FEMA Taking Hit on Sale of Surplus Trailers

[brooklynite]

Stored in such places as the vacant land near an airfield in Hope, Ark., an industrial park in Cumberland, Md., and a warehouse in Edison, N.J., are the results of one of the federal government's costliest stumbles in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- tens of thousands of empty trailers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency hurriedly bought 145,000 trailers and mobile homes just before and after Katrina hit, spending $2.7 billion largely through no-bid contracts. Now, it is selling off as many as 41,000 of the homes, netting, so far, about 40 cents on each dollar spent by taxpayers.

Thousands more of the homes -- critics say more than 8,000 -- have never been used and cannot be sold immediately, even though scores of people in the South have been made homeless by recent storms.

"While FEMA has 8,420 brand new, fully furnished, never-used mobile homes in a cow pasture in Hope, Arkansas, they refuse to provide the people from Desha, Back Gate and Dumas counties with help. This is crazy," said Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.). "If this is the new and improved FEMA, I don't want any part of it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702628.html

[Sherman A1]

1. Yeah

I saw it on the local TV a few weeks ago when visiting New Orleans (the night the tornadoes hit). Went to the web site and looked at some of them and many that I checked were in pretty bad shape. I guess they will sell them off eventually, but many will probably be scrapped or need lots of refurb to get them usable. Of course there were some in good shape for the photos at least.

[aquart]

2. Cronies are costly.

This, btw, is how Bush managed his previous companies into bankruptcy.

[benld74]

3. Well actually 40 cents on the dollar is a pretty good price fro scrap metal!

[formercia]

4. Someone will buy them and sell them back to FEMA

after the next hurricane.

I knew some guys that made a good living buying excess govt inventory and selling it back when they ran short.

[Javaman]

5. The bidders should do what farmers did during the depression...

During the foreclosure sale of many farms, the local farmers would get together and bar any outsiders from bidding.

Then when the auction would start, no one would bid except one person. Then that winning bid would then give the house back to the original owners.

The same should be done here then give the trailer to the people in New Orleans THEN to those in Arkansas.

[Bushies gotta go]

6. Gee, have they stopped buying them?

I watched as even a YEAR after Katrina, brand new FEMA trailers being trucked one-by-one through NM on I-40... have they even stopped ordering them?

Besides that, are the ones they now want to sell the ones that are inhabitable because of some type of asbestos-like contamination?

[Miss Chybil]

7. Will we get some ice cream and cherries to go with this banana republic? nt