As we move within 24 hours of inaugurating a new president, most of America’s attention is focused on the future, with a great many Americans hopeful about Barack Obama and his coming presidency. But what about the guy packing up the White House? Does he deserve more than a passing goodbye after eight years?

Bush is leaving office with record low approval ratings. And, realistically, for a president who has mismanaged two wars, incompetently handled the response to Hurricane Katrina and, finally, presided over the largest economic disaster since the Great Depression, it’s surprising as many as 22% of Americans consider his presidency a good one.

What is most fascinating (and disappointing) about Bush is not the trouble he caused so much as his inability to react competently to the trouble caused by others. He had little opportunity to prevent 9/11. He doesn’t control where hurricanes land. And he didn’t sell any subprime mortgages. The triumvirate of crises faced by Bush could and probably would have happened under a President Gore or a President Kerry (or a President McCain, for that matter). And those men may have failed in their own ways. But no president gets to take a pass because the challenges they faced were exceptional or because others may have been equally inept.

Bush leaves office as a perceived failure because he was an average man in an era when we needed a great man. Too often he chose partisanship and cronyism over leadership and experience. Too often he substituted platitudes for solutions. And, most disastrously, he proved too susceptible to the siren songs of ideology, trusting in intractable advisors who thought they knew better than anyone else, the evidence be damned.

The one great positive that can be said of the Bush presidency is that we suffered no attacks on American soil after 9/11. This is no small thing and no coincidence. The problem is, did we overreach in our quest for security? Bush showed, time and again, a predilection towards authoritarianism when dealing with potential threats. That’s not to say he was authoritarian, but that’s the direction he reached, expanding executive powers to new levels while stripping away checks and balances. He may have prevented further attacks, but did the cost to our freedom have to be so great? That is a question for historians, I believe. But from the vantage point of the present, I am disturbed by the new governmental powers implemented under Bush’s watch.

Given the circumstances faced in the last eight years, I believe many a man or woman would have failed as our president. But Bush’s failures are not merely a matter of circumstance. They are a result of his own personal deficiencies and his inability to lead all of us (rather than only some of us) during difficult times. I do not know how history will remember him. But I think it’s appropriate he leaves office with such a low approval rating.

Forecasters are now predicting that Hurricane Gustav will become a category five storm sometime soon. As you all undoubtedly know, Gustav is the first major hurricane to threaten the Gulf Coast since Katrina and Rita in 2005. The question now is: have we learned anything?

Evacuation plans are in effect for New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast and no one from President Bush on down seems to be taking this threat lightly. Hopefully, Gustav will miss any heavily populated areas, but a hurricane of this size, even if it weakens before hitting our shores, is likely to do serious damage.

We can only pray mother nature is merciful and hope our local, state and federal governments are prepared.

We talked about this in July 2007, and now FEMA has finally issued a warning that people need to move out of their FEMA-issued trailers because they could be bad for their health.

From USA Today:

NEW ORLEANS — Paul Stewart knew as soon as he moved into his government-issued trailer in December 2005 that something was wrong. He said it wasn’t long before he started waking up with a scratchy throat. His wife, Melody, woke up with bloody noses.

The couple, who had lost their home in Bay St. Louis, Miss., during the Gulf Coast hurricanes, said they asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for a new trailer. But they were refused.

On Thursday, FEMA admitted what the Stewarts and thousands of other displaced Gulf Coast residents have feared all along: their government-issued trailers were toxic. The revelation came after months of congressional hearings and allegations by whistle-blowers that FEMA suppressed evidence of formaldehyde fumes.

Here’s what was revealed about FEMA’s knowledge of this last year…

Dozens of pages of internal FEMA emails released by the committee revealed the agency’s deliberate ignorance of field staff who were concerned about formaldehyde gas being emitted in trailers housing displaced residents. The documents revealed an agency that seemed more concerned with preventing potential lawsuits than with the health of those living in their mobile homes. “Recently discovered documents make it appear FEMA’s primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety,” said Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican. FEMA administrator R. David Paulison, who received stern questioning from both sides of the aisle, admitted that, “in hindsight, we could have moved faster to address [concerns].”

[...] Yet, in response to complaints, FEMA’s legal department advised that testing “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue.” Another read, “Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK…Should [tests] indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.”

