PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Florida to FEMA: We need help on drywall

MANATEE — After months of pressure to do so, Florida finally has asked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s help on Chinese drywall — but local homeowners with the corrosive product question whether it will do much good.

In a letter sent late Wednesday, the state’s interim emergency management director asked FEMA to conduct a preliminary damage assessment and provide disaster aid to affected homeowners.

“Florida families are suffering deeply and we need your urgent assistance,” David Halstead said in the three-page letter that was written at the direction of Gov. Charlie Crist.

Homeowners, local governments and others have called on Crist for more than a year to call in FEMA over the drywall, which has been blamed for emitting putrid odors, corroding air-conditioning coils and electrical wires, and causing a variety of health ailments.

Those pleas became angrier as time passed without a response from Crist, who is campaigning for a Senate seat. After being confronted by several homeowners during a late-February campaign stop in Port Charlotte, Crist said he would look into the issue, according to the Fort Myers News Press.

Local homeowners with Chinese drywall in their homes are cautiously hopeful the letter will result in some action, but remain frustrated at the slow government response to the issue.

Among them is Grant Reid, who moved his family out of its Crystal Lakes home in February 2009 because of the drywall.

“Now it’s March of ’10 and we’re still out of our home,” he said Thursday. “Anything that can be done to get us and other homeowners some compensation needs to be done. I’m tired of playing the waiting game.”

Halstead’s letter said a Florida Department of Health preliminary assessment has confirmed 530 homes, including 13 in Manatee County, meet the threshold for being impacted by Chinese drywall because of metal corrosion.

Local property appraisers also have reduced taxable values on more than 2,500 Florida homes, including 71 in Manatee, because of the drywall, the letter said. Halstead suggested FEMA begin its damage assessment with those homes.

“Finally, and most importantly, Governor Crist has directed me to request that you identify and distribute financial aid to the families suffering as a result of this defective drywall,” the letter said. “Any disaster funding that can be provided to these individuals would help relieve the significant burdens they are experiencing.”

FEMA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reid said he was skeptical any money will be coming anytime soon.

“We’ve been told a lot of things over the past year and nothing’s come to fruition, so I’m not going to hold my breath on this one,” he said.

A lawsuit involving four Manatee County homes is about to go on trial for the first time next week.

Taylor Woodrow Homes and Taylor Morrison Homes are suing Scottsdale Insurance Co., contending the insurer should be forced to cover the cost of replacing defective Chinese drywall in homes they built in the Aberdeen, Crystal Lakes, Greenbrook and Oakley Place subdivisions.

The suit is among several hundreds of cases that are part of a consolidated federal drywall proceeding in New Orleans. One of those cases, a Louisiana family’s suit against a Chinese drywall manufacturer, is scheduled to be the first to go to trial Monday.

Duane Marsteller, transportation/growth and development reporter, can be reached at 745-7080, ext. 2630.