has suffered as a result of Irma, such as medical, dental, funeral, car, hotel stays, personal item loss and of course damage to homes and small businesses. The U.S. Small Business Administration is also on hand to help, and mitigation information is available to learn how to reduce a disaster’s impact.

In order to not duplicate insurance payments, FEMA must wait for insurance companies to pay out claims before they can assist. According to FEMA, their grants don’t have to be repaid, and seeking assistance will not affect Social Security, Medicaid or other federal aid.

Although she already applied for FEMA assistance over the phone, Yvonne McMillan was at the temporary center following up on her application Saturday afternoon. She has been retired since 2002 and owns a rental property on 14th Street East for extra income. While her own home outlasted Hurricane Irma, the rental wasn’t as lucky.

Strong winds lifted the roof and chimney, and water crept into the house.

“Mold developed really quick because the lights were out for several days,” she said.

Within the month since Irma hit, she said she just finished replacing the roof and tearing out three bedrooms, but there’s more work to do.

“I’ve already spent $10,000 with this,” she said.

The house needs to be painted and floors need to be redone. She expects that number to double by the time she’s finished.

The roof on Gary Williams’ home also was damaged. He came to the FEMA center to see what, if any, help they could offer.

“Our neighbors across the street were yelling at us and came on over and said, ‘Your roof is lifting up,’” Williams said. “It was kind of scary.”

Williams is also retired, but his wife Ena supports them. They had enough savings to fix the air conditioning, but the deductible to fix the roof is around $4,500, he said.

“That’s a lot.”

He received estimates of around $20,000 to repair the roof, but an insurance adjuster has yet to come.

“(The adjuster) said last week it could be up to a month,” Williams said, adding that they were from out of state. “The adjusters are probably spread pretty thin.”

Still, he and many others consider themselves lucky.

“Because you know it’s kind of like rolling the dice, right?” he said. “You don’t know for sure because (hurricanes) turn and do all kinds of things.”

Tawsha Brinson and her 7-year-old son Sirdarius rode out the storm at her grandmother’s house in Bradenton. They prepared ahead of time by filling up the car with gas, boarding up the windows and bringing candles, generators and life jackets just in case.

“It was raining hard,” Sirdarius recalled, leaning his face into his mother’s shoulder.

The family went back to their home in south Manatee County to no power. It would be like that for a week and a half. All of their food spoiled and a roof leak brought mildew.

“Can’t complain,” Brinson said. “I thank God that we didn’t have the damages that other people had. Pretty grateful.”

This story was originally published October 07, 2017 5:24 PM.