FEMA arrives in Goffstown; 82 homes still uninhabitable

GOFFSTOWN – Two weeks after the April floods, 82 homes in Goffstown remain closed to their owners while inspections in the area continue, according to Town Administrator Sue Desruisseaux.

"I don't see much movement in the color coding yet," Desruisseaux said. "Some people haven't even recovered from the May (2006) Mother's Day storm."

The affected homes have been given red or yellow stickers by town inspectors. Yellow means people can go into their homes for cleaning and repairs while red is a sign they cannot even go inside.

Desruisseaux said some homes needed several inspections before their owners could return.

Selectman Vivian Blondeau said she had toured the hard-hit Lynchville and Danis parks on Saturday.

"I don't know if you've been down there, but it still looks pretty bad," she said.

Blondeau said some homes had shown improvement, upgrading from a red to a yellow sticker. Many residents, she said, did not understand why they were barred from living in their homes and some had even ignored the town order.

"I went in one home where you could smell the mold and mildew," Blondeau said. "The woman said it right there, 'I'm staying here.'" 

►Dams review good news for Goffstown

Meanwhile, representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Small Business Administration have set up one of three mobile disaster recovery centers in the Pinardville fire station in Goffstown. The other two centers are in Allenstown and Raymond, according to a FEMA press release.

The Goffstown center will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day at least until Saturday and will welcome residents from surrounding towns. Before victims of the floods show up, FEMA officials say they should visit www.fema.gov or call 1-800-621-3362 to register.

When calling, residents need to have the reference number for the disaster, which is 1695, and provide their current and temporary address as well as information on their insurance, income and their losses.

Once they have registered, each resident will be assigned a case number by FEMA. Then they can visit the Goffstown disaster center for details on the kind of aid they can receive. At the fire station, they can also apply for a low-interest loan from the SBA.

In two days, less than a hundred people have visited the Goffstown disaster center, according to Suzanne Novak, a spokesman.

Statewide, the SBA has mailed out 440 applications for loans to people who requested them, according to spokesman Tom Nocera.

Kevin and Christine Maxwell of Milford stopped in yesterday afternoon to ask about an SBA loan. The couple, who have four teenage boys, said the floods had destroyed many of the appliances in the basement of the Bridge Street home they rent, while fumes from a ruptured oil tank had ruined mattresses, couches and clothes in the upper floors.

They estimate their losses have set them back at least several thousand dollars. "It's really just the displacement that has us unsettled more than the loss of anything," Christine Maxwell said.