[StBernard] Debris Removal or House Demolished

[Westley Annis]

Nancy,

The work is done by volunteers on a volunteer basis and they will not be
reimbursed by FEMA for their time.

However, FEMA will provide them a roof over their head and three squares a
day, which means they will be receiving some value from FEMA.  It is this
"value" that FEMA says cannot be duplicated.  So, you cannot have these
volunteers gut your house and then come back later and demolish it.

Another way to look at it, why spend the time and effort to have people gut
a house if a bulldozer can do the job quicker, easier, and will be used
anyway?

Katrina did teach me that lesson.  Next time I don't think we will run
around like crazy making sure the house is neat and clean before we evacuate
for a hurricane.

Westley

-----Original Message-----

so, the volunteer work by habitat, americorps, etc. is strictly 'volunteer'
and will not be reimbursed by fema???  this would mean that you could have
home gutted by them and still have the home demolished (if deemed necessary)
by the parish and reimbursed by fema???  am i understanding this correctly??
i do not know yet if we need to have our home demolished as we are waiting
on an engineer to check the slab, as the initial inspection stated that the
house appeared to be lifted and put back down....i mean i do not want to
waste the volunteers time, but would like to get the gutting done as the
final date of 3/31 is coming very quickly.  i do not want to have the home
demolished, but do not know if that will HAVE to be done or not......help!! 
 
thanks again,
 
nancy sinopoli