[StBernard] Council Members Deliver Trailers Themselves

[Westley Annis]

Council Members Deliver Trailers Themselves

February 7 , 2006

By: Steve Cannizaro


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----


In a move they admit was largely symbolic to show their frustration with
slow trailer delivery to residents, four St. Bernard Parish Council members
on Monday took three stockpiled trailers from a site on Paris Road and
personally delivered them to three homes.

Led by Council Vice Chairman Joseph DiFatta Jr., trailers were delivered,
although not hooked up, to storm-damaged homes in the districts of Council
members Mark Madary, Judy Hoffmeister and Kenny Henderson.

"FEMA is overwhelmed'' in trying to get travel trailers to residents,
DiFatta said. He said there are more than 8,000 requests for trailers in St.
Bernard that have been unmet, saying, "That's absurd'' when it's been five
months since Hurricane Katrina flooded the parish. There isn't a reason up
to 200 trailers a day can't be delivered to residents who need them as they
try to work on their destroyed homes, DiFatta said. He said FEMA told him
they had no problem with Council members delivering the trailers.

"We are back to where we (as a parish) started after the hurricane - SOS -
save ourselves,'' Hoffmeister said. She said that every day the parish waits
for trailers another family decides not to move back. Hoffmeister also said
the same problems St. Bernard is suffering could happen to any other small
community in this nation.

Henderson said while taking three trailers and delivering them is mostly
symbolic he hopes it makes a difference in spurring FEMA and its contractor
for trailer delivery, Fluor, to hasten trailer deliveries. "We (as Council
members) get calls all day long about trailers,'' Henderson said.

Madary also said it is taking too long to get trailers delivered by FEMA.

One resident who received a trailer from the Council on Monday, Denise
Terrebone, who lived in the 7200 block of Prosperity Street in Arabi, has
been staying in Metairie with her husband. She repeatedly thanked God and
led the group of council members in a prayer when her trailer arrived. She
said "many St. Bernard residents would like to come home'' and would if they
could receive a travel trailer to live in while working on their home. "I am
so happy,'' she said.

The trailers distributed were among a group of more than 250 that have been
sitting idle on Paris Road in Chalmette. They are from a group of 6,000 that
parish government ordered from a travel dealer shortly after the storm but
for months couldn't get a commitment to purchase them from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of getting trailers to
residents who need them.

FEMA recently agreed to buy them after Parish President Henry "Junior'' 
Rodriguez publicly complained about FEMA wasting tax dollars by not taking
them despite the parish negotiating a price thousands of dollars each lower
than FEMA normally pays its contractors for trailers.

But FEMA hasn't paid the dealer, Jim McGuire, of Century Investment Group. 
McGuire delivered the three trailers after telling Council members they
could have them. "They need the trailers,'' McGuire said of residents
waiting for them.

McGuire also said that including delivery costs the trailers he was
providing were about $21,000 each.

Council member Mark Madary said he was told FEMA is paying close to $28,000
per trailer including delivery costs, saying multiplied by the 6,000
trailers the parish ordered FEMA would be saving nearly $500,000 in taxpayer
dollars if they would pay for the trailers and place them in St. Bernard.