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Committee advances bill to get FEMA trailers trashed Thursday, Jun 26, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - A Senate committee signed off Wednesday on a measure to force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to devise a plan to remove thousands of trailers from the Hope Municipal Airport. The bill sponsored by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., gives FEMA nine months to decide whether to use, store, sell or get rid of the temporary housing units the government has stored across the country. Hope is home to the second largest storage site. FEMA officials said Wednesday that 19,604 units are parked on Hope Municipal Airport property. Of them, nearly 12,000 are mobile homes. The rest are travel trailers. FEMA bought the trailers to house victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, but government red tape and concerns over formaldehyde in the units left thousands of units gathering dust in Hope and elsewhere. Pryor on Wednesday said more than 111,000 housing units sit empty. "This is beyond ridiculous," Pryor said. "It's beyond wasteful government spending. It's really gotten beyond silly." The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted unanimously to advance Pryor's bill to the full Senate. He said he hopes for a vote in the next few weeks. A companion House bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, remains in committee. The bill gives FEMA three months to determine how many units it needs to keep to offer to future disaster victims. Within six months, the agency must have a plan for storage of the those units, sale of usable surplus units and disposal of the rest. "I don't think Congress should have to do this, but after the agony and all the things we've gone through due to these mobile homes, I think at some point Congress has to step in," Pryor said. The lone bright spot within one of the world's largest trailer parks is the revenue it brings Hope, Hempstead County officials have said. FEMA spends more than $1 million a month to store and maintain the units at the airport, with payroll for 75 workers at the site making up nearly half the costs. The city collects monthly rent of $25,000. Hope Mayor Dennis Ramsey said the revenue has "obviously been good" for employees and for the airport. Otherwise, he said: "As a taxpayer, it's been a travesty. Probably, I guess, it's government at its worst." Both Ramsey and Pryor said they hoped FEMA intends to use the airport as a permanent storage site, but for far fewer housing units. |
