Weeks after Katrina, Biloxi's poor feel forgotten

Frustration over delays
Tam Tran, 44, is back on his shrimp boat named “Vanna Lavie” with his 5-year-old daughter and wife who’s four months pregnant.

“If the weather is real hot I go to the tent; if it’s OK I sleep here,” he said. The family sleeps in one tiny cabin on the same bed together. The pier where the boat is docked has no power.

Weeks ago, Tran went to FEMA for a trailer. He’s not heard back since. He tried calling FEMA recently but the number wasn’t working.

“This made me mad,” Tran said, raising his voice. “I made application for a long time, and I still don’t have it. How do I survive?”

FEMA’s Seigal understands the frustration.

“There are folks working their butts off to make this happen, but the volume is incredible,” he said. “It’s taking time.”

Seigal said after people register with FEMA, an inspector from the agency will visit the home sometime between 10 days and two weeks later. Within four to six days the trailer is supposed to arrive if conditions are right.

“We’re not going to place a trailer in a yard without sewage or water or electrical lines,” Seigal explained.

From porch to tent
After Hurricane Katrina ravaged their little white house of 20 years, Mike Hardy and his wife lived outside on their broken, warped porch — next to piles of stinking debris and the massive tree that fell.

Their living quarters were next to a dirty commode strapped underneath a metal walker. “That’s our bathroom,” said Hardy.

About a week ago, Hardy and his wife, Donna, decided to move a few feet away and joined some other friends and family who had set up tents. Their porch had become intolerable.

“Who can sleep there?” Hardy asked. “There are rats, snakes.”

Hardy, a carpenter, is worried about the water moccasins — “They don’t play” — and is building a floor for the tent out of lumber.

Before he can get more permanent shelter, somebody is going to have to help out. “We’re trying to put in for that FEMA trailer but we can’t get that damn tree out of the way,” he said.

Hardy then looks down at the ground and puffs in his cigarette.

“I’ve seen better days.”

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