FEMA Officials Looking for Flood Victims

Cane in hand, Edris Guenther shuffles out of her Port Hueneme townhouse to flag down the official-looking types in the FEMA jackets wandering the walkways.

“Are you talking about the flood?” the affable 90-year-old asks. “I’ve had it bad too, you know.”

Turns out, it is just the kind of story John Casey came to hear.

Casey is a field officer with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It is his job to keep potential recipients of federal flood aid from missing the boat.

On Friday, he began walking Ventura County’s hardest-hit streets with a stack of bright yellow fliers under his arm. He knocks on door after door, encouraging folks to apply for aid if they need it.

He makes no promises.

He merely tells residents and business owners that they could be eligible for federal aid in the form of grants or low-interest loans to cover structural damage and personal property losses.

“If we can’t get to them and tell them to register, they won’t, and then they won’t get federal help,” Casey says. “It’s just that simple.”

The FEMA outreach effort comes after President Clinton on Feb. 9 declared Ventura County a federal disaster area.

The declaration makes a broad range of assistance available to victims: temporary housing and home-repair funds for people whose homes are deemed uninhabitable; unemployment and job-placement assistance for those who lose their jobs due to a disaster; legal services; crisis counseling and referrals to mental-health agencies; loans to fix or replace damaged belongings; tax relief, and waivers of early withdrawal penalties placed on long-term deposits.

FEMA officials arrived here four days after the president’s major disaster declaration, mostly to help local governments assess damage to public buildings and roads and recoup the costs of providing emergency services.

Casey immediately began meeting with city and county officials for a crash course in local geography to pinpoint where the worst damage occurred.

So far, federal officials say, 514 county residents and business owners have applied for FEMA aid, with 286 of those only requesting assistance with temporary housing.

Across the 31 California counties declared federal disaster areas, 7,574 state residents have applied for aid, with FEMA to date issuing $2.4 million to storm victims for temporary housing, FEMA officials said.

A hotline--1-800-525-0321--has been set up to handle aid applications while FEMA pushes radio and television companies to broadcast public service announcements.

But there may still be many residents and business owners unaware that help is available.

So Casey goes knocking.

“There’s a satisfaction in helping people,” said Casey, a retired president of both Pasadena City College and Fullerton College who now lives in Seattle. “We try to have a heart, and most people are very receptive to anything we can do for them.”

Guenther’s home suffered no more than a soggy carpet when the street outside her residence flooded into her home.

The cost to dry and put new padding under the carpet totaled $1,002, she said.

But her neighbors fared far worse.

“These are renters,” she tells Casey, pointing next door. “They had a terrible time.”

At another hard-hit complex near Surfside Drive and Hueneme Road, Casey relies on Tina Esparza, the city’s housing and community development director, to translate the stories of several low-income, Spanish-speaking residents chased from their homes by a flooded creek.

“Most of them wanted to stay here if they could,” Esparza said, “It’s comfortable, it’s quiet.”

Martha Amezqua, whose home is nearest the creek, showed Casey how foot-high flood waters destroyed her living room and bedroom furniture, children’s toys and appliances.

Like others at the complex, she had heard about the potential for FEMA aid through the American Red Cross, which has put the farm worker and her two sons in a nearby hotel.

Although the flood occurred more than two weeks ago, 14 adults and children in eight apartments are still without electricity, plumbing and heat, and have relied on the Red Cross for emergency housing aid.

“They have been a very humanitarian organization as far as providing the assistance we needed and the information,” said resident Gloria Coyazo, who took about 3 inches of flood water throughout her apartment but incurred little damage.