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From Los Angeles Times

Housing issues nagging at tornado victims

Days after tornadoes devastated swaths of the southeastern U.S., officials are weighing options for quickly providing shelter to thousands left homeless. FEMA is on the scene.

by Esmeralda Bermudez, Kate Linthicum and Richard Fausset

May 1, 2011

Reporting from Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Tuscaloosa's emergency shelter is a crowded but welcoming place — a clean, repurposed community center in a leafy park far from the debris piles, full of smiling volunteers and fresh-faced church members handing out blankets, Bibles and baby diapers.

Still, it's getting old for tornado victim Benjamin Alford and his family. They've been here three nights, sleeping on cots in a basketball gym. His wife is pregnant. There is no privacy. And as of Saturday morning, they had no idea where to go now that the storm had destroyed their rental house.

"It seems like every day you get more stressed out," said Alford, 36. "The longer you're in here, the more agitated you get."

Somebody mentioned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was lumbering into action, and that trailer homes might be coming. Alford's stepdaughter shook her head emphatically: "Unh-unh," she said. "What if another tornado comes?"

Alford added: "I don't want to live in no trailer."

Three days after tornadoes devastated swaths of the southeastern U.S., killing at least 346 people, officials were assessing the toll on their housing stock and weighing options for quickly providing shelter to thousands left homeless.

They also are aware that their decisions could trigger a rerun of issues faced by Gulf Coast communities after Hurricane Katrina, when temporary trailers and prefabricated replacement housing were criticized for their flimsiness and contribution to blight.

But there were more pressing issues Saturday, with untold numbers of residents displaced or lacking basic services. The American Red Cross reported that 1,100 tornado victims woke up Saturday in emergency shelters, 700 of them in the neediest areas of Alabama. While some victims sought out the public shelters, many others have been taken in by churches, relatives and friends.

Richmon Edwards, 80, has been living with his wife in a Tuscaloosa motel that has a waiting list with dozens of names. He's been told he can't return home.

Edwards knows this dance well. A New Orleans native, his home there was mostly destroyed by Katrina in 2005.

"I lost everything I had to Katrina, so I came here," he said. "Now I lost everything here."

The number of residents left homeless across the region is unclear. In Tuscaloosa alone, an estimated 5,700 structures were damaged or destroyed by the tornado that ripped across 5.9 miles of the city Wednesday.

On Saturday, armies of volunteers took to the streets in Tuscaloosa and elsewhere, cooking food and delivering water and clothing. Government and utility crews rushed to restore power and plow debris. Cadaver dogs again sniffed through piles of wreckage, hunting specifically for individuals reported missing.

Longer-term housing solutions will probably come from contractors eager for work in the sputtering economy. Solutions will also come from FEMA, which has already delivered a small amount of assistance for rentals and repairs.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox, in an interview with "PBS NewsHour," warned of a "humanitarian crisis" if a quick fix wasn't forthcoming.

At a meeting Saturday with his City Council, Maddox raised the thorny housing issues that await them.

The city, he said, has provided FEMA with potential trailer park sites; contractors, meanwhile, want to put up prefabricated houses as fast as possible. Both issues became major post-Katrina controversies for Gulf Coast residents, many of whom didn't want cheap housing stock in their neighborhoods.

"I don't think any of us would like to see substandard housing built in our areas," Maddox said. "But then, how do you tell someone you're not going to be able to have a home?"

FEMA officials — perhaps mindful of the agency's public relations drubbing after its poor post-Katrina performance — have taken pains to show that they're on the move. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate toured Alabama with President Obama on Friday, and plans to do so again Sunday, joined by other top administration officials in a trip that will also take them to Mississippi.

FEMA liaison officers have deployed in five states, and affected residents are already able to register their damage online or over the phone. The agency is working with the states to determine whether they will need temporary units such as trailers.

"While hazards, such as high winds and tornadoes, could potentially affect any type of housing or other structure, FEMA will work closely with the state, local governments and residents over the next months to help them in their recovery and to help prepare and protect against future losses," said spokeswoman Rachel Racusen.

