csua.org/u/eyt -> www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/as_katrinas_homeless_wait_trailers_sit_empty_in_an_arkansas_town/
And out at the airport, a private pilot who had just turned 45 said she did not expect to live long enough to see things get back to normal. This is all because of the latest example of how federal, state, and local officials have responded to the great trailer conundrum. Time was, Hope was known primarily as the childhood home of Bill Clinton. Last fall, after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, leaving thousands homeless, officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama began calling for trailers to provide temporary shelter. More than 100,000 were requested, and somebody decided it would be a good idea to create staging areas for the trailers outside the hurricane zone. Today, Hope has 10,777 wide-bodied mobile homes sitting empty at Hope Municipal Airport, a sprawling former military base. After all these months, storm victims cannot seem to get the trailers, and they're proving a mixed blessing to Hope and to Arkansas. That's one for every man, woman and child in Hope, with a few left over to send to Emmett, down the road." On the plus side, jobs have been created for security guards, maintenance workers, and others who try to take care of the trailers that cover all but one of the airport's runways, and that spill over onto adjacent land. At Uncle Henry's, the owner, Bobby Redman, said business was up as much as 20 percent. It was by far the worst of all the states that we went through." Many are upset that the trailers are not being moved to where they're needed. With the rainy season at hand, some local officials voiced fear that many of the units would sink into the mud. But FEMA announced plans to lay down a 290-acre bed of gravel, at a cost of $6 million. Why haven't the trailers been sent to those who need them? Representative Mike Ross, a Democrat of Arkansas and a graduate of Hope High School, asked that question Thursday as he toured the airport with FEMA officials. FEMA says it has been stymied by federal regulations, such as one forbidding trailers to be on flood planes -- which rules out much of the area hit by Katrina -- and by local officials in Louisiana.
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