alligatorob
Member
What is the name of your state? Florida.
This is a FEMA question, not exactly an insurance issue but I could not find any place else on the Forum for it. Our home was extensively damaged by Hurricane Dennis and FEMA came into the area with an army of people and have set up a disaster relief center and held a lot of press conferences but seem to be of little actual help.
At FEMA’s urging we filed an application for assistance, FEMA inspectors came out to our home twice and spent a lot of time with us. They also got the SBA involved who sent someone out. Our home is quite badly damaged and not inhabitable. The SBA person estimated our loss at $185,000. FEMA on the other hand gave us a grant of $322 for “rebuilding”, we were told that we did not qualify for housing assistance as we evacuated the home the night before the Hurricane (July 10), and our county was not declared a disaster area for 2 more days (July 12) so since we were not actually living in the home when the disaster was belatedly declared we do not qualify. The only reason we were not in the home was the destruction done by the storm.
My question is what if anything could or should we do to see if we are not eligible for more FEMA assistance. The $322 check came with a brief and uninformative letter, no explanation as to what the rationale behind this figure was. We do have insurance (flood and wind) that will cover some of our losses and we are not destitute, but we have taken a serious loss. It looks to me like FEMA has invested a lot of their time and labor in our case, but with little benefit to us. If $322 was all we were going to qualify for you would think someone could have told us this in the beginning and rather than wasting time dealing with these people we could have gotten on with picking up the pieces. Any advice would be appreciated.
Rob
This is a FEMA question, not exactly an insurance issue but I could not find any place else on the Forum for it. Our home was extensively damaged by Hurricane Dennis and FEMA came into the area with an army of people and have set up a disaster relief center and held a lot of press conferences but seem to be of little actual help.
At FEMA’s urging we filed an application for assistance, FEMA inspectors came out to our home twice and spent a lot of time with us. They also got the SBA involved who sent someone out. Our home is quite badly damaged and not inhabitable. The SBA person estimated our loss at $185,000. FEMA on the other hand gave us a grant of $322 for “rebuilding”, we were told that we did not qualify for housing assistance as we evacuated the home the night before the Hurricane (July 10), and our county was not declared a disaster area for 2 more days (July 12) so since we were not actually living in the home when the disaster was belatedly declared we do not qualify. The only reason we were not in the home was the destruction done by the storm.
My question is what if anything could or should we do to see if we are not eligible for more FEMA assistance. The $322 check came with a brief and uninformative letter, no explanation as to what the rationale behind this figure was. We do have insurance (flood and wind) that will cover some of our losses and we are not destitute, but we have taken a serious loss. It looks to me like FEMA has invested a lot of their time and labor in our case, but with little benefit to us. If $322 was all we were going to qualify for you would think someone could have told us this in the beginning and rather than wasting time dealing with these people we could have gotten on with picking up the pieces. Any advice would be appreciated.
Rob