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FEMA’S MANUFACTURED HOUSING PROGRAM:

HASTE MAKES WASTE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FIELD HEARING IN HOPE, ARKANSAS

APRIL 21, 2006

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

MICHAEL D. BOPP, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Professional Staff Member 

JAY W. MARONEY, Counsel 

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Minority Staff Director and Counsel 

A. PATRICIA ROJAS, Minority Professional Staff Member 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Pryor .................................................................................................... 3

WITNESSES 

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2006

Hon. Mike Ross, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arkansas ...... 5

David Garratt, Acting Director of Recovery Efforts, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ............................... 8

Richard L. Skinner, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ......................................................................................................................... 12

Hon. Dennis Ramsey, Mayor, City of Hope ........................................................... 29

J.D. Harper, Executive Director, Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association ........................................................................................................................ 31

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Garratt, David: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47

Harper, J.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 31

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 88

Ramsey, Hon. Dennis: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 75

Ross, Hon. Ross: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43

Skinner, Richard L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 57

(1)

FEMA’S MANUFACTURED HOUSING PROGRAM: 

HASTE MAKES WASTE 

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2006

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Hope, Arkansas 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in the 

Johnny Rapart Auditorium, University of Arkansas Community 

College at Hope, 2500 South Main, Hope, Arkansas, Hon. Susan 

Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Collins and Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS 

Chairman COLLINS. I am Susan Collins, Senator from Maine, 

and I am Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. I’m very pleased to be here today with 

my colleague from Arkansas, a very valued Member of the Committee, Senator Mark Pryor. 

Today, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

Committee continues its investigation into the preparation for and 

response to Hurricane Katrina by examining the purchase of manufactured homes by FEMA to assist the Gulf Coast region residents 

displaced by the hurricanes. Instead, however, thousands of these 

homes are being stored, unused, at the Hope Municipal Airport at 

a tremendous cost while people remain in dire need of housing. 

Let me begin by thanking my distinguished colleague, Senator 

Pryor, for his diligence in pursuing this important matter and for 

proposing that I come to Hope in order to conduct this hearing. I 

also want to thank our very gracious host, the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope, and I want to extend a special 

welcome to the many students that I see have joined us today. I 

hope this will give you a greater understanding of how the Senate 

conducts its oversight hearings, and we welcome you here today. 

We’re very pleased to have you here. 

Our Committee’s investigation into the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina is now approaching its eighth month, 

and this is our 22nd hearing. I anticipate that it will be the last 

hearing that we hold as part of our investigation. 

During our investigation, we have found failures of planning, 

preparation, execution, and above all, of leadership that span all 

levels of government, local, State, and Federal. No aspect of these 

failures is more infuriating, however, than the waste of scarce resources that should be going to relieve the suffering of hundreds 

2

of thousands of Americans following the greatest natural disaster 

in our Nation’s history. 

An early example of this waste surfaced at one of our Committee’s very first hearings on Hurricane Katrina last September, and 

that was the infamous ice shipments to nowhere. Believe it or not, 

ice that was designated for the victims of Hurricane Katrina ended 

up in my home State of Maine. Now, bringing ice to Maine is a little bit like bring coal to Newcastle, and this was an early indication to us of the logistics and planning failures that our investigation subsequently went on to verify. As the details of the waste and 

mismanagement emerged during our investigation, I expressed concern that the ice example was just the tip of the iceberg. We have 

now found a great deal more of that iceberg: It is right here in 

Hope, Arkansas. 

In order to provide transitional housing for the victims of the 

Gulf Coast hurricanes, FEMA purchased nearly 25,000 manufactured homes at a cost of more than $850 million. Due to the large 

number of homes purchased and the need to prepare sites before 

distributing them, FEMA assigned the U.S. Forest Service the mission of setting up multiple storage sites, including the one here in 

Hope. 

Today, fewer than half of these homes have been put into service. 

The rest remain in storage, including 10,000 here in Hope. Meanwhile, just a few hundred miles away on the Gulf Coast and nearly 

8 months after Hurricane Katrina devastated entire communities, 

many people still lack safe, temporary housing. 

Even more infuriating than the waste itself is the reason it occurred. It turns out that FEMA’s own regulations prohibit placing 

these manufactured homes in floodplains. Yet FEMA went ahead 

with these purchases, knowing that virtually the entire affected region sits in a floodplain. 

I want to commend the work of the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, who first brought this matter to the 

Committee’s attention. I’m also told by my colleague that the initial 

exposure was the result of some very diligent reporting right here 

in Hope. It is only by shining the bright light of day on fraud, 

waste, and abuse that we can root it out and ensure that taxpayers’ 

money is spent wisely and appropriately. 

I think all of us want to make sure that we’re generous with our 

tax dollars and our private donations in helping the people of the 

Gulf Region rebuild their lives and their communities, but it is infuriating to all of us when we learn that hundreds of millions of 

dollars are lost to wasteful spending, fraudulent practices, and inappropriate contracts. I also want to commend the officials and the 

residents of the City of Hope for all of their efforts to aid in the 

relief of individuals who evacuated to this area prior to Hurricane 

Katrina’s landfall. I learned also from my colleague, Senator Pryor, 

that Arkansas took in more people on a per capita basis than virtually any other State. 