Disgusting.

We could call it criminal, another example of a heartless insurance industry, etc. But it looks pretty clear that these people’s homes weren’t covered for flood damage.

From the Chicago Trib:

Allstate Corp. and other insurers won their latest battle over Hurricane Katrina damages as a U.S. appeals court in Louisiana on Thursday ruled against policyholders seeking to recover disaster-related flood damages.

The court ruled that homeowners’ insurance policies weren’t entitled to damages caused by levee breaches that flooded New Orleans during the 2005 disaster. Significant damage occurred when levees along three major canals ruptured. At one point, about 80 percent of the city was underwater.

Typically, most insurance policies exclude damage caused by floods.

But plaintiffs, in what has become known as “Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation,” had contended that the water damage was the result of negligent design, construction and maintenance of the levees and that the policies’ flood exclusions are therefore ambiguous because they don’t exclude coverage for water caused by negligence. Because the policies are ambiguous, the plaintiffs argued, their losses should be covered.

Here in Kansas City, my grandparents’ place sits on a flood plain, and boy did it flood. They could’ve argued that the city didn’t widen the river enough, was negligent in not doing so because this area had flooded before and therefore the insurance company should pay. But I don’t think that’s a valid argument.

The court agrees…

“Regardless of what caused the failure of the flood-control structures that were put in place to prevent such a catastrophe, their failure resulted in a widespread flood that damaged the plaintiffs’ property,” the court said. “This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs’ insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written.

You’ve gotta feel for these people. The law is the law, but it doesn’t make the outcomes any less tragic or heartwrenching.

As if survivors of the hurricanes didn’t have enough to worry about, now comes word that some of them suffered illnesses as a result of living in those trailers. Could it be because the trailers were sitting out in the open sun in a Hope, AK airport for a year and a half before people got to live in them?

From TIME:

Dozens of pages of internal FEMA emails released by the committee revealed the agency’s deliberate ignorance of field staff who were concerned about formaldehyde gas being emitted in trailers housing displaced residents. The documents revealed an agency that seemed more concerned with preventing potential lawsuits than with the health of those living in their mobile homes. “Recently discovered documents make it appear FEMA’s primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety,” said Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican. FEMA administrator R. David Paulison, who received stern questioning from both sides of the aisle, admitted that, “in hindsight, we could have moved faster to address [concerns].”

Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA doled out over 120,000 mobile homes to residents of the Gulf Coast. Many of those trailers have walls and cabinets made up of particleboard, which contains formaldehyde that can sometimes emit gas in hot, humid weather such as that found in Louisiana and Mississippi. The effect on humans (especially children) range from “burning sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat; nausea; coughing; chest tightness; wheezing; skin rashes and allergic reactions.” As early as March 2006, FEMA began to receive complaints about formaldehyde odors. After one trailer was tested, an April 2006 e-mail sent from a FEMA attorney to another staffer concluded, “The end result – well above OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) standards – Tester himself developed eye-watering symptoms of exposure.” Yet, in response to complaints, FEMA’s legal department advised that testing “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue.” Another read, “Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK…Should [tests] indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.”

Fabulous. They’d rather not own the testing process so they’ll let people suffer.

Yep, we’re staring another disaster in the face as hurricane season approaches New Orleans.

From National Geographic:

Almost a year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared that it had restored New Orleans’ levees and floodwalls to pre-Hurricane Katrina strength.

But the system is actually riddled with flaws, and a storm even weaker than Katrina could breach the levees if it hit this year, say leading experts who have investigated the system.

The unwelcome news comes as residents gird for what is predicted to be a “very active” Atlantic hurricane season, and as residents are still slowly rebuilding their homes and lives after Katrina.

During a recent inspection of the levee system with National Geographic magazine, engineering professor Bob Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, found multiple weak spots.

The most serious flaws turned up in the rebuilt levees along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ship channel.

If those levees break again…wow…I don’t know what we’re going to do.

(h/t: TMV)

UPDATE:
Want more info? Read some of these stories too.

More Speak About FEMA Trailer Woes.
FEMA Trailer Driver Speaks.
FEMA Trailers Still In Arkansas.
———–

ORIGINAL POST:
That’s right. Come one, come all, to one of the biggest sales of mostly, sorta, never used trailers in the history of the world!

