FEMA chief visits evacuee trailer park
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The government's head of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts made a surprise visit to a newly built trailer park Saturday and said plans are moving forward for hundreds of similar makeshift towns to house residents displaced by the storm.
U.S. Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen called the construction of the park that holds more than 570 trailers next to this city some 91 miles northwest of New Orleans "pretty remarkable."
"This went from nothing to something in about five weeks," said Allen, who chatted with some of the residents who have filled nearly 200 of the small trailers equipped with air conditioning, plumbing and TV antennas.
Allen also checked out day's food offerings: barbecued beef sandwiches, coleslaw and potato salad. "Looks good to me," he said.
The park is laid out like a small town, with gravel roads, street lights and power lines.
Now, see Two cautionary tales on FEMA’s trailer cities and “Critics Fear Trailer ‘Ghettos’”.
Allen said about 120,000 trailers and mobile homes are expected to be delivered to Louisiana for evacuees in the coming weeks. The optimum size of each park will be about 200 housing units, but they also may be placed on the property of residents who no longer can live in their original homes and other people may wind up in hotels, he said.
President Bush has said all Gulf Coast evacuees should be out of shelters by the middle of this month. The American Red Cross on Saturday said 23,970 Gulf Coast residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita had stayed in shelters around the country the night before.
