FEMA assesses community needs starting at the front door

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY)- FEMA’s Disaster Survivor Assistance Team Members are walking through Wilmington neighborhoods assessing the damage to determine the needs of the residents. The team members are having one-on-one discussions with each homeowner to find out the particular needs of each family.

“They will find out what their current and immediate needs are whether they can stay in their home, whether their home is beginning to fill with mold.” said FEMA Spokesperson Darrel Habisch. “[We] find out what these initial needs are and hopefully get them registered for FEMA for disaster assistance.”

He says the first step in recovery is to consult with your insurance to first determine what coverage is met, then document the damage and list all that was lost due to damage.

Habisch says members are always easily identifiable with government badges and identifiable “FEMA” paraphernalia.

One Wilmington resident, Julia Kost, is thankful for the relief FEMA is providing and recalls the details of the night she was taken away from her home:

“To be boated away from your front door in the blackness of the night with it raining, with people that are so kind that you’ve never met before in your life putting their life on the line and just going around the corner on a boat …where I drive everyday and into a giant truck [to take us] away from our home for I didn’t know how long… it felt like a movie,” said Kost.

Kost says she was one of the last people to leave her neighborhood which, was a very emotional experience for her family who had just closed on the house on May 1st.

She also describes it as a surreal to be seeing neighbors ripping their homes apart but she is thankful to be able to return home and work together to help others.

“Whether it were Irena, Irma, Maria and now Florence, the communities are different, the responses are different, but there are lessons learned at every disaster,” said Habisch. “We always learn more but what I do find the similarity is, is that it brings out the best in people.”