More from the Boston Herald…

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.

But again, they’re not just used trailers…

Some critics of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the sale of 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.

Honestly, buyer beware on these. I’d go with the used ones before I’d go with the ones that just sat around near the Hope, Arkansas airport for a couple years. A lot of those got royally screwed up.

Caveat emptor.

UPDATE:
FEMA is now offering to sell these trailers to the people who were living in them…

UPDATE:
Apparently, the public wants FEMA to be out from under the Department of Homeland Security.

Just read this from The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON — President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. [...]

Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new restrictions. Bush maintains that under his interpretation of the Constitution, the FEMA provision interfered with his power to make personnel decisions.

Key phrase from above: “under his interpretation of the Constitution…”

His reason?

The law, Bush wrote, “purports to limit the qualifications of the pool of persons from whom the president may select the appointee in a manner that rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office.”

Yeah, like running horse associations. I mean, let’s face it, regardless of whether or not Michael Brown was made into an scapegoat unfairly, the bottom line is that he did not have the qualifications to head FEMA. He just didn’t. Bush hired a crony and this bill was attempting to make sure that didn’t happen again…or at least it was making sure it would be a minimally qualified crony.

Also, FEMA is, for all intents and purposes, an unmitigated disaster right now. New rules and limits need to be put in place. And yet, if anybody tries to take even the slightest bit of power out of this President’s hands, he balks.

And one last thing, that should make everybody shudder since one of the biggest reasons the FEMA response was so poor is because it had to go “up the chain.”

But Bush’s signing statement challenged at least three-dozen laws specified in the bill. Among those he targeted is a provision that empowers the FEMA director to tell Congress about the nation’s emergency management needs without White House permission. This law, Bush said, “purports . . . to limit supervision of an executive branch official in the provision of advice to the Congress.” Despite the law, he said, the FEMA director would be required to get clearance from the White House before telling lawmakers anything.

Amazing.

We live in a world that likes to focus on flash…the best news is breaking news that portrays the latest tragedy…whether that be a plane crash, a shooting, or any of a number of calamities. At the same time, slower burning, less inflammatory catastrophes unfold at a reliably steady pace each day. The question is what makes one the focus of near obsessive attention and the other an item to be placed obscurely on the back burner?

A new article points to a classic example of this phenomenon…the expansion of humanity…around the waist. While we do see an occasional news piece on the topic, it rarely breaches the psyche to the same degree that, for example, the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq has achieved. Clearly, many Americans could cite the number of troops lost but only perhaps a handful could offer the statistics on deaths attributed to obesity. The full article can be read here.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) – An obesity pandemic threatens to overwhelm health systems around the globe with illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, experts at an international conference warned Sunday.

“This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world,” Paul Zimmet, chairman of the meeting of more than 2,500 experts and health officials, said in a speech opening the weeklong International Congress on Obesity. “It’s as big a threat as global warming and bird flu.”

The World Health Organization says more than 1 billion adults are overweight and 300 million of them are obese, putting them at much higher risk of diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, stroke and some forms of cancer.

Zimmet, a diabetes expert at Australia’s Monash University, said there are now more overweight people in the world than the undernourished, who number about 600 million.

I found the information in the last paragraph fascinating…overweight people now outnumber the undernourished! The reason I find it fascinating may surprise my readers…but I guess the element of surprise may well be what we all prefer. It is fascinating to me because it seems to be consistent with the polarization that permeates the United States and much of the world…perhaps a further sign that humanity is woefully out of balance…living largely at the extremes.

As I began to ponder these thoughts, I recalled the recent media focus on the arrest of a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Many within the blogosphere marveled at the incessant coverage of that event and a number wrote about the apparent misplaced focus given the numerous problems facing the U.S. and the world. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall a lot of analysis addressing why this was happening and why it frequently happens. In my own mental musings, it struck me that both the obesity issue and the JonBenet Ramsey case were about consumption…the feeding frenzy.

So what is it that we’re feeding? The question brings to mind something my dad likes to discuss…that being what makes sports teams and sporting events so popular. His theory has always made sense to me and it seems to fit into the topic of this posting. As my dad explains it, little in life offers clarity…we frequently navigate this life with the uncertainty and the anxiety one might equate with the structure of a movie. Each of us is attempting to complete the movie that is our own life story but it can’t be done in two hours or with the formulaic structure that makes the movie watching experience so satisfying. Further, the ending is virtually unknown.

