What a waste!!!!!!

[GPW]

Heard today , FEMA is picking up all the trailers they gave to folks for the storm... they were going to sell the trailers to the individuals for a small sum , but because of lawsuits apparently from the trailer manufacturers, now they are going to crush them ALL...even the thousands that they bought and never used ...coffee makers, refrigerators , everything in it , all CRUSHED ... They finally figured out that they could have just given everyone a check for 100K and let them do what they wanted ... would have saved billions... Just another Glorious WASTE of our tax dollars ... Now FEMA should be a 4 letter word for everybody ...
Please remember this at election time and when you pay your taxes...

[Classic Finn]

If they are going to crush them why dont they donate them for the homeless in the States? And there are a lot ..

Absolutely senseless...

Classic Finn

[Tcurr]

Thats just sad.

[Alphacarina]

Having lived in one of them for nearly 2 years, I can give you another take on it

We were all very grateful to have them - People were living in tents and under bridges before FEMA made this happen. While there have been many mistakes and lots of waste, that's not that unusual for any first time government program of this size and scope

When it became evident that the government was going to buy thousands of trailers at a fixed price, the manufacturers of these travel trailers geared up for a super manufacturing 'blitz' to build as many as possible, as quickly as possible. It took us right at 3 months to get one and we lived in one of the hardest hit areas on the coast. My neighborhood was hit with a 30 foot wall of water and there were no houses still standing for blocks and blocks

In order to make as much money as possible, the manufacturers sourced parts and materials in large quantities for the lowest possible prices. They bought thousands of skids of OSB from Honduras which was not made to US standards for use in housing. The result was that these trailers reeked of flormaldehyde and made hundreds of people sick. FEMA was auctioning these trailers to anyone who wanted them after the Katrina evacuees were done with them and tenants like us could even buy the ones we were living in very cheaply . . . . right up until the flormadehyde 'scandal' was exposed just a couple of months ago. Now, to preclude the government from any further liability, they will all be crushed and burned so as not to make anyone esle ill

Please don't blame FEMA for everything. Some corners had to be cut to get as many trailers as we needed as quickly as they could be had. If anyone is at fault, it's the shysters who cut corners in the manufacturing process that supplied us with so many shoddily made hunks of junk . . . . and they were just that - Most all of them. It rained the second night we were in our FEMA trailer and we had water coming in through the seams of 3 windows and the door. We were up half the night wring out towels in the bathtub and even then we could barely keep up with all the water coming in - The trailer only has 5 windows, so nearly everything leaked. FEMA maintenance came by the next day and after adding 3 or 4 tubes of caulk, they managed to get it almost watertight. It still got moldy inside after 15 or 20 months, but it was 100 times as dry after their maintenance crew fixed it as well as it could be fixed - It should have been built watertight at the factory

Don't mourn the crushing and burning of these poorly built travel trailers because that's where most of them belong - They weren't really fit for human habitation when they were new, let alone after they have been lived in for a year or two. Most of the faucets, air conditioners, microwaves and other accessories have been repaired or replaced anyway. Our refrigerator leaked water all over the floor every time it defrosted until the maintenance guys came out and repaired it

Because of the results they got depending on travel trailer manufacturers to provide shelters, FEMA has (wisely) decided NOT to house anyone in them after future disasters, so the shysters who sold them the junk this time have all cut off their access to their largest buyer EVER - Thank heavens!

Don

[Miriam C.]

Thank you Don,
We don't hear many people with first hand experience when something this big screws up.

I agree they had to do something though. People have to had to have shelter then and making the homeless sick is not the answer to their problems either.

[asianflava]

Who knows what they will PAY to have them crushed. They should contract it out to an RV dismantler. Give the trailers to them, then they can take hardware but still require them to crush the shell.

Though they may be "poisoned" there are many useful parts on them, tires, axles, windows, hardware that wouldn't be considered harmful.

Sounds like a good plan anyway but I'm shure that there will be corruption if this is done also. Trailers resold and not crushed, etc.

[Alphacarina]

Well, they spent $12.5 million to store tons of unused bags of ice for nearly 2 years after Katrina - In refrigerated warehouses all over the country and then when they finally decided to get rid of them, they let a contract for the 'destruction' for several hundred thousand dollars . . . . . Jay Leno had it in his monologe one night about a month ago

How hard can it be to 'destroy' ice he wondered? It's summer after all - Can't they just move it outdoors?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/14/katrina_ice_being_melted_after_two_years/

Don

[GPW]

Next time , maybe they'll just give us the money .... we could have found a formidable shelter with 100K.... but then the "connected" companies wouldn't have made such ridiculous profits...Yes, it's truly sad that profits for the campaign contributors should overshadow care for the citizens (plebs)...

Yes , lots of good parts going to waste ...TD builders could have a really good time with those frames, tires, etc...

[Podunkfla]

Who knows what they will PAY to have them crushed. They should contract it out to an RV dismantler. Give the trailers to them, then they can take hardware but still require them to crush the shell.

Though they may be "poisoned" there are many useful parts on them, tires, axles, windows, hardware that wouldn't be considered harmful.

Sounds like a good plan anyway but I'm shure that there will be corruption if this is done also. Trailers resold and not crushed, etc.

Yeah... It's a shame to just destroy them? I could sure build a few nice little standys with the parts... the aluminum alone is worth a fortune. That's our government for you. I'm sure the trailer industry is lobbying hard for crushing them. The last thing they want is a lot of cheap trailers flooding the market... killing off sales of new ones! Why am I not surprised at this... FEMA is a four letter word indeed.

