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Still paralyzed by a paperwork snarl that holds flood aid out of reach, Roger and Bonnie Oldham, along with Bonnie’s mother Audrey Ann Ellinghuysen, will lose their home for the second time in 18 months Friday when FEMA pulls away the trailer they’ve lived in since the flood.
The Oldhams’ house was swept away and destroyed in the early hours of August 19, 2007, when a flash flood ravaged the town of Stockton. The family, stranded on the roof of the house as it sailed away, became the proverbial poster family of flash floods that killed seven and left hundreds homeless.
Since that time the Oldhams have lived in a FEMA trailer on the site of their old home, working all the while to navigate the process of dealing with a mortgage on a house they no longer have and a buyout that has yet to materialize.
FEMA officials notified them in January that their 18-month lease for the trailer would expire February 23, and that the trailer needs to be emptied of their property by Friday, February 13.
For the Oldhams that won’t take long.
Because their house was swept off its foundation by water and careened a quarter mile before getting hung up on some railroad tracks, everything in the house was destroyed, Bonnie said.
The only belongings they have now are a chair, a TV stand, and some mud-stained photographs Bonnie found wedged under a pile of trees.
Everything else in the trailer, from the plain sofa and kitchen table to the generic decorations on the walls, belongs to FEMA, Oldham said.
The couple also salvaged some of their clothes after the flood, with most of the stains laundering away, and save for that and the pole shed garage that still stands on the site, they have nothing.
Much of their resources and time during recent months have been devoted to Roger’s failing health, with his heart condition worsening since the flood and now his kidneys failing too.
Though the Oldhams have pleaded unsuccessfully with FEMA for an extension on the trailer, Bonnie says she is thankful they had it for the time they did. “I appreciate them bringing the trailer in and giving us a home for a while,” she said. “When it’s over, it’s over, I understand that. It’s their trailer. But it’s an ache, like it was the same day you lost your house.”
The lease for FEMA trailers contains a provision that the lease can be extended on a fee basis, but Oldham said she could not get FEMA officials to agree to that arrangement. “I really thought things were going to be all right, but they’re not going to be right now,” she said.
Come Friday, Audrey will begin staying with a son on a farm in rural Stockton. Roger, whose health has reached a dangerous low, will likely stay with his son. Bonnie will stay in the garage, she said, because she saw what happened to unattended homes around her after the flood. “Some kids got into a neighbor’s vacant house and graffitied it up,” she said.
People are working on behalf of the Oldhams trying to sort out the complications of getting them the flood relief money that can help set their path straight again.
The Oldhams are hopeful officials will look at the blanket policies for FEMA trailers and other flood relief, as one size does not fit all, they’ve found. “Some are able to rebuild right away, others need more time to get the financial aspect taken care of,” she said.
Though the situation looks grim, the Oldhams have been through worse and Bonnie has not lost hope. “Someday it will be okay,” she said. “God got us through this far and he’ll see us the rest of the way.”
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