By Kelly Hawes
The Daily News

Published November 13, 2005

Galveston County’s office of emergency management has been awarded a $172,000 grant to help in the recovery from Hurricane Rita.

A committee appointed by the county commissioners court will administer the grant, awarded by the governor’s division of emergency management.

“The unmet needs committee should actively seek out individuals, families and charitable organizations with unmet needs and serve as a clearinghouse for matching those needs with available local resources,” the office says in the terms and conditions of the grant.

The grants are intended, it says, to meet disaster-related needs for which there is no other source of help.

The committee will include Irma Fortuno, executive director of the local Red Cross chapter, and Pat Doyle, whose county commissioner’s precinct takes in the Bolivar Peninsula. It also includes the local justice of the peace, Pat Vondra, and the local constable, Doug Considine.

Tim Butler, a community relations officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said his staff had found numerous uses for the money.

“I drove the length of the peninsula, and I could tell we needed to spend some time over there,” he said. “We did, and it paid off.”

He said a door-to-door canvass of homes along the peninsula found a number of people in need of help.

“We’ve been finding alternative housing for people,” he said, “getting them out of unsafe conditions.”

In one case, a community relations team tracked a referral for a family with eight children living in a damaged home with severe black mold. The American Red Cross and county officials inspected and declared the home unsafe.

The team arranged lodging at a local hotel, and the children were taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch for treatment.

The state funding, Butler said, will help in dealing with such cases.

Eliot Jennings, the county’s emergency management coordinator, said his staff hoped to tap other funding sources as well.

For weeks, FEMA representatives have been working out of a disaster relief center in Crystal Beach.

The peninsula was by far the hardest hit area in the county in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita in late September. Officials are still totaling damage from the storm, which wrecked numerous homes and left customers up and down the peninsula without electricity for nearly two weeks.

Butler told county commissioners Monday that it had been a pleasure working with the county workers involved in the relief effort on the peninsula.

“It’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had in any of the communities I’ve visited,” he said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to come back.”

County Judge James Yarbrough paused as those gathered for Monday’s meeting pondered what it might take to bring FEMA back to Galveston County.

“Thanks for the compliment,” he said, “but we don’t want you back.”
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