FEMA and My Family

This post should be called "WTF?"

I'm told that FEMA didn't declare Iberia parish a disaster area because they didn't investigate properly. I'm also told that there was a paperwork snafu that mislabeled Iberia parish "Iberville Parish", which is an unscathed parish west of Baton Rouge, a two hour drive from my parents home. This apparently was also an issue in facilitating aid disbursement.

Mom says that their local officials, men by the name of Wil Langlanais and Craig Romero, complained aggressively to the news media until they recieved the attention of the President, who apparently then took a personal interest. He was supposed to sign paperwork yesterday to declare both Iberia and Lafayette Parishes "disaster areas".

FEMA had been telling my parents to try filing later, as they did not reside in a "disaster area" and were thus pointed to the back of the line(They live on the outskirts of a town that in many places still cannot be accessed without a boat).

They were finally able to file with FEMA today. As I understand it, they will cut a 2k check within 3 days. This is good, as my mom told me yesterday that they only had a few hundred dollars left in their checking account.