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Hurricane Wilma

Wilma's victims wait for temporary homes

FEMA said there are about 200 mobile home units ready to send to Florida, with another 200 nearly ready.

HOLLYWOOD - Sandra Distefano is living in a shelter six days before her baby girl is due to be born. Like thousands of people in South Florida, Distefano's apartment was damaged by Hurricane Wilma, then ruined by heavy rains that followed.

"I don't know what I'm going to do when the baby comes. The hospital won't let me stay forever," said Distefano, 30, who is living with about 600 people in a shelter in a school gymnasium and auditorium. "I just have to wait."

Distefano and hundreds of others, many of them poor, are in disaster limbo, waiting for temporary housing and other aid from federal officials to arrive. More than 3,500 homes, apartments and condominiums in Broward County were destroyed or deemed unsafe in the aftermath of the Oct. 24 hurricane, officials said.

Broward County Mayor Kristin Jacobs said Friday the situation is frustrating because the Federal Emergency Management Agency's policy is to provide aid on a case-by-case basis instead of dispatching large numbers of mobile homes immediately or allowing the county to lease apartment space.

Jacobs said that as of Friday morning, 25 of Broward's 31 cities had found locations for temporary mobile homes. She said FEMA officials said there are about 200 mobile units ready to send to Florida, with another 200 nearly ready.

FEMA officials defended the agency's performance, noting that as of Friday about $15.5 million had been approved in Florida for temporary housing, repairs and other needs such as generators, clothing and medical costs. The agency has received about 370,000 aid applications from Wilma, with more help on the way, spokeswoman Frances Marine said.

Marine said mobile home units, like financial assistance, are provided to individuals, not counties or cities.

A bipartisan group of Florida's congressional delegation thanked FEMA for its actions so far in what they called "this dire situation." But they also urged FEMA acting director R. David Paulison in a letter Friday to use county and local inspectors to speed up the review of damage at homes.

Gov. Jeb Bush asked his brother, President Bush, in a letter Friday to order that the federal government pick up a greater share of the costs of hurricane recovery in light of the pummeling Florida has taken in the last 15 months with strikes by eight hurricanes and three tropical storms.

Among the numerous problems facing the state, Gov. Bush wrote, is that "available and affordable housing for our disaster victims is virtually nonexistent."

[Last modified November 5, 2005, 01:22:18]