In Alabama, the volunteer effort served to buck up spirits. In Tuscaloosa's hard-hit Alberta City neighborhood, volunteers grilled hamburgers and handed out bags of donated groceries and sacks of ice to anyone who asked.

Baumhowers Wings, a restaurant in Birmingham, had sent a truck. Volunteers from the nearby Mercedes-Benz dealership could be seen helping out around town.

But there was also frustration and fear.

On Saturday afternoon, a mother walked to a medical station with a wailing baby and was swarmed by volunteers, who offered medical attention, diapers and formula. The baby was soon calmed.

But the mother was not. She said she had been without power and gas for days in her apartment, feeding her family with Burger King and living by candlelight. She declined to give her name because she is an illegal immigrant.

"The kids are so scared," she said in Spanish.

Sixty miles away in downtown Birmingham, Kendra Coleman, 27, and her husband and three young boys were holed up in an auditorium that had been converted into a shelter.

The family's apartment collapsed in nearby Pratt City, forcing them to walk away with just their coats and Coleman's purse. They'd spent three nights in the cold, cavernous building, and they'd had enough.

But Coleman said that when she called FEMA on Friday, she was told she would have to wait 10 to 14 days.

"They said, 'We'll call you and set up and appointment,' " she said. "I said, 'That's fine, but what am I supposed to do until then? I need beds. I need water.' "

The family tried to return to its neighborhood to collect a few belongings, but was turned away by police. At the shelter, Coleman said, they were not permitted to shower. Her boys were beginning to tire out.

"They tell me, 'Momma, I wanna go home,' and I just want to cry," she said. "Because I have no idea where home is anymore."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tornado-housing-20110501,0,1559201,print.story

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L.A. County sheriff's deputies head to tornado-torn Alabama

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has sent four of his Spanish-speaking deputies to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to aid in the recovery efforts there after this week's deadly tornadoes.

Baca said he spoke to Tuscaloosa Sheriff Ted Sexton, whom he knows well, and was told authorities there were in need of Spanish speakers to help with relief efforts for the county's Latino community.

“You've got to be able to tell them things in the language they'll understand,” Baca said. “This is an unbelievable tragedy on the scale of Katrina.... The challenges are overwhelming.”

The National Weather Service says the death toll across several states is up to 345, making the storms the second-deadliest tornado blast in U.S. history.

Rescue and relief efforts continue through much of seven states, and hundreds of thousands of people are still without electricity.

Baca said he may send out more deputies if needed. He said the deputies there now will stay as long as they're needed.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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From the New York Times

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In Tornado Zone, Many Ask, ‘How Can We Help?'

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — So many contractors showed up at a high school gymnasium here on Saturday that they could not all fit. Even though the death count continued its grim climb upward in what is now the worst tornado disaster in the country since 1925, here at the epicenter people know that the rebuilding has to begin, and quickly.

It is hard to imagine what it will take to put life back together in the states torn by last week's storms. One estimate, by the risk model forecaster EQECAT, put the insured property losses between $2 billion and $5 billion.

Still, the contractors were hoping to secure their share of three contracts the city plans to award for the cleanup. People here expect them to be worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to a trade still hobbled by the real estate crash and recession.

“It's an awful situation, but this is how we can help,” said Jordan Huffstetler, 29, a general contractor who drove in from Birmingham, Ala.

On Saturday, the number of people reported killed in eight states during last week's storms rose again, to 349. In Alabama, 250 bodies have been recovered, though the hundreds of people still missing suggested that many bodies remained undiscovered.

The last time more people were killed in a series of tornadoes in the United States was March 18, 1925, when almost 700 died in a storm that raged through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

President Obama declared two other states, Georgia and Mississippi, federal disasters late Friday night. Although the brunt of the casualties are in Alabama, Mississippi sustained the fiercest part of the storm. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado ranked a rare EF5 — the worst possible with winds as high as 205 miles per hour — hit the northeast part of the state and contributed to the near obliteration of tiny Smithville, where 14 bodies have been found so far.

