GMA Gets Answers: Running Water in Mississippi

Sept. 14, 2007 — -- Thanks to a report on "Good Morning America," the students at DeLisle Elementary School in Pass Christian, Miss., will have running water once again — and before long, a whole new school.

Two weeks ago, while covering the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, "GMA's" Robin Roberts visited the elementary school in her hometown. She found that 600 students whose school was destroyed were attending classes on a campus of 60 trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They had no running water or bathrooms.

Two years after the storm, the school's request for a water well still had not been approved and students were still using portable toilets.

So Roberts and "GMA" went to FEMA administrator David Paulison and asked, "What can FEMA do for smaller projects like this?"

Paulison said, "Well, first of all, we can cut through the bureaucracy. If they've applied for that and have not gotten any answer, I can fix that. I was not aware of that."

After the segment aired, DeLisle Elementary administrators met with FEMA and FEMA approved the request for a new water well — it hopes to get started building the school early next week.

"We are excited and thrilled and thankful to 'GMA' for getting the answers for us," Pass Christian Superintendent Sue Matheson told Roberts.

Matheson had more good news: School administrators received the go-ahead to finally begin construction on a new, permanent school.