Deborah Koff Ross: “I rise today to try to bring about some common sense to a Federal agency known to many as the Federal Emergency…”

“I rise today to try to bring about some common sense to a Federal agency known to many as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and known to others as FEMA. Many of you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that after that horrible hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina, back in August of 2005, FEMA went out and purchased tens of thousands of brand new mobile homes that were destined for storm victims after Hurricane Katrina. They came to Hope, Arkansas. We have got the old World War II proving grounds there, an old airport there with a lot of inactive runways and tarmacs, and they thought it was a good place to have as a so-called FEMA staging area, a place for them to bring mobile homes in transit on their way to storm victims on the gulf coast. Starting about October of 2005, they started arriving, and they continued to arrive, but none ever left. And this quickly became not a FEMA staging area but, rather, a FEMA storage area. This is an aerial photo that was taken this past Saturday, and these white dots, I mean, it is hard to understand and comprehend, but as you look at this aerial photo, what you are looking at is 8,420 brand new, fully furnished, never used, mobile homes that were destined for Hurricane Katrina victims that found themselves homeless. FEMA purchased them, and then they said, we won't put a mobile home in a flood plain. And of course, everybody who lost their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina lived in a flood plain.”