The wasteful expenditures that we will explore and examine 

today should prompt a thorough review of FEMA’s procurement 

process and logistics planning. The fact that the 2006 hurricane 

season begins just a little over a month from now adds special urgency to our task, with forecasters predicting a year even more 

3

brutal than last. It is simply unacceptable that, as we prepare for 

a new round of disasters, the suffering from a catastrophe 8 

months ago persists surrounded by mounting evidence of wasteful 

spending and missed opportunities. I look forward to hearing all of 

the testimony from our witnesses today. 

Finally, I want to express special thanks to two members of my 

staff, Trina Tyrer and Jenny Gagnon, who arrived here at 2 a.m. 

this morning to set up for this hearing. We were in Rhode Island 

yesterday for another field hearing, and they made tremendous efforts to get here and set up before we arrived. So I just want to 

thank them publicly for their tremendous efforts as well. Thank 

you. 

It’s now my pleasure to call upon Arkansas’s own Senator, a 

wonderful member of our community who contributes greatly to 

our work, Senator Pryor. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Senator Collins, and it’s great to 

have you here in Arkansas. Let’s give her a round of applause. 

(Applause.) 

Senator PRYOR. This is her first time in the State, and she’s not 

disappointed. The hospitality has been wonderful, and she has 

given a special thank you to this campus, the students, and Chuck 

Welch. Chuck, wherever you are, thank you for doing all that you 

do here on this campus. We appreciate your leadership and all that 

you do. And of course, Congressman Ross, thank you for being 

here. And as people in this room know, Congressman Ross, a very 

pro-active, very effective Congressman in Washington, is a great 

advocate for the 4th District, so it’s great to have you here and 

have you lead off this morning. And of course, my staff has been 

fantastic, just working overtime to try to make this work. 

But for those of you in the audience today, please understand it’s 

a big deal for the Chairman of this Committee to come all the way 

to Arkansas to have a hearing on the mobile homes that are in 

Hope. Obviously, it’s an issue of national importance, and we understand that, but for her to travel here and to come here and to 

have a full Committee hearing here in Hope we think is a first. 

We’d have to look back at the record and see if any other committees of the Senate have ever met here. 

But she’s been a great leader on this issue and a number of other 

issues in the Senate and on the Committee. In fact, a few months 

ago we traveled down to New Orleans together, again a Committee 

trip, and also went to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. 

And I think she mentioned this is the 22nd hearing we have had 

on Hurricane Katrina, so sometimes people back home ask, ‘‘What 

in the world are you doing in Washington about Katrina and all 

the aftermath, all the mess, after Katrina? ’’ Well, this Senator 

right here, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, is really taking the 

leadership role in Washington on that, and she needs to be commended on that. 

One of the things that we both talked about today was when we 

went to New Orleans—we’ve seen the devastation there. Certainly 

here in this area we’ve seen tornados come through, and we know 

what devastation is like, but if you go to the Gulf Coast of MisVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:42 Aug 29, 2007 Jkt 028240 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\28240.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
4

1The prepared statement of Representative Ross appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

sissippi, you see city blocks that are no longer there, you see some 

neighborhoods that have some serious damage. When you go down 

to New Orleans, what you see is, you see not just block after block, 

even neighborhood after neighborhood, but you really see section 

after section of town that’s been devastated by the hurricane. 

I know that Hope and this community really want to play a role 

in that recovery, and I know that when the Mayor and other leaders here worked out the contract with FEMA for the airport it was 

a win-win for everybody. Certainly it was good for the city and 

good for the community, but it was going to be great for the victims 

of the hurricane. And then, as we all know, not very many of those 

mobile homes left here after they got here. 

And so that’s why we’re here, to talk about that and to try to 

make sure that we’re better prepared for this upcoming hurricane 

season. As the Chairman said, it looks like the 2006 hurricane season could be worse than 2005. That’s what many experts are predicting. So we have our hands full. 

The Rand Corporation has estimated that in the Gulf Coast area, 

after the two hurricanes went through, there were about 300,000 

homes that were destroyed. That’s an enormous number of homes 

that were destroyed as part of the hurricane, and certainly FEMA 

should be there to help as best they can. We have people all over 

that part of the country that need housing, and we have houses 

right here in Hope that need people. So we’re trying to put those 

two things together and trying to make sure that we’re better prepared for the next time. 

Some of the things that we’ve learned in the Committee hearings 

that we’ve had in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina include the 

lack of planning and the lack of preparedness. We’ve talked about 

how the old FEMA operated when James Lee Witt was running 

FEMA, versus the FEMA in the last year or two. 

That’s one of the things that we tried very hard to do on the 

Committee—and actually this Committee is exemplary for being 

very non-partisan. We don’t get into the blame game; we don’t 

come just to point fingers and say, ‘‘It’s all your fault,’’ or, ‘‘We 

could have done better.’’ That is real easy to do. The hard thing is 

to get up and to look at the challenges that are before us and try 

to come up with solutions that make sense. And so we’re trying to 

do that here, and I want to thank all the people who showed up 

today, and most of all, I want to thank Senator Collins for taking 

a day out of her very busy schedule to come to Hope to have this 

hearing today. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. I am very pleased to welcome 

our first witness for the hearing, Congressman Mike Ross. Congressman, we are pleased you could be here. I know you have 

worked very hard on this issue, and I appreciate your sharing your 

insights with the Committee. Please proceed with your statement. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. MIKE ROSS,1 A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS 

Representative ROSS. Thank you, Senator Collins, Senator Pryor. 

