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Then again, FEMA has been a mess for a long time, so this is just the inevitable result. By FEMA’s count, 2,570 trailers and mobile homes are still being used in Louisiana and 1,500 in Mississippi to house victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. THE KATRINA COTTAGE SERIES is available in plan or kit form to anyone, public or private.
Here, trailers are defined as manufactured homes built before the 1976 establishment of federal construction and safety standards for mobile homes by the U.S. There is no industry standard for the amount of formaldehyde allowed in travel trailers. The government sets standards for indoor air quality for materials used to build mobile homes, but not for travel trailers. Katrina Cottages are built with hurricane-resistant materials and are designed to withstand hurricane force winds. A Katrina Cottage must meet the International Building Code as adopted by Mississippi and Louisiana, and should be installed to FEMA flood elevation guidelines, if applicable. It may be built of any technology or delivery system, including mobile home standards, pre-manufactured elements, panelization, or site-built of any material.
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We also have many many qualified mobile home movers and setup people just waiting for FEMA to release these homes so they can get to work. Movers have been on hold since early/mid January waiting for FEMA on those big contractors to 'fix' those homes already installed incorrectly---which we tax payers also paid for and pay to have resetup again. Apartment rents have doubled, FEMA-paid hotel rooms are being phased-out, and FEMA trailers are in short supply. Then this past week, I saw -- like an oasis in the desert -- 11,000 FEMA mobile homes, real homes, 3-bedroom, 2-bath beauties -- sitting in an Arkansas cow pasture. Visitors check out one of the newly designed mobile homes at FEMA's Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Md., on Thursday. A month after the installation of the “remediation device,” the formaldehyde levels had fallen 40 percent, to 12 ppm.
“Then I said to the girl who was in charge of selling them, ‘You know this is illegal.'” The woman said that she didn’t know what Horine was talking about, but Horine noticed that the trailers were gone the next day. The seller refused, and promptly declared bankruptcy. Horine contacted the General Services Administration, the government agency that had handled the trailer auctions. Horine had bought hers from a reseller, for $6,000, while that reseller had bought it at auction for around $1,000. We recently completed the sales of the remaining significant inventory held by FEMA. At the end of January, the majority of the remaining units, a total of 101,802 units, were sold as 11 lots via GSA Auctions®.
THE KATRINA COTTAGES
There are people in New Orleans, and there are even more who are trying to come back, and none of these people have any dependable housing or support whatsoever because of FEMA's appalling incompetence. It's as if they WANT New Orleans to wither and die. Indeed, many Ninth Ward residents believe that this is really their intention, even to the point of truly believing that the levees were intentionally blown up by the CIA or some such. These are not radical political activists pushing an agenda, these are normal everyday people who feel so abandoned by their country that they think they've been intentionally done harm. Saying "it's a shame" is putting it VERY lightly. FEMA is paying rent to keep the dang manufactured homes pastured!!!
The trailers showed up later in 2010, at the Deepwater Horizon spill. They showed up in 2011 in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee, in neighborhoods that had been flattened by tornadoes. And in the end, tiny houses work best as part of a community. The other sales have been approved by the Department of Justice, as their sales proceeds exceeded our $3,000,000 single award authority, and each has been paid in full with removal process ready to begin.
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The FEMA signs were "proudly" hung in the windows of the trailers. Shame on the people who are letting this go on. I hope none of your family members are never in need of a place to live. I find it hard to wrap my brain around this whole situation. To know FEMA is the one poised to help out those in need down in the Gulf Coast has become more sad as the days drag on.
Could also "bulldoze" bad areas and set up the mobiles. Has anyone asked the acting FEMA director, David Paulison, or the Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, about the trailer fiasco or the government's failure to find housing for the hurricane victims? If they have nothing to say, I'd like to know that too. Katrina - victims seem to think they are the only section of the country seeking National Disaster help.
Mary DeVany, an occupational safety consultant who worked with the Sierra Club on interpreting the results, theorized that the plywood that was used to build some of the trailers wasn’t heat-treated properly. Trailers built by three companies in particular — Pilgrim International, Coachman Industries, and Gulf Stream Coach — had the highest levels. Kevin Broom, a spokesperson for the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, told reporters that trailer residents needed to open their windows.
If another storm were to come to the Gulf, those trailers would be easy to move. However, I see the reports of those who have gathered to go down to the Gulf Coast to rebuild--college students and activist groups, those who wish to truly affect change. I have no doubt that the only real change that can truly happen in the affected region will come about through these good-hearted citizens, and not a red-taped government agency. I too saw hundreds of trailers sitting in a field in Mississippi on Hwy 49.
Designer and author Marianne Cusato, residential designers Eric Moser and W.A. Lawrence, architect Bruce Tolar, and others designed this range of well thought-out, dignified, and permanent houses with strong neighborly character. To see more small house plans try our advanced floor plan search. I contacted the local FEMA office about letting them use 10+ acres next to my home.
Perhaps FEMA ordered them because there were a lot of people OUTSIDE N.O. That lost their homes and who do not live in a flood plane and could use the homes. Susan, you just made a real good argument for not rebuilding major parts of New Orleans. Why should the rest of us taxpayers around the country continue to subsidize, through government aid, people's desire to live in inherently dangerous geographic areas such as below sea level in New Orleans?
There is something going on here that neither the public nor those victims can understand; it eventually translates into frustration..but something deeper...something no one has been able to put a name and finger on... Those trailers just sitting there in Arkansas empty and unused is a deplorable sight. Maybe ousted scapegoat Michael Brown is the only one who would admit it.
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