As a result of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ordered 20,000 manufactured homes and thousands of these homes are being stored in five different “so-called” staging areas some 450 miles from where the eye of the storm hit the Gulf Coast such as the Hope Municipal Airport, and at Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant near Texarkana. 

Due to the inability of FEMA to provide displaced families with manufactured homes in a timely manner, staging areas are overflowing.  For instance, at Hope Municipal Airport the inactive runways and tarmacs are overloaded with manufactured homes, forcing the excess homes to be placed into surrounding fields and pastures.  These pastures and fields were not effectively prepared by FEMA for staging.  When the winter rains hit these inadequately prepared sites, many of the trailers carrying the manufactured homes will sink.  This will result in even more unnecessary delays and additional work for a system that is badly flawed.  I have written a letter to Acting FEMA Director David Paulison requesting that he review the apparently ineffective process of distributing the FEMA ordered and unused manufactured homes to the Hurricane Katrina evacuees who so desperately need housing.

As I drive throughout Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District and in my very own hometown of Prescott, Arkansas, I see these manufactured homes sitting empty, and I am appalled at the waste of taxpayer’s money and the lack of a timely response on behalf of the federal government for those who desperately need housing for their families.  With many residents still living in tents nearly four months after the detrimental hurricane hit our Gulf Coast; as winter approaches and deadlines for all displaced residents from Louisiana and Mississippi living in hotel rooms to be moved into temporary housing quickly approaching, this process must be streamlined.  It is unacceptable for American citizens who lost their home and everything they own in the hurricane to still be sleeping in tents when FEMA has thousands of brand new and empty manufactured homes for occupancy. 

In response to Hurricane Katrina, Congress has allocated $62.3 billion for Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief in the vast 90,000 square mile region affected by Hurricane Katrina. As Congress wraps up the legislative session for the year and considers additional hurricane disaster relief, and as victims continue the process of rebuilding their lives in Louisiana, Mississippi, and throughout America, I remain steadfast in my commitment to assisting victims of one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history.