I want to thank the Committee and Committee staff for coming to 

5

Hope, Arkansas, one of my home towns. I am a 1979 graduate of 

Hope High School. You drove by it on the way out here today. And 

this is a community where I grew up and where I still have a lot 

of family and friends, and I live just 16 miles down the road now 

in Prescott, Arkansas. 

And quite frankly, up until about—what was it, Mayor?—October 

of last year, we were known as the birthplace of President Clinton, 

and since then we’ve become known as the mobile home capital of 

America. The Mayor was telling me a few weeks ago he hadn’t 

done this many national press interviews since Bill Clinton won 

the presidency. And I have certainly become known in Arkansas, 

as well as among my colleagues in Washington, as the mobile home 

congressman. 

I have to tell you that I have been surprised at the way this has 

brought Hope to the national stage. I have been here at the Hope 

airport with CNN and Fox News and NPR and Senator Harry 

Reid, and now you, Senator Collins, in the Senate hearing today, 

and yet, FEMA continues to drag its feet, and they continue to perform in ways that I believe are inadequate, and certainly, they 

need to be held accountable for what they are not doing here at 

this so-called FEMA staging area in Hope. 

Basically, Hope was selected—and the Mayor will talk more 

about this—as a FEMA staging area primarily because it is an old 

World War II era airport with all these old inactive runways and 

tarmacs and taxiways, with the theory being that FEMA would be 

bringing these manufactured homes in and then taking them out, 

and they would come in and they would go out, and they would utilize those old tarmacs and old taxiways and old runways for that 

purpose. 

Well, they all came and none of them went, until recently, at 

least. And so now we find ourselves with well over 10,000 brandnew, fully furnished manufactured homes, 25 percent of which are 

sitting on these inactive tarmacs, runways, and taxiways, 75 percent of which are sitting in an adjoining hay meadow. I used to call 

it a cow pasture, and the Mayor got onto me and said, ‘‘Mike, there 

have not been cows out there in a hundred years.’’ But the point 

is, they are just sitting there on the grass. I promised him I would 

stop calling it that, and now I call it the hay meadow. And the 

point is that we’ve got 75 percent of the brand-new, fully furnished 

manufactured homes just sitting there in a pasture. 

I know at one time the Inspector General had been in an interview on national TV saying they were beginning to sink, and, 

thank goodness, that’s not true. They have not started to sink. But 

they eventually will if we do not do something. 

I always thought the definition of doing something was moving 

them to the homeless, but FEMA’s definition of doing something is 

spending $4.2 million throwing gravel into the hay meadow. They 

are literally in the process right now—and you can go out there 

and look; the gravel trucks are running today—they are spending 

$4.2 million of our tax money putting gravel on 170 acres. 

Now, we have heard a lot of excuses about how we ended up with 

well over 10,000 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes 

just sitting here at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. FEMA first said, 

6

‘‘Well, the parishes in Louisiana do not want them.’’ That was the 

first excuse that we heard. 

Well, there are at least eight parishes in Louisiana that do want 

them. And I understand that no community wants 10,000 manufactured homes in their backyard, but over eight parishes do, and it 

should not be a problem getting them to the people that need them. 

But it is. It is because those eight parishes are located in a floodplain, and FEMA has decided that they will not place manufactured homes in a floodplain. They will tell you that was the rule 

before they went out and purchased over 20,000 brand-new, fully 

furnished manufactured homes. 

And why did they purchase them? They purchased them to house 

temporarily, up to 8 months, the storm victims from Hurricane 

Katrina. Well, didn’t FEMA have enough sense to understand that 

everybody that lost their home in Hurricane Katrina lived in a 

floodplain? And yet, they went out and purchased all of these, 

knowing full well that they could not locate them in a floodplain, 

and now that is their excuse for having 10,000 brand-new, fully 

furnished manufactured homes sitting here at the airport in Hope, 

Arkansas. It makes no sense. 

And what about Mississippi? Just recently there were 100 families living in military-style tents in Mississippi. They would love to 

live in one of these brand-new, fully furnished manufactured 

homes. Over 10,000 families, at my last count, are living in hotel 

rooms across the country. Taxpayers are paying for that, and yet 

we have over 10,000 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured 

homes sitting out at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. 

Senator Pryor and I have legislation filed in the Congress that 

basically tells FEMA, ‘‘You know, if we can put tents in floodplains, 

if we can put over 70,000 camper trailers in floodplains, it may not 

be ideal, but you know what? It will probably be OK to locate these 

brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes temporarily, for 

up to 18 months, in a floodplain.’’

The President talked about this at a press conference a couple 

of weeks ago. It is real simple. We do not even need the legislation 

Senator Pryor and I have filed. The President can actually type out 

one sentence. It does not even need to be two sentences. One sentence, sign his name, at the top you put the words, ‘‘Executive 

Order,’’ and we can start moving these more than 10,000 brandnew, fully furnished manufactured homes from Hope to the people 

who so desperately need them today. 

Now, to me, this is a symbol of what is wrong with FEMA. I 

mean, you just go out to the airport and see more than 10,000 

brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes just sitting there. 

That is the symbol of what is wrong with FEMA, and here is what 

I mean by that: We had a devastating series of tornados in Arkansas just a few weeks ago. The community, the town, the small town 

of Marmaduke, was basically wiped off the map. 