Over all, Mississippi lost 35 people to the storm, and emergency officials reported that at least 1,822 homes were damaged. Georgia, which had a tornado nearly as strong as the one in Mississippi, has recorded 15 deaths in the northern part of the state. Tennessee had 34 deaths and has asked for federal assistance.

Hundreds of thousands in several Southern states were facing a fourth day without power, and dozens of shelters remained open.

The recovery “will be measured in inches, not miles,” Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa said Saturday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was working to bring trailers to the region. The plight of thousands of newly homeless people was starting to surface.

Judy Pool, 55, spent part of Sunday at community center in Tuscaloosa that had been turned into a shelter, flipping through donated clothes and shoes to find something in her size. She could get water, medical aid and food.

Her home is destroyed. She has her cellphone and her wallet. “I'm staying with my sister until, well, I don't know until when,” she said.

The urge to help those like Ms. Pool gripped people all over the country.

Although emergency officials have cautioned people to not simply show up with trucks or cars filled with donations, Elisabeth Omilami, executive director of the Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless program in Atlanta, already had a couple of truckloads of water and toiletries ready to take to churches in Alabama.

“Why would you say don't send stuff?” she asked. “How much can you hurt another family by giving them clothes when they don't have any?”

Other people are doing what they can. Grocery stores set up trucks in parking lots to hand out free water. Amy Audette, a special effects makeup artist in Los Angeles who grew up in Alabama, started soliciting donations of food and clothing via her Twitter account. She said she would send whatever she gets to family in the state to distribute.

Chris and Rachel Stephens, a couple in their 20s whose home was spared, cooked a batch of apple pancakes and headed to a heavily damaged Tuscaloosa neighborhood. They hung a sign — “Free hope pancakes for all!” — figuring a little comfort food might take people's minds off the emotional toll.

“Now it's starting to set in,” Mr. Stephens said. “Everybody's like, ‘What's the next step?' ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01storm.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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Drugs in Ozarks Town Infect Even Sheriff's Dept.

ELLSINORE, Mo. — Growing up in the rugged foothills of the Ozarks, Tommy Adams always dreamed of carrying a badge. He realized his wish through grim happenstance: the incumbent sheriff, dogged by rumors of corruption, killed himself weeks before votes were cast, and Mr. Adams slipped past him by a single vote.

For two troubled years, Mr. Adams was sheriff of Carter County, until his arrest last month on charges of distributing methamphetamine, the home-brewed drug that has poisoned much of this poor, sparsely populated stretch of timber country. Mr. Adams was accused of regularly snorting it as well.

But in this long-struggling community in southeastern Missouri where distrust of law enforcement has always run deep, the story of a sheriff enabling the scourge he was supposed to fight has not provoked outrage. Rather, many local residents are accepting it, even sympathetically, as another disappointing chapter in what they see as a hopeless fight.

“It shows how entrenched methamphetamine is in our system,” said Rocky Kingree, the county prosecuting attorney. “It's something that has to be stopped, and it doesn't seem like there is an end in sight.”

For most of a decade, Missouri has led the nation by a wide margin in the number of labs discovered to be producing methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant that can be made with household products like nasal decongestants. And throughout the Ozarks, the drug has metastasized.

In Ellsinore, the creeping problem has strained the bonds of its 446 residents. People recognize the symptoms of use in neighbors but, reflecting a culture of fierce independence, say nothing.

“We all know who does what, how they do it and when they do it,” said David Bowman, a school maintenance worker who is the mayor of Ellsinore. “You just turn your head and go on.”

In a community where hunting is less a hobby than another way to put food on the table, Mr. Adams was one of the many local boys who learned to string together a living out of odd jobs, working as a fry cook, an auto mechanic and the town's one-man, part-time police force.

