Says it won’t rely on trailers to help storm victims

BATON ROUGE, La. — The hurricanes that battered Texas and Florida have likely spawned the worst disaster-created housing crisis since Hurricane Katrina more than a decade ago.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it’s not borrowing from its much-maligned Katrina playbook to rely on government-issued trailers or mobile homes to shelter residents displaced by hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

“We don’t have enough FEMA trailers for all the homes that were destroyed,” FEMA Administrator Brock Long said last week at a briefing in Washington. “If you combine Harvey and Irma, this is an extraordinary event that is going to require innovative solutions.”

After Katrina struck in 2005, federal lawsuits accused FEMA of recklessly providing scores of storm victims with shoddily constructed trailers that exposed occupants to toxic fumes.

Long, however, said manufactured housing will not be the primary way people in Texas and Florida are provided temporary housing.

Harvey flooded more than 79,000 homes with at least 18 inches of water, according to a FEMA official. More than 740,000 households have registered for FEMA aid, such as rental assistance and money for damage repairs. The agency already is paying for tens of thousands of Harvey victims to stay in hotels and motels in 33 states.

Longisworkingwithtexasgov. Gregabbotttofindwaystoget people back in their flood-damaged homes more quickly, without using manufactured housing.

“The way we’ve done business in the past has not necessarily been successful. It’s been a frustrating road,” Long said Friday.

Katrina’s devastation sent FEMA scrambling to meet the unprecedented need for temporary housing in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Less than one month after Katrina’s landfall, Hurricane Rita demolished roughly 23,000 more homesintexasandlouisiana.

FEMA purchased more than 140,000 new trailers and mobile homes to house Katrina and Rita victims.

By March 2006, FEMA learned of concerns that travel trailers were exposing occupants to elevated formaldehyde levels.

Michael Byrne, FEMA’S federal disaster recovery coordinator for Harvey, said the agency will be moving manufactured housing units into the flood-ravaged region “as the demand presents itself ” to help state and local officials “fill the gap.”