It has taken U.S. Senators, U.S. Congressmen, you would not believe the resources of people that have gone in begging FEMA to 

move 25 out of these 10,000 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes just down the road in the same State to Marmaduke, 

where people are homeless. It took a minimum of 2 weeks. It took 

7

a minimum of 2 weeks just to get 25 of these brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes moved. 

My point is that when you think of a fire department, you think 

of immediate response. When you think of FEMA, as a Federal 

agency, it is one of the few Federal agencies that I always thought 

of as an immediate response. If it takes them 2 weeks to move 25 

mobile homes from Hope to Marmaduke, they still have not learned 

many of the painful lessons that a lot of us now understand and 

learned on August 29, 2005. 

And finally, let me just say that there has been about 300 approved to be moved to Oklahoma for wildfire victims. I am not sure 

how many of those have gotten to the people that actually need 

them. We are still trying to get mobile homes to those that have 

recently found themselves victims of tornados. 

We are still trying to get them to the more than 10,000 people 

living in hotel rooms all across this country. That is no way to raise 

a family. And it is not just those that were on government assistance before the hurricanes hit. I mean, Senator—I’m sorry, Congressman Gene Taylor from Mississippi lost his home and everything he owns in the hurricane down there. And he is one of the 

fortunate people. He’s got a job, he’s got an income, he has insurance. And yet, the contractor is telling him it will be at least 2 

years before they can get around to rebuilding his home. So I 

mean, there are a lot of people homeless today who had resources, 

who have money and have insurance, but yet they remain homeless 

because of the magnitude of this storm. 

Now, FEMA is probably going to tell you that they are getting 

ready to move 3,000 to 5,000 of these manufactured homes. My 

question for FEMA will be, and will continue to be—I live just 

down the road, and I’m going to continue to stay on this until not 

a single manufactured home is left here, as long as we’ve got people homeless. Once we meet the needs of the homeless from the 

storms, then I will welcome FEMA using the Hope airport as a permanent staging area, a staging area to store the manufactured 

homes, refurbish these manufactured homes for future natural disasters. But I’m not going to be quiet about this as long as we’ve 

got one fully furnished manufactured home sitting at the airport in 

Hope, Arkansas, while people remain homeless from a hurricane 

that occurred last August 29. 

So the question for FEMA is when they start moving these 3,000 

to 5,000 homes, are they moving them to the homeless or are they 

moving them to other staging areas to basically get them out of my 

back yard? That is a question for FEMA that I am going to continue to ask until we know where these homes that are leaving this 

airport are actually going, are they going to people who so desperately need them. 

And finally, let me just say, I grew up here. I know these people. 

I know many of the people working for FEMA. It’s been good for 

the economy here, there is no doubt about that. And I can tell you, 

the people I know that work for FEMA, they have to just kind of 

wink or nod or smile because they are afraid the bigshots at 

FEMA, if they come down, are going to fire them if they see them 

doing or saying the wrong things. But I can tell you, I know these 

people that work for FEMA in Hope, Arkansas, and they are good 

8

1The prepared statement of Mr. Garratt appears in the Appendix on page 47. 

people. They are like the people in this community. They have a 

big heart, and they want to help people. 

And these folks didn’t go to work for FEMA—including the ones 

that were transferred in here—they did not go to work for FEMA 

to babysit 10,000 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured homes 

sitting in a hay meadow at the Hope airport. They went to work 

for FEMA because they really want to help people. And that’s what 

the people in this community want to do. They want to be our government’s partners, and we want to help people. We do not want 

to babysit over 10,000 brand-new, fully furnished manufactured 

homes that are sitting out at the airport, but we want to help people. And we want to help get these homes to the people who remain 

homeless since August 29 and who so desperately need them. 

And with that, I thank you, Senator, for allowing me the opportunity to come and appear before this Senate Committee—I think 

it’s a first for me. I don’t think I’ve ever testified before a Senate 

committee. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, Congressman. You have raised a 

number of important questions that we will get to with our next 

panel. I am going to withhold my questions for the next panel, and 

Senator Pryor will do the same. Thank you. 

I would now like to call forward our second panel of witnesses. 

David Garratt presently serves as the Acting Director of Recovery 

for FEMA. The Recovery Division is responsible for planning and 

providing policy and oversight of the Federal Government’s recovery efforts, including providing temporary housing. I would note 

that Mr. Garratt has served in key positions in more than 30 presidentially declared disasters or emergency operations. 

Richard Skinner is the Inspector General of the Department of 

Homeland Security and has been with that office since it was established in 2003. Our Committee had the honor of confirming him 

for this position, and we work very closely with him. I would note 

that he also served in the office of Inspector General of FEMA for 

several years. 

Thank you both for appearing today. We will begin with Mr. 

Garratt. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID GARRATT,1 ACTING DIRECTOR OF RECOVERY EFFORTS, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. GARRATT. Good morning, Madam Chairman and Senator 

Pryor. My name is David Garratt. I am the Acting Director of Recovery at FEMA. I am joined by Patricia English, FEMA’s chief 

procurement officer, and Ron Goins, a senior FEMA logistics official. Today we will address the concerns raised regarding the mobile homes that FEMA has staged at this site, as well as discuss 

the role that these mobile homes will play in support of both ongoing and future disaster support requirements. 