Three years ago, Mr. Adams, who is now 31, ran against the two-term sheriff, Greg Melton. There were persistent rumors about Sheriff Melton, including that he used methamphetamine. Several residents said last month that he had stolen from them or had sold them stolen goods.

Less than a month before the election, Mr. Melton was found dead in his garage, shot through the head. The county coroner, who found a gun in Mr. Melton's hand, said that despite rumors otherwise, there was no doubt he had killed himself.

Mr. Adams's narrow victory put him in charge of three deputies and a 500-square-mile region with 6,265 residents. Keeping a lower profile than his predecessor, he quickly became the subject of rumor himself. He rarely met with community leaders or showed up at the office, where paperwork piled high on his desk. He delegated to his chief deputy, who worried about his strange behavior.

Mr. Adams began spending conspicuously, buying cars, building a cabin and paying for the in vitro fertilization that led to the birth, eight months ago, of his son.

Like many people around here, he had grown up poor. He declared bankruptcy in 2005, with just $5 in cash and $300 in the bank. And even though his new $37,000 salary, on top of his wife's pay as a nurse, represented good money in an area where the median household income is $27,000, his spending raised eyebrows.

Then there were his friends, including Richard Kearbey, who was arrested years earlier on charges of trying to buy 50 pounds of methamphetamine.

Though a federal judge in a later case described him as “the ringleader of a fairly large methamphetamine distribution network,” Mr. Kearbey served just seven days in jail. Instead, he worked as an undercover informant, helping arrest a number of small-time meth cooks, according to federal court records. (Neither Mr. Kearbey nor his longtime lawyer responded to messages seeking comment.)

After Mr. Adams's house burned down early last year — the man now charged with several arsons told the authorities that he had been commissioned by the sheriff himself to set it on fire — he and his family moved next door to Mr. Kearbey.

Mr. Adams hired Mr. Kearbey's daughter, Steffanie, as a sheriff's deputy, though she had no experience in law enforcement. Just months earlier, Mr. Adams had arrested the man who was then her husband on charges of methamphetamine possession; now she was constantly by the sheriff's side, helping him carry out burglaries and sell guns from the evidence room, she told the authorities after her arrest last month in connection with the case, according to court records.

Despite the growing concern, few of the two dozen residents interviewed about the events in recent days said they ever suspected that Mr. Adams was using methamphetamine. Even those who noticed that his clothes hung more freely on his already slender frame saw none of the other telltale signs: the rotted teeth, the compulsive movements, the erratic behavior.

A lawyer for Mr. Adams did not return a call seeking comment. But his friends and family defended his reputation. His mother said he never would have jeopardized his dream job. His wife offered stacks of unpaid bills to show they were not living extravagantly. His father-in-law called him “one of the good guys.” And Robert Boone, who used to fix up old cars with Mr. Adams, said his friend simply could not have hidden his drug use.

“I trusted Tommy, and I still do — I don't believe he did it,” said Mr. Boone, whose house was among those that Ms. Kearbey told the authorities she robbed at the direction of Mr. Adams. “Did he get caught up in something he couldn't get out of? Maybe. Maybe.”

According to the long investigation by state and federal authorities, though, Mr. Adams had been using methamphetamine for at least nine months with a man who had become a government informant.

Last month, the unidentified informant, wearing a wire, went to Mr. Adams's cabin to buy methamphetamine from the sheriff, who used some in his presence, according to a court document. Mr. Adams was quickly arrested, and his bail was set at $250,000. Despite initially boasting that he could pay immediately, he remains in jail.

“It seems like they always get caught up in it,” said David Reynolds, raising his voice above the scream of a blade at his family-owned saw mill. “A sheriff don't have to answer to nobody.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01sheriff.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

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Portland, Ore., Votes to Rejoin Task Force After Terrorism Scare

PORTLAND, Ore. — It has been nearly a decade since the terrorist attacks of 2001 and nearly a decade since this liberal city first established its reluctance to assist in many of the wide-ranging federal terrorism investigations that have followed.

