Fort Pierce, Fla. — The pounding wind and rain during Hurricane Frances started the leaks in Sarah Mason's home. When Hurricane Jeanne struck even harder three weeks later, the leaks became torrents.
"We were in the house and it was falling down around us," said Mason, who waited out the storm with her three grandchildren. By the time the gusts slowed, she had lost almost everything.
The house where she lived for 35 years, the one she bought with tips from cleaning other houses, was in shambles. Its roof was caved in and its walls were waterlogged. She had no insurance to get it all back. And for the first time in her life, she was homeless.
"I was born in a home, and I bought me a home, and now I have nothing," the 67-year-old Mason said as tears welled in her eyes.
The four hurricanes that slammed Florida this year forced 252,000 residents to ask for federal help because their homes were damaged or destroyed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to provide temporary homes for at least 10,000 families -- the equivalent of rebuilding a city the size of Fort Pierce.
The agency has already placed nearly 8,500 families in travel trailers or mobile homes. But mold and other problems are surfacing now, and about 100 new victims call for help daily, some adding their names to waiting lists for housing.
FEMA officials had pushed to find temporary homes for all who needed them by Thanksgiving, but the task was formidable. In previous disasters, FEMA provided temporary housing for only a few hundred families. Now, it houses hundreds of families a day, including a record 721 families on Wednesday, the day before the Thanksgiving goal.
Jerry Luyk inspects his FEMA-supplied temporary housing trailer in Port Charlotte, Fla. The violent spate of four hurricanes that slammed Florida this year forced more than 200,000 Floridians to ask for federal help because their homes were damaged or destroyed.
"We'd like to move much faster, too, but this is an unprecedented disaster," said FEMA deputy coordinating officer Brad Gair. "This is a huge scale, and we're learning as we go, changing the process. We're just trying to do whatever it takes to get the job done right now."
The hurricanes left few areas untouched. Hurricane Charley tore into southwest Florida. Then Frances crept ashore before lumbering to the Gulf Coast. Ivan lashed the Panhandle. And Jeanne, which battered many of the same areas as Frances.
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