The same is true of a sporting event…there is a clear objective, a defined set of rules, a finite time frame, and a winner and a loser…all achieved in a few hours…but notably absent the same tangible consequences our own life choices may bring. In essence, these events are an opportunity to be a voyeur rather than a player. It is a detached opportunity to step away from the realities of ones own existence and engage in a moment of fantasy acted out by others and providing a fifty-fifty opportunity to be a winner…a statistical equation that we must find at least equal to, or, perhaps more favorable than the odds we apply to our own potential for a “successful” outcome.

To read the full article at Thought Theater…link here:

www.thoughttheater.com

A reader writes…

Hi. I just wanted to thank you for listing my website as a business to support last Christmas 2005. Every bit is so appreciated. As you well know, we are still very much hurting down here. Everyone (all levels of govt) seems to be passing the buck and the people here are paying the price. Ray Nagin is acting like an idiot and God only knows what the future holds for my once beautiful city. I urge you to encourage people to shop New Orleans again this upcoming Holiday season. Many businesses are closing and I am praying that the Holiday season will help out some of the shops and businesses online. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this extremely difficult rebuilding period.

Best wishes,

Heather Elizabeth
Heather Elizabeth Designs
jewelry@hedesigns.com

http://www.hedesigns.com

504.899.9181

Our thoughts are with you too Heather.

Readers, if you can, try to check out these retailers in New Orleans I listed last year. I’m sure they could still use our help.

• Heather Elizabeth Designs
• Local Artists
• Cute New Orleans T-shirts
• Louisiana Caviar
• Retro Women’s Fashion
• Fabulous Lingerie
• Monogrammed Heirloom-quality Linens
• New Orleans-inspired Jewelry
• Children Clothes and Gifts
• Great Local Music
• Tim Laughlin, Jazz Clarinet
• Don Vappie and the Creole Jazz Serenaders
• Tabasco Gift Baskets
• Unique Art Clothing
• Unique Jewelry
• New Orleans Jewelry Designer
• Balinese Jewelry
• Women’s Clothing
• Traditional Men’s Wear, featuring the Crawfish Polo Shirt
• Fun Original Hats
• Cafe Du Monde, famous coffee, chicory, beignets and gifts
• Pelican Publishing
• Octavia Books
• Earthsavers Skin Care
• Rouge Beauty
• Blue Frog Chocolates
• More New Online Business Listings
• French Quarter Merchants
• Magazine Street Merchants

Thanks.

Is anyone surprised?

Amid cries that boiled down to “throw aid ($$) at it,” Congress did what the media and public response demanded and the result is catastrophic waste

Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

Gregory D. Kutz, a G.A.O. official, testified before a House panel about fraud and held up one of the $2,000 debit cards given out by FEMA.
A hotel owner in Sugar Land, Tex., has been charged with submitting $232,000 in bills for phantom victims. And roughly 1,100 prison inmates across the Gulf Coast apparently collected more than $10 million in rental and disaster-relief assistance.

There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.

And there is the Illinois woman who tried to collect federal benefits by claiming she watched her two daughters drown in the rising New Orleans waters. In fact, prosecutors say, the children did not exist.

Watch out for the next storm looming … “Hurricane Taxpayer! “

The National Science Foundation commissioned a study on Hurricane Katrina. The question being asked? Did global warming have any effect on the strength of the storm?

Here’s an excerpt of the release from the group that conducted the study, the National Center for Atmospheric Research:

Global warming does not guarantee that each year will set records for hurricanes, according to Trenberth. He notes that last year’s activity was related to very favorable upper-level winds as well as the extremely warm SSTs. Each year will bring ups and downs in tropical Atlantic SSTs due to natural variations, such as the presence or absence of El Nino, says Trenberth. However, he adds, the long-term ocean warming should raise the baseline of hurricane activity.

So a big deal? Sure, but don’t let this little piece of information be an errant reminder. Our planet is getting hotter, and while it could be a natural occurence, in all likelihood our behavior is making the Earth warmer than it should be right now. Yes, we’re spewing quite a bit of pollution into the air, and it has to have some sort of effect.

