In the week since Hurricane Laura ravaged their homes and upended their lives, more than 10,000 southwest Louisiana evacuees made it to New Orleans, a city no stranger to the devastation hurricanes can cause.
But after avoiding — or in some cases, surviving — the calamities of the storm, they are now left to navigate a patchwork of local, state and federal agencies for everything from a daily meal and baby diapers to federal grants and assistance.
"We need food, clothes. I don't even have a gown to sleep in," said Mary Hotard, 80, of Cameron, who was waiting at the resource center at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center with her son on Wednesday. He had hurt his leg working on a tugboat and needed the cast removed. “I went through Rita and Ike. This is a lot worse.”
Mary Hotard, 80, stands outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center before she goes in with her son to receive more supplies in New Orleans, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. Hotard and her son evacuated after Hurricane Laura damaged her home in Cameron Parish. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Since Monday, the Convention Center has served as a depot where the Junior League of Greater New Orleans, the United Way of Southeast Louisiana, and LCMC Health have provided clothing, diapers, and medical assistance to evacuees. Some evacuees downtown said that they have been able to find the assistance they’ve needed, though with hiccups. But their experiences have been many and varied. At some hotels, evacuees are provided meals every day, for instance. At others, they said they've had to buy their own.
Hotard said has been washing the same pair of pants and blouse for two days straight.
Austin Hollingshead, of Lake Charles, was given shirts, pants and new Nikes at the Convention Center.
Austin Hollingshead stands next to his father Albert Hollingshead outside the Springhill Suites as he talks about the damage his home endured in the Lake Charles area during Hurricane Laura, in New Orleans, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
"The only thing I’m really shy on is underwear, but I’ll make it work," he said.
Evacuees are spread out across 33 hotels in the area. In the downtown hotels that together are serving thousands of people from the Lake Charles area, the Department of Children and Family Services, which is coordinating the state’s response, has set up information tables to provide help on securing basic essentials, as well as helping people start to navigate FEMA programs.
Local and state officials acknowledged this week that spreading out evacuees, a step made necessary by the coronavirus, has made it difficult to route supplies to some people and to inform them of what’s available.
“You are dealing with 33 different properties, and having enough personnel that are required to be at every property… it’s staggering,” New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Collin Arnold said this week.
The hotels’ “location and capacity are flux as the situation evolves,” complicating the logistics of supplying what is needed, Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services spokesperson Heidi Rogers Kinchen added.
The city is asking Laura victims to text welcomenola to 888777 to receive alerts about help they can get.
The resources at the Convention Center served 400 people Monday, 525 Tuesday and another 502 on Wednesday, city officials said. That effort has been extended through Friday of next week.
Even those who have been informed about the Convention Center’s help have unanswered questions about where they will eventually lay their heads, how they will rebuild their homes, and how they will feed their families.
"We want to see when would FEMA start giving vouchers, so we could try to move closer to home," said Rochelle Dicks, 30, who evacuated from Lake Charles to Dallas, then to New Orleans, with her four children, mother and cousin. "Because here, it's too far for us to drive."
As of Wednesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had paid more than $8 million in individual assistance for home repairs and temporary housing, with max payouts in the range of $33,000 and $35,000 per applicant, FEMA spokesperson Lenisha Smith said.
Smith did not say how many applicants that program has helped. If every applicant received the max, FEMA would have helped around 230 people. More than 80,500 Laura survivors across Louisiana have registered for FEMA aid thus far.
For Laura, the agency recently approved a critical needs assistance program that will provide $500 one-time payments to residents. Smith did not say this week when those payments will start going out.
New Orleans residents endured some of same challenges during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that southwest Louisiana is faced with now. Twelve days after Katrina made a second landfall over southeast Louisiana and Mississippi, FEMA distributed more than $690 million in federal grants to more than 330,000 households, according to that agency.
The $2,000 grant payments arrived via direct deposit, debit cards, and mailed checks to Katrina victims.
The state also has yet to receive authorization for disaster supplemental nutrition assistance, which can help families secure groceries.
In the absence of that program, DCFS staff told Audrey Price, who fled from Carlyss, Louisiana, to call 211 for help feeding her children, Price said this week.
“We’ve called 211, and nobody’s gotten back," Price said. "It is crazy. It’s stress on all of us.”
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After Hurricane Laura, evacuees to New Orleans scramble for assistance: 'We need food, clothes' - NOLA.com
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