“I’m begging on my knees, for help. I don’t have a home, anymore. I don’t have my things. And I don’t feel like a person anymore,” Ida victim Katherine Saddler cried, telling her story in Manville’s crowded high school auditorium Thursday night. She lost everything — like many other storm victims who vented their fury and frustration at a panel of state officials there to present a spending proposal for $228 million in federal aid. State officials caught in the angry crossfire set up this public hearing to get suggestions for spending that $228 million Ida assistance block grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Timing is everything. State officials made it very clear, this funding won’t come quickly. “It’s gonna be early spring — best-case scenario — when people have money in their hands,” explained DCA Commissioner Sam Viavattine. One advocate angrily replied, “Where’s the compassion? Where’s the humanity? Stop being bureaucrats! Get off your ass and do the job!’