I fully appreciate the compelling visual image and intuitive concerns raised by the Hope manufactured housing storage site. Thousands of unused mobile homes sit vacant in Arkansas, even as 

many Louisiana and Mississippi victims of Hurricane Katrina conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:42 Aug 29, 2007 Jkt 028240 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\28240.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9

tinue to wait for temporary housing. My goal today is to explain 

the decisions behind use of this site, as well as to outline FEMA’s 

strategy for making use of each mobile home situated at Hope. 

However, to place the explanation in context, I would like to briefly 

outline FEMA’s housing program. 

FEMA provides housing assistance to disaster victims in accordance with the authorities and guidance in the Robert T. Stafford 

Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, as implemented in 

Agency regulations. The Stafford Act authorizes the Federal Government to provide two types of housing assistance: Financial assistance, in the form of rental subsidies, and direct assistance, in 

the form of housing units. Both types of assistance are, by law, 

temporary and generally limited to 18 months. The principal form 

of assistance to the vast majority of disaster victims, including victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, is financial rental assistance. 

To date, FEMA has provided rental assistance to over 715,000 

Katrina and Rita households. The second form of assistance is direct housing, which FEMA provides when there is insufficient rental or housing stock in an affected area. Such was, and remains, the 

case along the Gulf Coast. 

FEMA recognized, even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, 

that a proactive housing strategy would be required in its aftermath. Accordingly, FEMA established, prior to landfall and for the 

first time, a Housing Area Command, headquartered in Baton 

Rouge. The initial mission of the Housing Area Command was 

threefold: To begin identifying housing needs; to identify solutions, 

including all available candidate group site locations; and to begin 

mobilizing and moving temporary housing units into the affected 

areas as quickly as possible. 

FEMA established the Housing Area Command because we realized that, after landfall, disaster response efforts would be substantially—and rightly—focused on life-saving and sustaining operations—always our first priority. Nevertheless, recognizing that the 

scale of the housing mission was likely to be massive, we wanted 

a dedicated housing component actively pursuing housing options 

and solutions in parallel, but without pulling assets and resources 

from immediate response efforts. 

We asked the Housing Area Command to lean far forward, to 

begin aggressively addressing the needs of the victims as quickly 

as possible. The catastrophic scale of Hurricane Katrina had a devastating impact on housing and apartment stock in the Gulf Coast 

region, and hundreds of thousands of victims were evacuating to 

safe havens throughout the country. This greatly complicated the 

mission of the Housing Area Command as it began to tackle the 

short and the long-term housing needs and the most appropriate 

solutions for meeting those needs. 

Recognizing that so many evacuees had suffered the loss of their 

homes, the Housing Area Command ordered tens of thousands of 

travel trailers and mobile homes. The Housing Area Command also 

sought to identify other housing options, such as rental units, that 

may provide a more sustainable environment. Within weeks, 

FEMA began the process of receiving and installing these units 

throughout the Gulf Coast region, both on private property sites, 

as well as on group sites. As of today, this strategy has provided 

10

100,000—and that actually should be 115,000—manufactured housing units ready for occupancy throughout the affected area. We believe this to be quite a logistical feat, as it vastly outstrips any previous temporary housing response and recovery effort in the United 

States. 

These were the strategic considerations that guided our tactical 

response as we made our initial purchases of mobile homes and 

travel trailers. We purchased housing units as a temporary measure to replace the tens of thousands of damaged and destroyed 

homes and to rapidly provide a place for victims to return home. 

FEMA and DHS realized immediately that the road to recovery 

would be difficult. In the absence of detailed information on communities’ specific housing needs and priorities, we were still faced 

with the challenge of how to jump-start housing recovery. One of 

our temporary housing strategies is to place a travel trailer or a 

mobile home on a victim’s private property, next to their damaged 

or destroyed home, and thus support the rebuilding effort by allowing the homeowner to remain on his or her property. 

FEMA purchased manufactured housing of many types because 

the broad impact of Katrina had affected families of many sizes 

and circumstances. As Katrina hit, FEMA placed orders for thousands of manufactured housing units, knowing the housing needs 

would be unprecedented. Orders to maximize the number of travel 

trailer suppliers were complemented by orders to mobile home suppliers, though in smaller numbers—to be certain we could meet estimated needs of thousands of households and support State and 

local government recovery strategies. 

With that as a backdrop, let me explain the factors that led to 

our excess mobile home inventory at Hope, Arkansas. Three principal factors contributed to this situation. 

The first factor relates to our evolving temporary housing strategy. Initially, the Housing Area Command envisioned establishing 

mega group sites consisting of thousands of mobile homes as a 

rapid means of getting displaced evacuees back into their affected 

State. However, this strategy, while operationally defensible, was 

subsequently rejected, for several reasons. One, the sites were not 

necessarily going to be located in proximity to or populated by victims from nearby communities, and, two, large group sites present 

social management challenges, particularly at the local level. As a 

result, FEMA and DHS reoriented the temporary housing strategy 

to focus on smaller group sites in or in close proximity to communities. 

The second factor has been the reluctance of communities to accept mobile homes in group sites. Mobile homes, while larger and 

more spacious than travel trailers, are regarded with some degree 

of trepidation by communities and neighborhoods, who often view 

such temporary unit developments as potentially permanent fixtures. As a result, there has been widespread resistance to allowing 

such sites in many areas. 

