 A Town Hall meeting was held Monday at Dorton Elementary School for Pike County residents seeking help from FEMA following catastrophic flooding that left homes and property destroyed last month. During the meeting, residents voiced issues they faced while applying for assistance. But why are we having to go through all the red tape and the appeals process? You talking 7 to 10 days for an inspector can come out, 90 days for appeal, I've got the situations living in tents and in their cars. They don't want to stay in their car for 90 days to go through an appeal that should have been approved from the beginning. That's what was said by representative John Blanton following criticisms addressed to FEMA after many received minimal financial assistance or denied applications. In response, FEMA addressed residents advising them to go through an appeals process, however many feel that it's too complicated. The issues that I am facing is pretty much just understanding the process of all these applications and all these different loans or help or whatever that they want to call it. But my issue is just getting it to go through, I mean because I've already got denied and I'm not even living in my home because it's uninhabitable at the moment. And it's being hard to say the least, I mean that's not even the word to describe it but it's been rough. It's all in our hands, this life of time that's given to us all, it is all in our hands, it is all in our hands. Experienced heart specialist and subspecialist collaborating for the benefit of your care. About 10% national hospital rankings for patient safety and heart attack and heart failure treatment. The technology is skilled to perform extraordinary complex minimally invasive cardiac, electrophysiology, interventional and structural heart surgeries. This is a heart and vascular institute at Pikeville Medical Center. It is all in our hands, it is all in our hands. When it comes to your heart, place your care in our hands. It is all in our hands. Both so many denied or receiving little assistance, Judge Executive Ray Jones commented on the town hall meeting stating the need for communication. Well people are upset, I mean as you saw tonight, so many people, both those who applied online and those who applied in person have been denied or they've received, what I would refer to in lawyer talk is a low ball offer. And when you're told to appeal, and it may take 90 days, I mean these people don't have 90 days. And there's been very poor communication to the public that's been harmed by this flood about the process and how FEMA works. There's no excuse for people to have to go through this. I'm not sure how many questions were answered here tonight. FEMA reached out to us, they wanted us to host this, but there's just about as many questions now as there were before tonight. In continuation with Jones' comments, he mentions that residents seeking assistance should do so in person to maximize their chances of acceptance. The Disaster Recovery Center is located at the Dorton Community Center on Dorton Mountain, just a few miles north of, a couple miles north of Dorton itself. So we encourage people to go there and apply in person. If you've been turned down, absolutely make sure you file your appeal. If you need to file an appeal, go to the DRC and ask them for guidance on how to do that. But I'm going to reach out to our federal congressional delegation. If we can send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries, people here in Eastern Kentucky shouldn't have to beg for help from the federal government when they've lost everything. And that's essentially what you see here tonight. You saw at least 200 people here. I mean these people have families, they have kids. A lot of them have lost everything. Some of them will never be able to recover, even with themself. And to have to go through this red tape and this bureaucracy, it's appalling. For Pike County residents seeking assistance, you can visit the Dorton Community Center from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. From out on top news, I'm Joel Korzul.