Did We Survive Hurricane Katrina or Not?

We called FEMA early this morning to correct some information on our application. The lady said the number of dependents doesn't matter but at least they changed our phone number. She also told us our application was closed and that they had received nothing from SBA.

We called the SBA who told us they had sent all of the information to FEMA. They also said they would send us the letter they said they would send back on September 25th but never did.

Finally, we called our insurance comnpany to check on our claim since Delores at MetLife told us on Monday that we should be hearing from them by the end of the week. insurance said the adjustor hadn't turned in his paperwork.

We called Jim Nickle, our adjustor's field supervisor and explained the situation. He said they were probaby waiting on SDII (the engineers) to make a report. We informed him that SDII had already been here by the end of September.

We then waited for a contractor named Johnny Russell to come give us an estimate for the roof and siding as well as the sheetrock. he quoted us $6100 for the sheetrock alone and said he'd bring us a written estimate on Monday.

We drove to Walmart for some nonfood items and used the donated gift card for more pillows, dog and cat food, a jacket and shoes for Yvonne, some painting supplies, cleaning items, and some much needed fly traps. The flies are TERRIBLE and the babies are still covered in fly bites.

We came home and were excited to find a crew from Operation Blue Roof - where else but on our roof. They were stretching the tarps for us. We cut the grass while we waited and started to feel a little antsy about Mr. Russell's estimate. Then we called our insurance adjustor and left a voice mail asking if he could give us an idea of a reasonable sheetrock estimate. He never called back.

We called Jim King, a contractor referred to us by the air conditioning repair company. His rough estimate by phone was already much less than Mr. Russell. He should meet with us sometime tomorrow for some estimates.

We had a voice mail from Geraldine at MetLife. She said our claim was in process. She did not know if the checks had been printed or not but she said the engineer's report was in and we should be getting a copy of that sometime within the next couple of weeks.