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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/na...14katrina.html
February 14, 2006
Trailer Dispute May Mean Thousands Will Go Unused
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — Mobile homes worth hundreds of millions of dollars are deteriorating in a muddy field in Arkansas and may never be used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina because of a dispute over where to install them, federal officials acknowledged Monday.
Only about 2,700 of the 25,000 mobile homes ordered at a cost of $850 million have been installed, and at least 10,000 are sitting in Hope, Ark., according to documents and statements from Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. Though about 55,000 Louisiana families are still waiting for a manufactured housing unit, the mobile homes may never be used because FEMA regulations prohibit them from being installed in flood-prone coastal areas, federal officials said.
Members of a Senate committee investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina called the mobile home episode an appalling example of government stumbling.
"These trailers are going to take the place of those very expensive toilet seats that we remember from Pentagon days," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. "It's really absolutely unbelievable, and unacceptable."
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA ordered far too many mobile homes and too few travel trailers, which are smaller, less expensive and more portable, and can be placed on lots in the disaster zone. The federal government had expected that Louisiana officials would identify sites inland where the mobile homes could be placed. But so far, with just a few exceptions, they has not done so, officials said.
"If sites for those mobile homes are not approved in Louisiana, it is possible they will never be used for hurricane relief," said Nicol Andrews, a FEMA spokesman.
The report on the mobile homes, as well as widespread fraud in FEMA's emergency assistance to hurricane victims, came as the federal government's top three domestic security and disaster relief officials vowed to fix flaws in the nation's emergency response programs.
"I am accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department, good and bad," the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, told local and state disaster officials at a conference in Alexandria, Va. "I also have the responsibility to fix what went wrong."
The changes will include a cadre of new disaster response workers who will be available to respond quickly to any natural disaster or terrorist attack, Mr. Chertoff said, which could number as many as 1,500, a department official said.
The Homeland Security Department is also setting up specialized reconnaissance teams — with access to helicopters, airplanes and high-tech electronic equipment that can send live video feeds to Washington — to make sure officials know what is going on in a disaster zone.
Mr. Chertoff and R. David Paulison, the acting FEMA director, and Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's domestic security adviser, also promised to revise rules on debris removal and temporary housing, so local and state governments could move faster to clean up after a disaster and house the homeless.
Mr. Chertoff, Mr. Paulison and Ms. Townsend, repeating plans Mr. Chertoff outlined last year, also said they would improve communications systems and the registration process for disaster victims, so there would be fewer delays in getting help for those most in need.
"Hurricane Katrina is a defining moment in the history of emergency management," Mr. Paulison said at the conference, organized by the National Emergency Management Association.
Ms. Townsend, who at the request of Mr. Bush has been conducting her own investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, said she would issue a report by the end of the month that would have more than 100 recommendations for improving disaster response.
"We must restore and re-earn your confidence and trust," she told the local and state officials, "so that when somebody says 'I am from the federal government and I am here to help,' you can believe it and not laugh."
Back in Washington, members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee were learning of problems still unfolding.
To date, about 72,000 travel trailers have been installed and occupied, of the roughly 100,000 that have been bought. Mr. Paulison said the agency was moving to order 10,000 more of the units, which cost about $10,000 each, while mobile homes cost on average $34,000. FEMA officials said that they had installed both trailers and mobile homes after previous disasters and that they had no reason to believe that Hurricane Katrina would be different.
But Bill Croft, coordinator for the hurricane housing task force in Louisiana, said federal officials should have realized that many hard-hit communities are in a flood plain, where a federal regulation bans mobile homes. "They are the ones who make these rules," Mr. Croft said.
He suggested that FEMA relax the regulation to allow the mobile homes near the coast. Another alternative would involve having the federal government pay Louisiana for the full cost of providing services if large, so-called FEMAvilles with hundreds of mobile homes were created in rural or suburban areas.
Ms. Andrews, the FEMA spokeswoman, said that relaxing the flood-plain regulation was not the answer.
"There are areas throughout Louisiana and the southeastern United States that aren't in a flood plain," she said.
As it stands, Richard L. Skinner, inspector general at the Homeland Security Department, told the Senate panel, many of the mobile homes might have to be sold as surplus, stored for some future disaster use or given to another federal agency.
"If they're sold as surplus property, what kind of return can you expect on that?" Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, asked Mr. Skinner.
His answer infuriated the panelmembers.
"It's certainly not going to be very high," he responded, given the way they were being stored at a spot where some are sinking into the mud. "Some of the trailers that we inspected are actually warping, have lost wheels, and some have been cannibalized, parts taken out, and we don't even know where the parts are right now. So their value is going to decrease tremendously."
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