By Tracy X. Miguel
Friday, March 30, 2007
Jose Sigurani and his wife, Maria, soon will be cooking together in their own kitchen.
Hurricane relief is finally coming for 14 families in Immokalee, such as members of the Sigurani family who were displaced by Hurricane Wilma, and families living in Wilma-damaged mobile homes and houses in Immokalee.
The first batch of the long-awaited Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers for Immokalee residents displaced by Wilma started arriving Friday in the farming community 50 miles inland from Naples.
“I’ve been waiting for a long time ... a very long time,” said Jose Sigurani, 45.
When Sigurani’s wife heard the trailers were arriving, she smiled and raised her thumbs in the air, he said.
Immokalee Helping Our People in Emergencies (IHOPE), a nonprofit, long-term disaster recovery team that helps people prepare for and deal with disasters, purchased 33 FEMA trailers, including 30 full-size trailers and three travel trailers, reconditioned, at $500 apiece.
When Hurricane Wilma swept through Southwest Florida on Oct. 24, 2005, tearing off the roof of their mobile home, the Sigurani family “lost everything.”
The only items salvaged were a refrigerator and a stove — now a constant reminder of Wilma.
It’s been a hard life for us,” said Sigurani, an equipment operator and truck driver in Lehigh Acres.
The Siguranis, both former farmworkers, have been married for 28 years. Sigurani has been living in Immokalee since he was 7.
Since Wilma hit, the Sigurani family, including two family members who are ages 20 and 22, went from living in a mobile home in Immokalee to a FEMA travel trailer and ultimately leaving Immokalee.
For the past three months, the Siguranis have been living with their daughter in Lehigh Acres.
With the arrival of the trailers, the family soon will return to having privacy.
“It’s a real good feeling,” he said.
The first 12 reconditioned trailers were placed at Pete’s Trailer Park, on 12th St. Southeast, off East Delaware Avenue.
The remaining two trailers among the initial 14 are expected to arrive today, said David Grove, IHOPE’s volunteer coordinator and supervisor of case managers.
Once all 33 trailers have arrived, 20 will be in Pete’s Trailer Park, four in Tara Parks and the balance on individual owners’ property at private sites.
The remaining trailers are expected to arrive next week.
“This is a big step, just getting them here,” Grove said.
Although the trailers arrived, families didn’t move into their new homes Friday. First, the trailers need to be tied down and inspected by county staff.
Grove said he hopes families will be able to move into the trailers by the end of April.
Before IHOPE could purchase the trailers from FEMA, county government had to approve site permits. Part of the delay was IHOPE’s lack of funding.
But in February, Collier County commissioners agreed to pay $10,000 for permitting fees to install 30 of the full-size FEMA trailers. The other three travel trailers don’t require that fee, Grove said.
For the first year, families won’t be charged rent, but they will be required to pay trailer hazard insurance monthly and rent on the lot, if they don’t own the land, according to Rick Heers, assistant pastor at Friendship Baptist Church in Immokalee and executive director of IHOPE.
These trailers will be available for families to purchase for about $3,500, with an 18-month, no-interest loan after they have resided in them for a year.
Sigurani said he is grateful for IHOPE and hopes to purchase the trailer.
Heers wrote in an e-mail, “I’m ecstatic that after all these months of working and waiting and waiting, our patience and persistence for our families is paying off. I’ve felt so terrible for our families, fearful that they’d give up.”
He thanked God that the families didn’t give up.
Heers wrote in the e-mail that the arrival of the trailers “shows what good can come out of a community pulling together.”
And more trailers may be on the way.
IHOPE is looking for money to pay for setting up an additional 30 FEMA trailers and permitting fees.
“We hope other nonprofit groups around the state will be inspired by what IHOPE is doing and get involved in a similar way,” said Josh Wilson, a FEMA spokesman.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/mar ... y_arrives/
