More than a hundred coastal families displaced by Hurricane Irene faced a deadline yesterday to move out of mobile homes provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But North Carolina Emergency Management says all of them have been given a 30-day extension. Dawn Baldwin Gibson of the Pamlico County Disaster Recovery Coalition says many residents are still trying to get money for repairs from their insurance or mortgage companies.
Dawn Baldwin Gibson: You know the bank might say, or the mortgage company says, we need three estimates. Well, it's hard getting people in a rural community to come and do estimates when they can do work in other locations. And so we are dealing with those kind of issues, so some of those people aren't going to be ready in 30 days.
Gibson says some displaced families have few options for getting back into permanent housing. They're looking forward to the end of May, when the disaster recovery organization Eight Days of Hope plans to bring as many as 15-hundred volunteers to work on rebuilding projects in the area. A state emergency management spokeswoman says nearly a hundred families have moved out of the trailers since the August storm. She says state and county officials are working to get the remaining residents the resources they need to get back into their homes or other permanent housing.