Weatherlawyer wrote:
Continued:

All American ****wits at their best:

The Land of 10,770 Empty FEMA Trailers

Far from the victims of Katrina for whom they are meant, the furnished
shelters crowd an airport, benefiting only the town of Hope, Ark.

By Johanna Neuman / Los Angeles Times

All because of the latest example of how federal, state and local
officials have responded to Hurricane Katrina. Time was, Hope was known
primarily as the childhood home of President Clinton. Now it's Trailer
Town, USA.

After the Aug. 29 storm left thousands homeless on the Gulf Coast,
officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama began calling for
trailers to provide temporary shelter. More than 100,000 were
requested, and somebody decided to create holding areas for the
trailers outside the hurricane zone.

Today, legions of wide-bodied mobile homes sit empty at Hope's
Municipal Airport, a sprawling former military base. After all these
months, storm victims can't seem to get the trailers, which are proving
a mixed blessing to Hope and Arkansas.

"It just boggles the mind in this day and time," said Mark Keith,
director of the Hope-Hempstead County Chamber of Commerce. "There are
10,770 trailers at Hope Airport. That's one for every man, woman and
child in Hope, with a few left over to send to Emmet, down the road."

*******

State coffers also have benefited. Many truckers got tickets ranging
from $125 to $425 each for not carrying the right permits or for
getting stuck on the road after dark, said businessman Dennis Larson of
Montevideo, Minn., whose company hauled nearly 400 of the trailers to
Hope.

"I have a dozen of the tickets sitting on my desk," he said. "The state
of Arkansas set out to profit. It was by far the worst of all the
states that we went through..

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/la...ex.php?id=5817