Houma Representative Tanner Magee
The post-Ida misery continues for many. State Representative Tanner Magee of Houma told a legislative committee Monday that 13-thousand homes in Terrebonne Parish have been destroyed or significantly damaged. He says 68-percent of residences along the east-west dividing line of the parish are not habitable, and owners are working through the difficulty. He told those gathered, “we saw people living in tents, that situation hasn’t changed, we saw people using the rubble to build their own makeshift structure.”
Magee says the situation was and remains critical, with FEMA saying temporary structures could arrive within the next month and lashed out at apartment owners who gave renters just over a week to vacate damaged residences, offering no options of where they were to go. “A complex in Terrebonne Parish notified their residents that they had 12 days, that their lease had been vacated and if they didn’t leave in 12 days all their stuff would be thrown out,” Magee told fellow lawmakers.
Magee says while FEMA has offered an alternative housing option for Ida victims in Terrebonne, he says that option doesn’t exist at the present. He said, “one of the fights we’re having with FEMA is FEMA wants to put people in apartments…not apartments, hotels these days but there are no hotels. New Orleans is booked. St. Mary Parish is booked.”
Magee criticized those who made a decision by September 3rd, four days after Ida’s landfall, that people would have to vacate apartments hit by the storm regardless of the amount of damage.
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