[StBernard] FEMA trailers at fire-sale prices

[Westley Annis]

FEMA trailers at fire-sale prices 
Mobile-home dealers fear government will flood the market
The Associated Press
Updated: 7:07 p.m. CT March 8, 2007

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
FEMA is auctioning off at fire-sale prices thousands of trailers used by
storm victims, raising fears among mobile-home dealers that the government
will flood the market and depress prices.

Mobile home dealers are finding that some potential customers would rather
wait to make a deal on a used FEMA trailer than drop $25,000 to $40,000 for
a brand-new one.

"People think they're just going to get to buy them for nothing," said Gale
Crews, owner of Diamond State Mobile Home Sales in Hope, where FEMA is
storing 20,000 trailers at the city's airport. Some of the FEMA trailers
will sell for less than half of what they cost new.

Some critics of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the sale is
emblematic of the way FEMA botched its handling of Katrina: FEMA ordered
more trailers than it needed, it let many of them sit out in the open,
exposed to the elements, and now, some fear, it is about to double-cross the
trailer dealers.

FEMA spokeswoman Debbie Wing defended the agency, saying it "wanted to be
prepared to house as many victims as possible" when it bought the trailers.
She said the agency is now trying to lower its storage costs by reducing the
number it is holding in reserve for the next disaster.

"We're being cautious not to flood the market," she said. "We appreciate the
fact that these manufacturers sold us these units during the height of it."

Some trailers never used
FEMA spent $2.7 billion to buy 145,000 mobile homes and trailers after
Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in August and September 2005, paying a
bulk-rate price of about $19,000 per trailer, on average. FEMA now has
60,000 trailers in storage nationwide; several thousand of them - exactly
how many is not clear - were never used.

The agency said it plans to sell the ones that suffered a lot of wear and
tear from being used by storm victims. As for the never-used trailers, Wing
said FEMA has no plans for the time being to sell those.

"Our efforts were not perfect. However, we created an emergency sheltering
program that, with all its faults, provided shelter for unparalleled numbers
of displaced evacuees," she said.

To dispose of the used trailers, FEMA is operating an auction through a
government Web site. Wednesday evening, the agency had 47 trailers on sale
from its Hope depot. Bids ranged from $5,191 for a 2006 Coachmen Spirit of
America trailer with possible water damage and a missing stove grate,
battery and other items, to $12,600 for a 2006 Sunnybrook RV Sunset Creek
trailer with "no obvious exterior damage."

Hope has the largest stockpile of FEMA trailers, while others are stored at
Selma, Ala.; Madison, Ind.; Cumberland and Frostburg, Md.; Carnes and
Purvis, Miss.; Edison, N.J.; Jasper and Texarkana, Texas; and Fort Pickett,
Va.

FEMA wants Hope to be a staging ground during disasters because it's close
enough to the Gulf Coast to store trailers but far enough inland to be out
of harm's way. The city is making the most of it, entering a $25,000-a-month
contract with FEMA.


"They've got to be somewhere, and we've got the land and the infrastructure
out there," Mayor Dennis Ramsey said. "It's economically good for the city."

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said FEMA should send some of the Hope trailers to
Dumas, where tornadoes hit Feb. 24. "This is a symbol of what is wrong with
FEMA and why so many people have lost confidence in their very own
government," he said.


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