Don’t you think?

It’s time to put FEMA out of its misery.

“But why?” you ask.

Read this.

From the comments section of a recent post about FEMA woes, we find these comments.

First, Lena Wichterich says:

I AM SOOOO ANGRY!!!! just like everyone else, my parents and I have lost everything and it’s been 8 mths and we still feel like it happened yesterday! Of course I got my measily ten thousand for my house from FEMA( which doesn’t even begin to cover the content and of course, could never replace my pictures of my family and so forth), but my parents STILL have recieved nothing! And to top it off, I am getting screwed by my insurance and mortgage company(both are pointing fingers at eachother and neither want to pay for the losses) What happen to our great and powerful country coming to our rescue? Where is the money when we need it most? I’ll tell you where it is- THE CROOKED poloticians of LOUISIANA have taken it and spent it on their million dollars homes and cars! At this point, I have no faith in our state or our country to handle internal crisis.

Then, we have Sami, who says:

I would like to comment on Lena’s message. You are right on with everything that you said. My family and I have had to relocate to Indiana from Louisiana after Katrina. My son was only 4 months old when the hurricane hit and like everyone else we lost everything. We got less than $800 from Red Cross and we got 2 checks from FEMA for approx. $3000, but how far do they think that really goes? We have had to replace everything … clothes for 3 people (one of which is outgrowing clothes everyday), food, shelter, pots to cook that food, detergent to wash your clothes, electricity, a phone … the basic things are not even covered with that. And we are supposed to get help from FEMA for 18 months with rental assistance and now they are telling us (only 8 months later) that our assistance is ending. Where has all the funding and taxes that we have paid and donations that were given gone to???

And last we have “pbrim”, who speaks about a problem with those FEMA trailers once again:

A woman from FEMA called me several days ago and made an appointment to recertify me for my FEMA trailer. I asked her how long I would be allowed to live in the trailer and she told me until my house was able to be lived in. I was told that I would be allowed to live in the trailer for 18 months or until my house was finished. FEMA is not telling people that the 18 months starts on the date the Hurricane Katrina struck land and not 18 months from your recieving the trailer. Some people have not even gotten a trailer yet or have just revieved one and little do they know that on February 28,2007 they will be out on the street. All of thoses trailers are still parked in lots on the side of the highway and another hurricane season is approaching. What is going to happen to the people that still have nothing after 9 months of cleanup. I went to Chalmette yesterday for the first time since Katrina. There are still houses blocking streets and everything is about the same as it was 8 months ago. The horrible stench of muck and everything wet is still in the air. My heart goes out to these residents. I thought I had it bad until I saw all of this with my own eyes. The military assistance that was here in Louisiana after the storm has been gone for quite awhile. People that came dowm here as public servants have all gone home, back to their own lives. When do we get a chance to have our lives back???Katrina took it all away and there is no help at all from the state or federal officials. WE HAVE ALL BEEN FORGOTTEN HERE!!!!!!!!

Well, maybe they’ve forgotten you , but we certainly haven’t. I just wish there was more we could do. Highlighting the problem is the first step. Government pressure is the next. A call or note to your Congressperson may do wonders.

Follow this link to find your representative. Then point them to this post and tell them that FEMA shouldn’t be leaving these people behind.

…but first it must be destroyed…

And after the response to Katrina, this isn’t a shock…

WASHINGTON â€â€? Hurricane Katrina exposed flaws in the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security that are “too substantial to mend,” and FEMA should be dismantled and rebuilt inside the troubled department, according to the final report by Senate investigators.

The report, to be released to key senators today and to the public next week, makes 86 recommendations that would undo major changes made when President Bush and Congress launched the department in 2003, and would reverse parts of a reorganization ordered by Secretary Michael Chertoff last summer. It stops short of restoring FEMA to independent, Cabinet-level status, as many in Congress and former agency directors want, but would promote its chief to confer directly with the president in a crisis, according to a summary released to news organizations.

Chertoff is certainly looking bad in all of this. I wonder if he’s going to be stepping down soon? Most likely not.

Still, when Republican leaders say the following, you can’t help but wonder if Chertoff should be given the boot…

“We have concluded that FEMA is in shambles and beyond repair, and that it should be abolished,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a written statement released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which she chairs. The committee held 22 hearings, interviewed more than 320 people and reviewed more than 838,000 pages of documents.