The final factor is floodplain restrictions. Placing mobile homes 

in floodplains is prohibited by executive order and FEMA regulations, unless those units follow a rigorous eight-step mitigation 

process involving, among other requirements, elevation above the 

11

flood level. This process is both expensive and time-consuming, and 

has discouraged their use in many areas. 

While it would have been ideal to have a better understanding 

of these limiting factors earlier in the recovery effort and procurement process, prompt action did prevent supply shortages from 

emerging later in the recovery effort. As a result of these factors, 

FEMA has more mobile homes, here in Hope, Arkansas, than it expects to employ in the Gulf Region. While FEMA fully expects to 

draw down another 3,000 mobile homes from Hope for use in Louisiana, we will still have some excess, but we will seek to avoid 

waste. While all of the mobile homes that were ordered in response 

to Hurricane Katrina may not ultimately be used in the Gulf Region, many of these units will be used to support other disaster response operations. For example, units from Hope have been deployed to Texas to provide temporary housing to victims of the 

State’s terrible wildfires, and other units will be used to support 

the victims of recent tornadoes in Arkansas and nearby States. 

Additionally, we will be redeploying a portion of this inventory 

to staging areas in the northern tier of our Nation, where their stability and increased protection from the cold make them a preferable housing alternative over travel trailers. Additional units are 

programmed to be moved farther west, in support of potential disasters in the Pacific States and our western States. Our goal is to 

relocate a total of 3,000 units from Hope to other staging areas 

over the next 4 months. 

However, the 2006 hurricane season is less than 2 months away, 

and a portion of the Hope inventory will play an important role in 

our readiness. While we intend to reduce the inventory through the 

uses I’ve just described, we intend to maintain, at this time, a residual inventory of 5,000 units at Hope to be ready for immediate 

deployment to the Gulf Region in the event of another hurricane 

catastrophe. We will re-evaluate the status of this inventory over 

time as the Gulf Coast rebuilds its supply of permanent housing 

stock. 

Finally, regardless of assertions to the contrary, the mobile 

homes at our Hope storage facility are being maintained in habitable condition and are ready for deployment. While it has been erroneously reported otherwise, the tires sinking into the mud resulting from a rainstorm does not damage a mobile home. Similarly, 

it has been suggested that FEMA is using jacks to prop up damaged units. In fact, using jacks is a required storage technique for 

70- and 80-foot models to assure appropriate long-term staging and 

protection of the mobile home. There are approximately 1,500 of 

these extended models at the Hope site. Bottom line: Despite misinformation otherwise, all mobile homes at Hope are mission ready. 

All of us at FEMA and DHS appreciate the keen interest of the 

Committee in all phases of our disaster response and recovery efforts and stand ready to support you in this fact-finding mission. 

We are carefully reviewing the full range of reports and recommendations on our disaster housing efforts. FEMA is pursuing 

a number of initiatives that will incorporate appropriate lessons 

learned into our planning, guidance, and strategy for ongoing recovery and our response to future events. 

12

1The prepared statement of Mr. Skinner with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 

57. 

Thank you. I and my colleagues will be pleased to answer any 

questions you may have. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Inspector General Skinner. 

TESTIMONY OF RICHARD L. SKINNER,1 INSPECTOR GENERAL, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. SKINNER. Thank you Senator Collins and Senator Pryor. It’s 

great to be here this morning in the State of Arkansas. As I was 

saying earlier, this reminds me of my home State of West Virginia 

with the beautiful, rolling hills. I had the opportunity to drive here 

from Little Rock yesterday afternoon, and it’s a beautiful State. 

Today, I’d like to focus my remarks on two questions I think that 

need to be answered and need to be addressed in the upcoming 

months. The first question is how did FEMA, the Federal Government, get itself in this predicament, and associated with that, what 

are we going to do to make sure this does not happen again in the 

future. 

The second question is, now that we are in this situation, what 

is our exit strategy? What do we need to do to make sure that we 

use these trailers or dispose of them in the best interest of the Federal taxpayer? 

We just initiated, a couple of weeks ago, a follow-up study to address those two questions. And hopefully, we will have a report, not 

only to the Secretary and to FEMA, but to the Committee sometime late summer or early fall of this year. 

What we are learning is that FEMA, in essence, is trying to use 

traditional solutions to address untraditional events or problems. 

That is, FEMA did not have, and has never had, a national catastrophic housing strategy or plan. This is not something that is 

new to FEMA or new to DHS. They were well aware that we never 

had such a plan, and they were well aware that they needed such 

a plan. In fact, in early 2003, FEMA actually included or asked for 

funding so that it can begin working with the States to develop a 

national catastrophic housing plan, recognizing that, if there was 

a major terrorist event, a major earthquake in Los Angeles, another earthquake like we had in 1906 in San Francisco where millions of people were displaced, or an event like what we had in 

New Orleans where we have 300,000 people that have been displaced and cannot go back home, it was not prepared to deal with 

a large scale displacement of people. 

Unfortunately, due to budget constraints and other priorities, the 

Department never approved FEMA’s request to begin working on 

ways to develop a national housing plan, and that’s very unfortunate. However, the Department, using lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, is now reconsidering that decision. They have, in 

fact, established a policy group to study what went wrong and to 

develop action plans so that this will not happen in the future. In 

fact, our office has been asked to participate with that policy group 

and provide input as they go through their study. 

