Baker, La. – Arcenia Crayton finally got the opportunity on Wednesday to close a door behind her and experience a rare moment of serenity, five weeks after living shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other evacuees who escaped the floods of New Orleans.
It was in a 28-foot aluminum-sided trailer, set on cinder blocks and surrounded by hundreds like it in the middle of a dirt lot in this small town outside Baton Rouge.
It was not as spacious as the house she fled in New Orleans. But it was not a crowded shelter for evacuees like the one she just left behind, and for now at least, it belongs only to her family.
“This is gold,” the 38-year-old from New Orleans said, clutching the keys to her new home.
“This place is not like my old house in New Orleans, where I had all the amenities and two bedrooms,” she said, checking out the new microwave in the vehicle’s small kitchen area. “But when it comes to having peace of mind and privacy, this is a blessing.”
With the turn of a key Wednesday, Crayton and her extended family were at the vanguard of the next step in Louisiana’s saga of dispersal and homelessness wrought by two hurricanes and pounding floods.
They were among the first group of evacuees to move into the trailer park, set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to start draining the shelters of evacuees. The housing is intended to be temporary, giving more than 39,000 evacuees in shelters a chance to get on their feet again after being uprooted from homes, jobs and schools.
Another 30,000 evacuees are sheltered outside Louisiana. Priority is being given to the elderly, the handicapped and families with children.
The Baker park, which has a capacity of 2,000 and is the largest set up by FEMA in Louisiana, is wedged between a juvenile prison and a church.
Its 573 trailers are connected to running water, sewage lines and electricity. They have air conditioning, microwaves, velour couches and bed linens. Plastic tiled floors are imprinted to look like hardwood.
A few smaller parks have been set up, and more are in development, some of which could be as large as the Baker site, in line with state plans to resettle everyone now in shelters, said James McIntyre, a FEMA spokesman.
In a reflection of the urgency to move people out of crowded shelters, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco issued an order Wednesday saying state-owned land could be used for housing for evacuees, overriding any local ordinances prohibiting the use of the property for residential purposes.