Nona Simmons:  This is Nona Simmons with the Federal Emergency Management Agency here to get some answers to questions that have been asked by our citizens of West Virginia.  Mike Senycz, who is the Individual Assistance Branch Director at FEMA, is here to answer those questions.  Now, why do some people get housing and other don't when housing is supposed to be available for disaster victims?

Mike Senycz:  Well as mentioned before when I spoke about eligibility that's an important criteria in why some people are eligible for housing and some people aren't.  As mentioned lack of damage to the home; deferred maintenance; or damages not within the incident period.  So all those reasons are for potentially why you would not be eligible for housing and some people would and some people wouldn't.  Now in this case I know in West Virginia we've instituted a direct housing program is when we use mobile homes and park models in place of resources that aren't available in the affected area.  And there's a number of reasons even if you're eligible for housing for our programs that you may not at this point have a place to put that direct housing unit for yourself.  And first we look at private sites, your own private property, to place a unit, and some of the criteria that we use that could determine eligibility is if it is in a floodplain.  Any unit that's located or any particular residence that's located in the floodplain, we're not placing those in the state of West Virginia.  Also the footprint and size of a unit will determine whether a unit can fit even on your primary residence.  Another reason would be accessibility of the site, many times that we've encountered it's very tough low bridge or tight turn to get a unit in and it's not accessible to get on to your site.  The lot terrain could also be an issue, many particular private sites here in West Virginia are hilly, mountainous and that could pose an issue.  And also another criteria that we have is that the utilities have to be present, we have to be able to hook into water, sewer, and be able to hook into electric as well for these units to function properly.  

Nona Simmons:  One other question, how important is it that our residents have flood insurance?

Michael Senycz:  Flood Insurance is very important Nona, in this particular incident it can cover you and help you get back on your feet as far as receiving additional funds.  You know our program max here for Individual Assistance Household Program is $30,300.  In many cases that's not sufficient enough to cover all of your damages that you might receive from a particular flood.  What flood insurance can do is provide you that extra safety net of additional funds to repair your home, get back in your home, and if for whatever reason those funds are insufficient as far as what our inspectors find as damage, you may be eligible for additional funds from FEMA to help you get back on your feet.  So definitely, flood insurance is something that's very important.  Also, even in incidents that are not declared by disasters.  FEMA's not going to be out there every time for every single incident.  So what flood insurance will allow you to do even in isolated incidents and small incidents, where FEMA won't be able to help will allow you to get that assistance that you need through your insurance company.
Nona Simmons:  We've been talking with Mike Senycz who is the Individual Assistance Branch Director for FEMA, Mike thank you very much.  

Michael Senycz:  Thank you very much Nona for the opportunity to speak to you.