NEW ORLEANS — The federal government says it will pay the hotel expenses of some of the nearly 2 million people who fled their homes ahead of Hurricane Gustav, but exactly who will be eligible for assistance and how much it will cost taxpayers was uncertain.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency planned a telephone news conference late Thursday to answer questions.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday in Baton Rouge that FEMA would pay hotel costs “to make sure that people don’t feel economic pressure to return home prematurely, before it’s safe.” He said FEMA would pay hotels directly, so it was unclear whether those who had already paid for rooms and checked out would be eligible for reimbursement.
With two other hurricanes threatening the East Coast, the decision to pay for hotels could make it easier to evacuate residents during the next disaster. But doing so also would burden the agency with huge expenses.
The news that hotel costs might be reimbursed came too late for those who have been sleeping at public shelters, such as those in a convention center in Birmingham, Ala. Some of those evacuees said they would have preferred a hotel if they had known FEMA money would be available.
“You can just get cat naps here,” said Aaron Clark, 63, as he sat under a shade tree outside the center. “We didn’t get breakfast this morning because they said something was broke down. It’s just surviving, that’s all it is.”
FEMA officials in Louisiana urged residents affected by the storm to register with the agency and to save receipts that document their spending during the evacuation.
“We’d need receipts, and we’d need to know whether the area they were evacuated from is one of the mandatory-evacuation areas,” said Ed Conley, a FEMA spokesman.
Conley was asked, as an example, whether a family could be reimbursed for hotel expenses after leaving New Orleans on Sunday, checking into a Tennessee hotel, then returning after two, three or four nights.
“That’s exactly the family we want to get in touch with us,” Conley said.
Details unclear
The minimum number of days that would be covered had not been determined, and it was unclear whether food and fuel costs incurred while on the road would be covered.
A Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman said Thursday that the agency had received a handful of calls in recent days from evacuees asking for gas money to return home. The state is referring those people to FEMA and the Red Cross.
Some evacuees also wondered whether FEMA would cover their lost wages and other expenses after they return to New Orleans.
In the Birmingham shelter, Carlos Pavilus of New Orleans said he would give anything to be in a hotel.
“I’m so tired of smelling tennis shoes and diapers. We have no laundry. We have nothing,” Pavilus said.
The path of Hurricane Gustav offered New Orleans a reprieve, but 80 miles away — where utilities say the devastation was the worst they have ever seen — the storm offered nothing but punishment.
The region’s top power company, Entergy Corp., said the Baton Rouge area has never suffered damage as severe as that caused by Gustav. The last storm that caused damage close to Gustav was in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida, crossed the Gulf of Mexico and then slammed Louisiana.
Dixie Electric Membership Corp., a co-op based in Baton Rouge, at one time reported that all 95,000 members were without power.
Entergy and Dixie Electric have said it may be weeks before all power is restored.
The Department of Energy said Thursday morning that 1 million customers were without power, including 925,963 in Louisiana.
