Morehouse Parish residents have the opportunity to speak with FEMA employees about house damages caused by Hurricane Gustav at a Disaster Recovery Center.

The center is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today through Friday, Nov. 21 at the Legion Hut in Oak Grove’s park, 414 James St.

“This lets people meet with experts one on one to check on their case,” Maxine Cavanaugh, a FEMA public information officer, said. “It’s better if they are already registered before going.”

There is a new registration deadline for Hurricane Gustav damages of Wednesday, Nov. 17 and Friday, Dec. 26 for Hurricane Ike.

If you need to register, call FEMA at 1-888-294-2822 or 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) or visit www.fema.gov.

The website explains the individual assistance program is for people whose primary residence was affected and located in the disaster area. For speech- or hearing-impaired callers, use the TTY number 1-800-462-7585.

Morehouse became eligible to receive individual assistance from FEMA on Oct. 16.

According to Cavanaugh, 224 Morehouse residents had registered out of 434,498 in Louisiana at the close of last Thursday.

James Mardis, director of Homeland Security for Morehouse Parish, said when talking with FEMA to make sure to have pen and paper handy to write down a case number and to “be prepared to talk for about 30 minutes.”

Applicants need to have the following information when applying:

- Name and Social Security number
- Spouse’s Social Security number, if married
- Address of damaged property
- Insurance information
- Total household annual income
- A bank routing and account number for direct deposit
- A description of losses caused by disaster
- Telephone number
- Driving directions to damaged property
- Mailing address

After registering, each case will be looked at by the date it was damaged.
If the house is already fixed, Mardis said to have photos of the damage and receipts showing repairs for a FEMA inspection team.

For more information on FEMA’s assistance programs, visit www.fema.gov.