State panel to seek housing for Katrina victims

AUGUSTA – A state task force will consider ways to offer housing to people left homeless by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Gov. John Baldacci said Monday.

Baldacci announced the task force as he spent the Labor Day holiday at the Maine Emergency Management Agency in Augusta with various state officials.

The task force will include 11 state agencies and possibly two state legislators. It will research the short- and long-term effects of housing refugees in Maine and will form a list of available housing and employment resources the state has to offer.

A report from the group is expected on the governor’s desk in 48 hours.

“People want to act,” Baldacci said during a Monday news conference at MEMA. “They want to be helpful. They feel this is their responsibility as Americans.”

The state’s Web site, www.maine.gov, already has a link for residents to post individual housing offers that refugees can use, and more than 200 Mainers have already registered their available housing.

Five families from the storm-ravaged region are already in Maine, Red Cross and state officials said.

“I think there are excess facilities that could now be used that we could offer up for temporary housing,” he said.

The list includes warehouse space at the Brunswick Naval Air Station, but there are numerous others around the state, Baldacci said.

The governor’s basic plan calls for one main building where refugees could get medical care or their identification replaced and would be a place to “match them up with individual housing,” he said.

“It’s all of our responsibility to pull together and help out and to make sure we’re part of that extended safety net,” Baldacci said. “They were there for us” during the great ice storm of 1998, he said.

“We have to show the rest of the world how resilient we are as citizens,” Baldacci said.

Baldacci also directed state officials to assess whether Maine is prepared to handle a major hurricane or other natural disaster. The governor has instructed MEMA director Art Cleaves to make sure all disaster plans are updated to handle a worst-case scenario.

MEMA is charged with planning for disasters that might hit the state, from hurricanes and ice storms to terrorist attacks.

The agency has stacks of plans detailing emergency shelters and evacuation routes and designating the federal, state and local government staffers and facilities that could be used in a disaster, Cleaves said.

Hurricane Katrina and its impact on New Orleans serve as a reminder “that we need to do that detailed planning,” Cleaves said. “In many areas of Maine we are not well-prepared, and in many areas of the state we are very well-prepared.”

Baldacci said he has asked that all aspects of emergency response be reviewed. If shelters have not been stocked adequately, he has ordered the agency to make sure they are prepared. If plans have not been tested adequately, they will be, he said.

“We are not going to let what happened down in the Gulf Coast states happen to Maine,” Baldacci said. “I have to be prepared to order evacuations, to forcibly remove people from their homes, and I am willing to do that to keep them safe.”

During Monday’s news conference Baldacci announced that a community dinner and benefit for Katrina refugees has been scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, at the Augusta Armory. No admission will be charged, but donations will be accepted at the door.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.