There’s a lot of things that are going to need to be done. This 

is not something that Homeland Security or FEMA can fix by itself. 

13

It’s going to require the collective efforts of other Federal Departments, such as VA and Agriculture, who have housing programs. 

It is also going to require the participation of the State governments, it is going to require participation from the local governments, it is going to require the participation from the private sector, and it is going to require participation from Congress. 

Congress needs to be actively involved in this whole process by 

looking at what type of legislation is needed, new legislation and 

revised legislation in regard to the Stafford Act, which gives FEMA 

the authority to respond to natural disasters after a Presidential 

declaration. These are not all-inclusive suggestions. These are the 

types of questions that we are asking. We are going to be working 

with Congress and working with FEMA. We will be talking with 

people throughout the country, State and local governments, and 

the private sector as well. I understand that there will be someone 

here representing the mobile home industry today, and I think that 

is wonderful. They need to be part of the solution. 

The first thing that Congress, I think, can do is lift the ceiling 

for minimal repairs. Right now, I think it’s—David, is the ceiling 

established at about $5,000 right now? 

Mr. GARRAT. Fifty-two hundred dollars. 

Mr. SKINNER. Fifty-two hundred dollars for minimal repairs. 

That is not sufficient to do minimum repairs in today’s market. 

And as a result, that is forcing people into temporary housing like 

trailers, mobile homes, or the hotels because they do not have sufficient resources to repair their homes so they can move back in. 

Fifty-two hundred dollars is not going to get you back in many of 

these homes. 

The second thing Congress might want to consider doing is reinstating the Mortgage and Rental Assistance Act, or program, I 

should say. That was a program that existed for years and was 

abolished, I believe in 2003, just subsequent to the September 11 

event in New York. That program allowed people who were economically impacted, that is, lost their jobs because of a disaster, to 

seek assistance to help pay their mortgages. We have a lot of people today, now, who are affected by this, who are unemployed, have 

large mortgages, and now are unable to make their mortgage payments. 

Other things that Congress can do, I think, is to take a look at 

the restrictions that have been placed on FEMA, HUD, VA, Agriculture, and others that have housing inventories throughout the 

country. Early on, one of the things that FEMA tried to do is to 

work with HUD, VA, and Agriculture, recognizing that they have 

housing inventories out there that we could put victims in; however, we could not use them because these homes would not pass 

inspection, and FEMA did not have the authority to repair the 

homes. 

Probably, and I think in many cases, if not most cases, FEMA 

could have repaired these homes at less cost than they are paying 

right now for temporary housing, for trailers or the mobile homes, 

something I’ll get into later. I’ll show you a chart of what it’s actually costing us. These are FEMA figures, by the way. 

If they had that authority, there was a whole inventory of housing out there that they could have tapped into, and that’s still sitVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:42 Aug 29, 2007 Jkt 028240 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\28240.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
14

ting out there, as a matter of fact, which they could still tap into 

and get people out of trailers and mobiles homes. 

Another area that I think that Congress should look into is helping FEMA—or that is the Federal Government—to provide financial incentives to the private sector. There are a lot of landlords out 

there with a lot of apartment buildings and a large inventory of 

housing that is destroyed, and they do not have the resources to 

go back and repair these apartment buildings or to repair those 

homes that could be rented out. 

If FEMA had the authority, that is, if the Federal Government 

had the authority to provide incentives to these people, such as 

low-interest loans, tax credits, things of that nature, with a guarantee that, ‘‘If you repair your apartment building we can guarantee you tenants,’’ we could take people out of trailers and put 

them into apartments. Right now, the Federal Government does 

not have the authority to do that. 

The last thing is something we are going to study very carefully 

and work closely with the Department’s housing policy group and 

with Congress, as well, with your staff, Senator Collins and Senator Pryor. And that is, redefining what we mean by temporary 

housing. I’m going to show you the costs later, in a couple of minutes. 

Regarding the issue of temporary housing versus permanent 

housing, we are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide 

temporary housing to individuals when, in fact, we could probably 

build permanent structures at a lot less cost. But right now, everyone’s hands are tied. This is something I think requires further 

study, further consideration. 

Then, of course, there is the obvious thing that we need to do in 

the future, which is to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The 

use of mobile homes, the use of trailers, I think is a good thing to 

a certain degree. It should not be our primary method of placing 

or housing people. But we also could do a better job and do it in 

a more efficient, effective, and economical way as to how we go 

about buying trailers and modular homes. 

What we did was a knee-jerk reaction. After the disaster, we 

went out and bought everything on the market. I think we did get 

discounts from the manufacturers, but when we started buying off 

the lots, we did not get discounts. We were buying trailers that did 

not meet specifications, that we cannot use. 

After a disaster, we should have standing contracts with manufacturers and retailers in disaster-prone areas. They are what I call 

call-contracts. In other words, they are no-cost contracts that we 

can tap into when there is a disaster. We already know what our 

specifications are, and we do not have to be reacting in an uneconomical way, as we did this time. I think we were very wasteful, 

and we could have gotten a lot more trailers that we really needed 

at a lot less cost. 

Finally, FEMA, and I think that they are, in fact, doing this—

and that is, they definitely need to develop a national catastrophic 

housing plan. And they need to do that in collaboration with the 

Federal, State, and private sector. That’s one of the things they 

need to start working on, and they need to start working on it now. 