I’m glad to see the Senate taking drastic steps to fix this problem. Our people deserve no less.

From the comments section of our “FEMA Trailer Driver Speaks” post.

First, a resident of Louisana who lost everything, moved back and is ashamed with the response of the government:

I live in Slidell Louisiana and I am very angry about all of this. My house flooded and I lost everything as well as my daughter and my son in their respective homes. I ended up in Indiana (where people were extremely helpful to alot of Katrina victims) and I had to travel back and forth from Indiana to Slidell to get my house repaired. As I traveled I saw many sites where FEMA trailors were just parked in mass quantities while there are people living in cars and sheds just waiting and hoping for assistance from someone. The problem is that the left hand does not know what the right is doing with this whole process. Many Louisiana residents are coming back in Slidell but New Orleans residents that want to come back still have to look ahead at another hurricane season approaching and at a levee system that is not fixed. People have gone to other locations trying to get their lives back on track somehow and eight months later we are still doing that. I have moved back to Louisiana but question that decision every day since. Our government is sending troops and supplies overseas in mass quantity at great expense to our economy but cannot assist our own people that need so much help. They should be ashamed of the way they have handled this whole situation.

And then, another person who drove trailers:

On a daily basis I see about 100 – 150 flatbed train cars heading south through Hamilton, Ohio. Each car has 2 very cheaply made travel trailers straped to it. This line comes out of Chicago, IL so I can safely say these trains are from the Elkhart, IN area and heading for the New Orleans area.

A few days after Katrina hit I volunteered to help take trailers to Baton Rouge. On September 9th I loaded up to deliver the first of two travel trailers to the Baton Rouge FEMA lot from a well known RV dealer self proclaiming to be “The Midwest’s Largest� in Richmond IN. This dealer got a $14 million dollar contract with FEMA at the start. I found out the day I left with the first trailer that I would be getting paid $1200 per round trip. The drive from Hamilton, Ohio is a little over 900 miles to the drop lot in Baton Rouge. I spent $487 for fuel on the first trip and $423 for fuel on the second trip. Slept in the truck at the rest areas.

It pains me to see that these folks that have lost everything still have nothing due to government red tape.

Would I do it again? Yes, But it would be for the money.

Did I make a profit delivering these two trailers? NO. After learning that I would be getting paid I contacted my local Berean store and bought 400 Bible’s and on the second trip I used a key that will fit most storage compartments on a travel trailer and placed a Bible in every trailer I saw until all 400 were gone.

FEMA has said this home is habitable.

And this one…

And this one…

More…

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has notified about 8,900 heads of households in Houston, representing more than 20,000 Katrina evacuees, that they will be ineligible for the cash assistance intended to replace a massive city voucher program that has paid their rent.

A common reason was that the evacuees’ former homes were now habitable.

A team from Houston’s Hurricane Housing Task Force, however, conducted a spot check of 43 New Orleans homes deemed “habitable” by FEMA and found 70 percent unfit for occupancy, White said Friday after a briefing by the team.

“Some of our worst fears were realized,” White said. “Many of these notices were simply in error. The vast majority of the structures we inspected were not habitable by any standard.”

Good times.

A couple weeks ago I found an interesting comment in our FEMA Trailers post. Apparently, Jimmy Hall says he drove some of the FEMA trailers to Arkansas and Florida. Since then, I’ve emailed back and forth with him and he’s provided us with photos that only an driver could have taken. Some of them are presented here.

Forgive me Jimmy, but I’m going to do a little editorial work on your comment and break it into paragraphs.

(NOTE: The photo you see above was sent in by Donklephant reader Douglas McDowall. Thanks again Douglas!)
——————

I know a little about this issue as I was one of the drivers that delivered some of the houses that are in Hope, Arkansas. I would like to comment on some of the above statements. Returning the trailers to the manufactures would cost tax payers more than just keeping them down there. FEMA paid up to eight dollars (and in some places in Kentucky they paid for the truck fuel) a mile to move these trailers when regular freight on one of these trailers is around two dollars a mile.