No, it told Attorney General John Ashcroft in the fall of 2001, its police officers would not join federal efforts to interview thousands of Middle Eastern men. No, it said again in 2005, when it became the first city to stop participating in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which the Department of Justice operates in cities across the country to unite federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.

And then, on Thanksgiving weekend last year, federal authorities arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born teenager they accused of trying to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony attended by thousands of people. The investigation had been under way for many months, but the Portland police were consulted only near the end, largely to help with logistics of a sting operation. Mayor Sam Adams was unaware until after the arrest.

“It showed the challenges we face and the fact that the 2005 resolution, while well intentioned, wasn't meeting the needs of collaboration between local and federal law enforcement,” Chief Michael Reese of the Portland police said in an interview. “You're going to be an afterthought, like we were in that investigation.”

Now, after five months of public debate and rewritten drafts — and as Mr. Mohamud's case moves slowly along — city leaders last week approved what one City Council member called a “very Portland” compromise to rejoin the task force.

“Be it resolved, that it is the policy of the city simultaneously to help prevent and investigate acts of terrorism, protect civil rights and civil liberties under United States and Oregon Law, and promote Portland as an open and inclusive community,” reads part of the preamble to the agreement.

The agreement goes on to emphasize that local officers will be guided by state law “in situations where the statutory or common law of Oregon is more restrictive of law enforcement than comparable federal law.” It also advises individual officers working with the task force to consult with the city attorney “whenever the officer has any question about the application of Oregon law.”

Under Oregon law, law enforcement agencies cannot collect information about a person's political, religious or social views or group involvement “unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct.”

The upshot, Chief Reese said, is that his department will soon be able to participate in longstanding regular briefings that already include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Police, county sheriff's deputies, port authority officials and others. He will be allowed to apply for top-secret government clearance, and Mayor Adams, who is also the police commissioner, will be able to have secret clearance.

“A month from now, if we're able to be there at the table and assign officers where it's appropriate, I would be very happy,” Chief Reese said.

The agreement passed unanimously among the city's five commissioners, though many residents spoke against it. Some said it would stir more fear among Muslims already wary of federal agents. Some said officers would abuse the agreement.

“How do you spell oppression? J.T.T.F!” a small group of opponents chanted on the sidewalk outside City Hall during the debate, in easy earshot of Council members. “How do you spell police state? J.T.T.F!”

Some critics said the agreement was so nuanced that it was hard to understand. “I don't know if we are or if we're not” joining the task force, Brandon Mayfield told Council members.

Mr. Mayfield, a lawyer, has experience in terrorism investigations that go wrong. In 2004, he was arrested after the F.B.I. mistakenly said his fingerprints matched one found on a plastic bag containing detonator caps found at the scene of terrorist bombings in Madrid the same year. He eventually received a $2 million settlement and an apology from the federal government.

Mr. Mayfield said in an interview that he opposed the agreement but that he was pleased that “at least they are thinking of civil rights.”

“They don't want to be deemed as being soft on security, but at the same time they are putting in all these precautions,” he said. “It shows they are listening to the citizens of this city.”

Much has happened in the decade since Portland first resisted. The mayor and the police chief are new. The lead F.B.I. agent in Portland is new, as is the United States attorney here, Dwight C. Holton. The administration in Washington is also new.

“They were uncomfortable with some of the tactics in the war on terror,” said Mr. Holton. “They were uncomfortable with some of the politics of it, the national politics. Those folks are all gone now.”

Jeffrey L. Rogers, who was the city attorney in 2001 when Portland pushed back against Mr. Ashcroft, was among several people struck by the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union has given cautious support to the new agreement.

“It was harder to look for this kind of middle ground because the positions were so hardened,” Mr. Rogers said, recalling earlier debates. “Just on its face, that's pretty impressive, to have all of those people agreeing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01portland.html?pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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City of Birmingham asks for help in reporting missing persons, items for tornado victims

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