[caseydog]

Next time , maybe they'll just give us the money .... we could have found a formidable shelter with 100K.... but then the "connected" companies wouldn't have made such ridiculous profits...Yes, it's truly sad that profits for the campaign contributors should overshadow care for the citizens (plebs)...

Yes , lots of good parts going to waste ...TD builders could have a really good time with those frames, tires, etc...

Why give money to the people when you can give it to your buddies? Connections have a lot to do with how stuff like this happens.

Check this out. When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for new drainage pumps for New Orleans, “it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract.” That manufacturer: MWI. “MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush’s brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.”

What's worse, the MWI pumps are defective.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... 9112/print


Katrina was devastating to many, but for others, it seems, Katrina was a gold mine.

[Alphacarina]

Next time , maybe they'll just give us the money .... we could have found a formidable shelter with 100K....

I don't have the numbers for New Orleans, but here on the Mississippi coast, we lost 65,000 homes and just handing everybody a check for $100K would have been a disaster all by itself and would surely have done more harm than good for the recovery efforts

There were no places to rent of buy, so everyone who got a check would have had to leave the local area, much as the New Orleans refugees were displaced to Houston and Atlanta . . . . and many of them never came back

Here in Mississippi, the recovery is well underway - The casinos are all back and doing better business than ever and homes and businesses are being rebuilt at as fever pace and none of that would be happening now if the former residents were all buying homes in Atlanta and Houston with the $100K they were 'given'

Many of us don't think the Federal Government 'owes' us anything - It's great that they are footing the bill for rebuilding bridges and infrastructure and it's truly a blessing that they were able to put a roof over our heads with a travel trailer when we really needed it, but handing out gobs of money to uninsured or underinsured homeowners isn't really the responsibility of government - They have never done that for any prior storm and we don't have any right to expect it now either

We count our blessings for the help we did receive - Bitching that they 'gave' us a trailer when we were homeless instead of handing us $100K seems a little over the top to me

Don

[asianflava]

The casinos are all back and doing better business than ever

Well...Most of them anyway. Didn't go into town when we were there in June but when we were there last Christmas. I was suprised at the damage that was still around. It looked like they weren't going to repair some of the casions. I guess the HArd Rock is now open, weren't they supposed to open (the first time) right around the time Katrina hit? Is the bay bridge still impassable?

[Alphacarina]

Yes, the Hard Rock was all set to open just 3 or 4 days after Katrina struck - They spent almost half a billion (private money) renovating it after the storm . . . . the owners of the Beau Rivage spent even more than that

The Bay St Louis bridge has 2 lanes open now and the Biloxi Ocean Springs bridge will open 2 lanes on November 1st with the rest of it to be done by April or May - They're actually a little ahead of schedule right now, so the opening could be pushed up a little, barring any bad weather

The casino revenues are running ahead of the year before the storm, month for month, so they're doing better than ever. There are two more under construction now and another 3 or 4 on the drawing boards. The state loosened the rules after the storm, so the gaming areas don't have to be on barges over the water - They can now be up to 750' inland, assuming they own the waterfront behind them

I can't explain the differences in the recovery between here and in New Orleans (which wasn't actually hit by the storm, BTW) as they have spent TRIPLE the Federal recovery dollars in Louisiana as they have in Mississippi (75 billion versus 23.5 billion) so far, but there's not much to show for it in New Orleans. If we want to talk about corrupt politicians, we should try and put our fingers on some of that 75 billion and find out where it actually went. This mornings paper says that 75 billion amounts to about $365,000 per household affected by the storm in New Orleans - Now THAT would buy you a pretty nice place to live, but they haven't even torn down most of the affected homes over there, let alone rebuilt many of them

Don

[kiacker]

Why is it that the disasters always bring out the crooks? I went through the floods of '93 here in Iowa in a small town in northwest Iowa. My house flooded as well as others. When we got thru the flood & clean up, most of us had to replace our water heaters due to the damage. There were few plumbers in town and now suddenly the cost of a replacement water heater was triple what it had been before the floods. A year later, one of the local plumbers made out so well that he bought himself an expensive house on the hill, an expensive fishing boat & RV, closed his business and now lives traveling around the states fishing. There were charges brought against him & others for price gouging and so forth, but no charges ever stuck. They made out pretty well whereas I ended up broke, moving away from the area to start over.

Don, my thoughts are with you! I admire anyone who's sticking it out through such ongoing adversity!

[Ira]

Heard today , FEMA is picking up all the trailers they gave to folks for the storm... they were going to sell the trailers to the individuals for a small sum , but because of lawsuits apparently from the trailer manufacturers, now they are going to crush them ALL...even the thousands that they bought and never used ...coffee makers, refrigerators , everything in it , all CRUSHED ... They finally figured out that they could have just given everyone a check for 100K and let them do what they wanted ... would have saved billions... Just another Glorious WASTE of our tax dollars ... Now FEMA should be a 4 letter word for everybody ...
Please remember this at election time and when you pay your taxes...

Hey, there were a whole bunch of here after Katrina blaming the Feds for screwing up big time--but there were an equal bunch of Bush supporters here who wanted to blame Nagen and the Governor.

Because they're...duh...Democrats.

Stupid is as stupid does, and when it comes to this administration, it's as stupid as it gets.

Leadership comes from the top, and our current situation, our top guy has been the PITS.

I hate every single one of you who voted for him, and this guy has been SO bad, that 90% of you who did wouldn't even blame me for making that statement.

You know you were wrong--so it's now it's time for you to do your PENANCE.