Flood-displaced family a little closer to resolution

Manndy McKenney’s children bounced off the walls of their new home Monday in lower Richland County.

The teenagers ran from room to room. They took turns playing the piano. They wrestled in the front yard.

“We’re so excited,” McKenney said, watching them go. “This is a lot better.”

The four children and McKenney – a 38-year-old Marine Corps and Army veteran, and a single mother – have grown used to move-in days in the 11 weeks since the historic Oct. 4 storm ruined their double-wide trailer on Chain Gang Road.

But this one – this home – was different. More than a month after The State newspaper published a story about McKenney’s struggles to find affordable housing after the storm, she and her family are still far from a long-term solution.

But for the first time in a long time, McKenney has a plan – and a stable place to stay.

Like many who suffered devastating losses during the historic storm in October, McKenney’s troubles began when the rain started to come down. It poured through her trailer’s wind-damaged roof, damaging everything inside, McKenney said.

Mold and mildew spread behind the walls, and a contractor told her it was unsalvageable. McKenney and her children suddenly were homeless. They spent nights over the next few weeks in their ruined home, at friends’ houses and in their minivan.

Her insurance claim yielded less than $2,000, and she said the Federal Emergency Management Agency so far has approved her for more than $6,000 for home repairs and property losses. But McKenney said she still owes more than $33,000 on the mortgage for the trailer.

The nearly $2,600 FEMA eventually approved for McKenney in rental assistance was a godsend, though it didn’t last long. McKenney and her family continued to move from place to place, all while searching for a stopping point where they could rest and begin redrawing plans for their future.

Along the way, McKenney said, the family has adapted to life on the move. They learned to pack their belongings, including easy-to-forget essentials such as can openers, sandwich bags and deodorant, and be ready to go in 30 minutes.

“You’d be surprised how many things you forget at a hotel,” McKenney said.

The family’s recent stops include a motel near Fort Jackson, which they left because of its roughly $90-per-night charge; an extended stay hotel they left after a few “horrible” nights; and a “tiny little one-bedroom cabin” at Weston Lake they crowded into for two weeks because it cost less than $20 per night.

“That just added to the stress that we already had,” McKenney said.

McKenney, meanwhile, kept her teenagers in school, continued to work at the V.A. Medical Center in Columbia and worked with FEMA and other organizations to find more help. Several individuals and groups, including FEMA, reached out to the family after reading or hearing about McKenney.

Some offered places to stay, many of which McKenney turned down because they weren’t good fits for her family. A GoFundMe page set up for McKenney by her friends garnered more than $5,700 in donations.

Yesterday’s Restaurant & Tavern in Five Points treated the family to a free Thanksgiving dinner, which McKenney said was a much-needed respite from their troubles.

“It was so amazing,” McKenney said. “We could just sit. And we were laughing, and we were joking. It was fun. We actually had fun for a change.”

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Richland County adopted McKenney’s family for Christmas, fulfilling wish lists for them. And Lynne Donehoo, a Fountain Inn resident who went through similar troubles when her home in Georgia flooded in 1994, has reached out to McKenney to offer guidance and several pieces of furniture.

Donehoo, a former elementary school counselor, said she told McKenney that, though things are bleak now, life will eventually return to normal.

“Unless you’ve been through it, you don’t know,” Donehoo said. “It’s truly an ongoing process, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s traumatic and dramatic. It can be a major nightmare.”

McKenney said she thinks the family took a big step in the recovery process this week. About two weeks ago, McKenney got a phone call from Connie Cannon, a Midlands resident who had heard McKenney’s story through a mutual friend.

Cannon had decided to move to Montana and told McKenney she was trying to sell her two-story, roughly 3,200-square-foot house. If McKenney and her family wanted to rent the place, complete with furniture, on a month-to-month basis in the meantime, it was theirs. And for only about $650 a month, including utilities.

“I don’t know what I would do if I had four kids and no place to live,” Cannon said. “Having to jump through all the hoops she has to to get help, I admire her. I really do.”

McKenney quickly accepted, and she and her family began moving their things into the home Monday. And it wasn’t just her kids who were bouncing off the walls. McKenney said as soon as she entered the home Monday, she ran upstairs and dived onto the bed.

“Knowing that we’re going to move in, it’s such a weight lifted off of me,” McKenney said. “We’re so happy now. I was getting worn out and tired.”

McKenney said she is optimistic that while the road toward moving into a permanent home still might be long, it could become a little smoother. With her feet on more solid ground, she plans to fundraise to pay off her mortgage. After that, she said, she will take out a loan to replace her trailer with a new house.

Getting more aid from federal agencies would help with those plans, McKenney said, but she doesn’t intend to put her life on hold waiting for it.

“I’ll rebuild on that property,” McKenney said.

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 8:45 PM.