Posted on 11/02/2006 9:20:04 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
Note to Hurricane Rita survivors: Please don't beat up the FEMA trailers, use them as meth labs or cart them off to your deer lease during hunting season.
More than 1,200 of the one-bedroom travel trailers issued to people displaced by Rita have been torn up so badly that serious repairs have been necessary, according to a statement Tuesday from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"They're certainly not for long-term living, and we at FEMA better understand that better than anybody," said Don Jacks, an agency spokesman in Austin.
4,600 trailers issued
In Texas, more than 4,600 of the one-bedroom trailers were issued free of charge to those made homeless by the Category 3 hurricane when it hit Sabine Pass on Sept. 24, 2005.
Today, about 3,000 of the trailers — which cost federal taxpayers $20,000 each — remain in use in Texas. So far, about 1,200 have suffered so much vandalism they had to be sent to FEMA repair centers in Texas and Arkansas, Jacks said.
One trailer had more than 300 cigarette burns. Another was burned to the ground. Hundreds of others have torn cushions, broken doors, torn-up refrigerators and myriad problems.
Used as drug labs
Then there's the illegal use issue.
Some of the trailers issued to Hurricane Rita and Katrina evacuees have been used as drug labs. One Texas man trucked his to Louisiana and sold it. A few other tenants have hooked them up to vehicles and even taken their trailers to deer leases to have a place to stay while hunting.
"They are rare instances," Jacks said of the hunters. "You shake your head and wonder, 'What are they thinking?'"
Jacks said residents need to understand that vandalizing or removing the trailers could violate their written agreements with FEMA.
That said, only five Rita victims have been removed from trailers for violating those agreements, according to FEMA.
If you work hard and study hard, you'll do well. If you don't, well, you'll get stuck in a FEMA trailer............
ROTFL!
I think they are supposed to last longer than a year, though. Animals don't trash trash their homes. Someone ought to round these folks up and put them all together in a mile deep concrete pit and study them.
Send them each a bill. If they don't pay it withhold their Federal tax refunds, take their wages, the IRS knows how to handle these things.
How about send them a bill and if they don't pay up have them work at hard labor on a chain gang... WHY THE HELL SHOULD TAYPAYERS PAY FOR THESE IRRESPONSIBLE PIGS?!
Like not sending them their welfare check.
"withhold their Federal tax refunds, take their wages"
What wages?
What tax refunds? Gotta pay taxes to get a refund.
More apropos-withhold their assortment of government aid checks. Apparently that is why many of them refused to leave New Orleans-big government sugar daddy check day was on Tuesday.
Are you dreaming....take their wages...what wages..... T
Could violate their written agreements? Are there some written agreements that allow removal or vandalizing of FEMA trailers?
I'm sure the perps are really frightened by their potential violation of a written agreement with FEMA. OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!
LOLOL!!
Naturally I'd buy one in good condition. I wonder what these used trailers wholesale for on the average?
You pics look - obviously - like the before (not after) photos.
Bada bing. Good one.
Of course this is a tiny fraction of the number of FEMA trailers destroyed by FEMA itself, by dumping them on soft ground in the middle of nowhere and sitting idly by while they warped, leaked, and rotted into unuseability. It's little wonder that many of the Katrina refugees figured it was no big deal to trash their hand-out trailers.
I would hope they last more than a year for $20,000 each. Your tax dollars at work.
Thus proving they could make much better use of their trailers than FEMA did with most of its trailer inventory. Why is it a problem for taxpayers (which these individuals sound like, as opposed to perpetually drunk/high/unemployed elfare addicts) to tow a trailer to a deer lease and LIVE in it (you know, the intended use), or sell it for cash which was likely used towards paying for alternative living quarters or home repairs, while FEMA simply destroyed many thousands of trailers without even briefly putting them to anythong remotely resembling their intended use?
"I'm stuned..."
If you work hard and study hard, you'll do well on FR. If you don't, well, you'll get stuck in DU.
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