By Amy Moore

The News staff writer

BEAUMONT — A nail in a pole in LaBelle is causing some residents a flurry of frustration that turned into a screaming match Friday.

A meeting held in the Jury Impaneling Room at the Jefferson County Courthouse on Friday afternoon was supposed to answer the questions of residents in the LaBelle Country Road Estates neighborhood who were flooded by Hurricane Ike’s storm surge.

Instead of answering questions, the meeting became a heated confrontation between county officials and angry citizens.

Jose Pastrana, county engineer, explained to the crowded room that eight months ago in May the county learned that the benchmark set in the Country Road Estates neighborhood in a utility pole was wrong by nearly 3 feet — leading residents to believe their houses were above the proper flood elevation when in fact they are not.

After learning the information, county officials did not notify homeowners, but worked to try to determine a solution. In the meantime, Hurricane Ike made landfall and brought a storm surge that left thousands of homes flooded and ruined along the Texas coast — including hundreds in LaBelle.

“It was a matter of public record, by your fraudulent actions, you put homeowners in jeopardy,” Dewey Bell, a LaBelle resident of four years said loudly. “We have nothing left to lose. I can’t be calm in this matter.”

In between the shouts from homeowners, Pastrana tried to explain that the mistake was not made by county, state or government officials. Instead, the benchmark elevation was marked incorrectly by a surveyor years ago and surveyors since have based their work off of the erroneous elevation.

For Mattie Lofton, this means her two-story brick home that she thought was at an elevation of 10 feet, 5 inches is actually only at an elevation of 7 feet, 9 inches.

“We knew something was going on because there were surveyors in our neighborhoods,” Lofton said. “They said there were some questions about the elevation.”

The 65-year-old retired woman who’s lived in LaBelle for 15 years with her 70-year-old husband, said the problem comes not only with her flood damage, but with the fact that her survey certification expired Sept. 25, 2008 — just over a week after Hurricane Ike made landfall Sept. 13.

Because the 10-year limit of certification has expired, Lofton is ineligible for any recourse against the surveyor.

Further complicating the issue for LaBelle residents such as Lofton, is that FEMA has said that homes with damage worth more than 50 percent of the retail value, must be raised before they can be rebuilt.

Lofton said the thought of having to raise her two-story brick home is ridiculous.