BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Victims of Louisiana’s largest and most disastrous flood since Hurricane Katrina were told by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials that they will not see temporary housing units arrive until 2017.
Despite over 100,000 homes damaged and another 60,000 homes completely destroyed, the federal agency said they are so backlogged by temporary housing units, commonly referred to as FEMA trailers, that flood victims would have to wait at least until the next year.
FEMA said some 5,300 Louisiana flood victims qualified for trailers, but they cannot get them shipped and brought to residents fast enough.
The announcement by FEMA has left some flood victims outraged, as the state already felt left behind when it took President Obama weeks to cut his vacation short to visit the flooded region.
“It is a big joke, all of it,” Lavone Hatch told WBRZ in an interview, saying she applied for a FEMA trailer months ago but still has not heard a word from the federal agency.
“(FEMA said) ‘I know it’s hard not to pay attention to the news, but just don’t pay attention’,” Vickie Thornton told WBRZ as she explained how she called FEMA herself as she too has not yet received her housing unit despite applying for it months ago.
FEMA has been widely criticized for their poor response to the flooding crisis in Louisiana.
Back in August, FEMA said it was ready to get housing units to flood victims, but the agency went weeks before only getting one unit to a flood victim, Breitbart Texas previously reported.
Rep. John Mica (R-FL) visited the state at the time and lambasted the federal government’s response to the disaster, saying “This is one of the biggest displacements of people I’ve ever seen in the country, and the response is pitiful from the federal level.”
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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