Waiting to go home

CARUTHERSVILLE, Mo. -- Polly Foreman feels like she's been camping for the past five months.

The Caruthersville resident's campsite is her front yard, and her tent is a Federal Emergency Management Agency travel trailer.

On Monday, Foreman sat inside her FEMA trailer and pointed out the window at the pile of rubble next to the street.

"That's my house out there," she said.

On the night of April 2, an F3 tornado swept through Caruthersville, destroying more that 250 homes, including Foreman's three-bedroom house on 19th Street. For several weeks, Foreman, her two sons and her mentally handicapped cousin lived with friends and family before they moved into the FEMA travel trailer.

The trailer has a small two-person kitchen table, with about two feet of space between it and the kitchen countertop.

Next to the countertop is a couch that folds out into a bed. Foreman's sons, Darius, 12, and Corbin, 5, sleep on it at night.

Toward the rear of the camper, two bunk beds line the wall. The top bunk is used for storage, and Foreman's cousin sleeps in the bottom bunk. Foreman sleeps at the other end of the trailer in a small bedroom filled with the family's clothes.

"We're not used to being this close up on each other. With no space, tempers can flare," Foreman said.

The cramped quarters force Foreman to keep laundry bags full of dirty clothes outside the trailer. Monday the laundry bags sat on the floor inside the house because it was raining.

She doesn't know what she'll tell her children at Christmas. "There will be no room for a Christmas tree. We can't have decorations," she said. "I don't even know where we are supposed to hang coats in the winter."

What makes matters worse is that Foreman's next-door neighbor, Aaro Hayes, lives alone inside a FEMA three-bedroom mobile home.

According to FEMA guidelines, mobile home units can't be placed on flood-zone properties, said Melissa Janssen, a FEMA spokeswoman. Foreman was told her property is in the flood zone.

The Mississippi River runs along the edge of Caruthersville. Foreman's property is the second one down from the levee. Hayes' property is closest to the levee.

Caruthersville Mayor Diane Sayre said all property next to the levee is not in the flood zone. Janssen said it's possible for one property to be in the flood zone and for abutting property not to be.

Foreman's house might be at a lower elevation, she said.

At the center of town, FEMA has set up a park with 133 mobile homes, which Foreman and her family could move to, Janssen said.

Foreman isn't sure what she'll do. She's already spoken with a local contractor who will rebuild her home for $85,000 -- but that might be at least another year. FEMA will allow residents to occupy temporary housing for 12 more months and then will re-evaluate the situation in Caruthersville.

Foreman still has to figure out how she will finance her new home. Her insurance settlement will be about $25,000.

Foreman doesn't have a copy of her insurance policy because her papers were destroyed in the tornado. She guesses the amount is about right.

"Some people can't get anything at all," she said.

Damage inside

About 10 miles west of Caruthersville, along the tornado's path of destruction, is the Deering, Mo., home of Dustin Siebert. The tornado barely missed his four-bedroom home on Route J. Wraparound winds from the tornado sucked about 85 percent of the shingles off his home and picked his shed off its foundation.

Tornado damage isn't visible from the outside of Siebert's house. The shingles were replaced a month after the tornado. Nearby are 10 FEMA mobile homes occupied by neighbors whose homes were destroyed.

Inside Siebert's house is another story, a grim reminder of the night of April 2.

After the tornado removed the shingles, water leaked through the roof. Two electrical fires subsequently broke out, one at the end of April and another in August.

The light fixture dangles from the collapsed ceiling in the bedroom of his 15-year-old stepdaughter, Logan. There's a hole in the kitchen ceiling. The floor boards in the den have buckled up. Normal settling cracks around the outside of the home grow larger each day, Siebert said.

The downward pressure of the tornado's wraparound winds broke two trusses in the two-car garage. The northeast section of the garage is slowly pulling away from the house, which caused the garage door to fall off its frame, barely missing Siebert's head.

Siebert had full insurance coverage on both his home and shed. State Farm Insurance has offered Siebert about $18,000 for his losses. Siebert says that isn't enough, and he's filed a lawsuit against the insurance company.

The adjuster told Siebert the electrical fires were due to pre-existing conditions, which is why the house wasn't declared a total loss.

Siebert figures it will cost him at least $18,000 to tear off the garage and rebuild it. The whole house will need to be gutted and rewired, he said.

"The house is totaled. If the insurance company had offered us at least $24,000 at the beginning, I probably would have accepted it," he said.

Tia Lindell, a spokeswoman for State Farm Insurance, said she couldn't comment on Siebert's case.

Lindell said claims adjusters are "highly trained to look at different types of damage and are trained to determine pre-existing conditions or a loss that would be covered under the insurance policy."

"There are opportunities that if a claims adjuster wasn't sure about a pre-existing condition, they could have an independent electrician come in to take a look at the damage. But the final decision is up to the adjuster," Lindell said.

Siebert, his wife, Chasity, and their four children are living in a two-bedroom rental house in Kennett, Mo., until they can fix their Deering home.

"Before this tornado I had a normal life. I went to work and came home. Now every day since then my life has been altered in some shape or form," Siebert said.

jfreeze@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 246