What happened is, people such as Jackie Williams from Ga created his own company, and then contacted FEMA for a contract to supply X amount of houses for the victims. FEMA then paid these individuals, or their companies, large amounts of money to supply the houses and deliver them to the FEMA holding areas. The individuals then contacted the manufactures and contracted to buy thousands of homes. By the time it got to the driver we received around five dollars a mile.

When this happened everyone wanted in on the money making deal. Drivers that owned their own trucks rushed to get mirror bars and house hitches welded on their trucks so they could start pulling trailers. By the way these are the same guys that usually cussed us for being on the interstate when they came up behind us. Fly-by-night house haulers it what I usually called them.

The government waived many laws regarding transporting of manufactured houses for the hurricane victims. We could pull them at night, no permits required, no pilot cars required, there were drivers out there that had no idea on how to safely pull one of these things now pulling them 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, with no requirement to keep up with our log books.

Don’t get me wrong, I was in line like the rest of them, but I have 15 years behind the wheel with 9 years experience pulling trailers. Arkansas must have seen a golden opportunity here because Little Rock decided to put a stop to any night movement, issue tickets for log books, all equipment must be exact. They even put a DOT (department of transportation) officer on the lot inside the gates in Hope, Arkansas. He gave more tickets out to drivers over little things than the whole state gave out in speeding tickets.

Now as for the trailers setting, I delivered a couple of trailers, to Tallahassee Fl. at the old Blue Angles AFB. They stated that they have houses that were delivered last year for the hurricanes that hit in 2004 still sitting around, and what is sick they stated they still haven’t received all of them. So Hope is not the only place these houses are stored. Hope is the only place that is sinking and destroying them. In Selma Alabama, not only do they have an abundance of houses they have travel trailers stacked in rows that go on forever. FEMA bought 150 brand new Ford F350 Dually pick-up trucks to move these around on the lot. A little much don’t ya think? Brand new Gators, four-wheelers, you would not believe the things I have seen.

Now to the issue of trailers going bad, no they do not just go bad they have to be damaged first. See Fly-by-night house haulers above. Also FEMA decided they wanted to store as many houses as they could (more houses more money I guess) so they had us park them as close as we could get them to one another, sometimes about 6 to 8 inches apart. This is fine if they are on stable ground. What’s happening now is when you mix the rain in with the soybean field the ground is soft so the houses are now falling into one another. Another thing, not only are these houses filled with new couches, refrigerators, stoves, mattresses, and bed frames in every home they also have microwaves, kitchen tables, dressers, nightstands and the heat and air units along with all the duct work to install the units. This is something FEMA demanded and would not accept any trailer with out them. I have many pictures of the Hope, Arkansas confusion if anyone would like to see them. The government wasting our money? The public doesn’t know the half of it!

Sorry this was so long, I just needed to vent!
————————-

Wow, thanks for that Jim. It lends me some needed perspective on this issue!

An Army of Davids indeed.
————————-

UPDATE:
FEMA is now offering to sell these trailers to the people who were living in them…

UPDATE:
Apparently, the public wants FEMA to be out from under the Department of Homeland Security.

The Moderate Voice’s Joe Gandelman apologizes…

Dear Michael Brown:

We were wrong. And we owe you an apology.

In watching the recent videos of videoconferences immediately before and during Katrina, we were struck by one fact: in these tapes you are the one virtually clamoring for government action. In fact, at one point it seemed you were frantically hoping that the scope of the potential disaster was understood by everyone.

…and the Michael Brown responds…

Dear Joe:

I have religiously avoided responding to any of the blogs, but feel compelled to respond to you. Apology accepted. And thank you, too, for the apology.

I have stated on numerous occasions the mistakes that I made and accepted responsiblity for those mistakes. And, I hope now that the public, Congress, and espcially the Administration, will heed the warnings I wrote to them in 2003, 2004 and 2005, that this kind of disaster was inevitable because of the way the Department of Homeland Security was functioning. I would be glad to provide you copies of those memos if you’re interested.

As they say…read the whole thing. And yes, it’s been confirmed that this is the real guy.

Here are my thoughts on this. It’s now apparent that Brown really was unfairly cast as the scapegoat in all of this, and that’s unfortunate. However, do I think he should have been appointed to head FEMA in the first place? No. As I detailed here, here and here, he was hardly qualified. But did he deserve the backlash he recieved after Katrina? No. Not by a long shot.

In short, sorry Michael.