15

1The chart referred to by Mr. Skinner appears in the Appenxix on page 71. 

2The chart referred to by Mr. Skinner appears in the Appenxix on page 72. 

3The chart referred to by Mr. Skinner appears in the Appenxix on page 73. 

4The chart referred to by Mr. Skinner appears in the Appenxix on page 74. 

Now, I would like to turn very quickly—and I know I’m running 

out of time—to the situation we’re in now. I brought some charts.1

This is where we are at right now, this is a FEMA chart. We now 

have 11 staging areas across the country. Our housing inventory, 

I think, is around 16,000—or it is actually about 22,000 mobile 

homes, modular homes, and travel trailers. 

The next chart shows the cost that it is going to cost to maintain 

these 11 sites.2 And I understand there are also going to be new 

sites, for example, Edison, New Jersey, and Mr. Garratt mentioned 

earlier that we may be opening sites out west. But to maintain 

these FEMA sites, it is almost $47 million a year. This does not 

include set-up costs. Marta Metelko, please put up the cost chart.3

It is costing us, on an annual basis, just to maintain the Hope 

site, over $3 million a year. This does not include the $275,000 we 

have spent to pave the road; it does not include the $4 million for 

the gravel that we are laying right now. So, as you can see, it is 

very expensive to maintain these sites. 

It is also very expensive to maintain the travel trailers. I have 

one more chart, if I may.4 Marta Metelko, could you show the cost 

just to maintain a travel trailer for the life cycle of the travel? It 

costs well over $59,000 to maintain one travel trailer for 18 to 36 

months. 

Now, if you add all of these costs up, we could build permanent 

housing for these people. Right now our hands are tied, however. 

Here is where I think we can get Congressional help. By the way, 

these cossts are on the low end. It can cost as high as $75,000 per 

trailer. We did not break down the costs for the larger units and 

the manufactured houses. I suspect it is closer to $75,000 per trailer. It is a very expensive proposition to maintain these things. 

In summary, I would just like to say, I know FEMA may be redeploying the trailers to areas across the country, to move 5,000 out 

of here. I understand they have a plan to reduce the inventory to 

about 10,000 or 11,000 by September 30. 

But my concern is that this is not a plan, it is an assumption. 

It is ironic. We are hoping we can use the trailers for disasters this 

summer. In essence, we are hoping for disasters so that we can deplete our inventory. I mean, that is how it sounds to me, and I find 

that discouraging. 

We have to have a better plan than that. If there are disasters, 

major disasters, fine—the assumption is that there will be. But if 

there are not, we are going to end up with about 16,000 of these 

things sitting out here for another year, paying the rates that I just 

showed you. And the traditional usage rate for travel trailers and 

mobile homes is at about 2,000 a year, going into a regular, traditional year. If we have a big season, it is about 5,000. 

So with the inventory we have right now, it could take us anywhere from 3 to 8 years to deplete the inventory, at considerable 

cost. I think FEMA needs to sit down and really think this 

through. Do we want to maintain these trailers here or do we want 

to find alternative needs? And I am not suggesting that we flood 

16

the market with them, either, and sell them for pennies on the dollar. FEMA should consider working with Congress to obtain the authorization needed to use them elsewhere for the public good. 

That concludes my remarks, and I will be happy to answer any 

questions you may have. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Garratt, in your statement you set forth three factors that 

have contributed to the over-supply and under-use of the manufactured homes at this site, and you said the final factor is floodplain 

restrictions. Placing mobile homes in floodplains is prohibited by 

Executive Order and FEMA’s regulations unless there is express 

authority granted after an expensive, rigorous, eight-step mitigation process. 

To me, that is a puzzling answer because the same agency that 

purchased the manufactured homes is the same agency with these 

regulations. It is not as if these regulations are from another part 

of the Federal Government and FEMA was unaware of them. 

These are not new regulations, are they? 

Mr. GARRATT. No, ma’am. 

Chairman COLLINS. In fact, haven’t they been in effect since the 

late 1970s? 

Mr. GARRATT. I am not sure of the exact date of that Executive 

Order, but it has been in place for some time. 

Chairman COLLINS. The Executive Order is dated May 24, 1977, 

and the regulations, I am told, were issued within the next year 

or so. So we are talking about regulations that prohibit the use of 

this kind of housing in floodplains that have been in effect for more 

than 25 years. Was the person who ordered the manufactured 

homes unaware of those regulations? 

Mr. GARRATT. Not at all, ma’am. And I would like to go back and 

talk about those three factors. Those three factors did not necessarily exist as factors at one time, but in fact, the factor regarding the use of mobile homes in a floodplain area is a factor now. 

Initially, the Housing Area Command, also as identified in the 

testimony, identified that there was going to be a huge and compelling need for temporary housing assistance, and the initial plan 

was that we were going to set up these very large mega mobile 

home communities, outside the floodplain and removed from the affected area, so that we could keep people in the State or bring people back into the State and then begin transitioning them from 

these large, mega mobile home communities back into the affected 

communities as rebuilding took place. 

That process was subsequently rejected, and we reoriented our 

strategy to much smaller group sites, much closer to the communities that were affected. These communities were in the floodplain 

area, or a great majority of these communities were in the floodplain area. As a result, because of that initial strategy, which was 

a plan to set up these large communities outside the floodplains, 

we had an excess. 

The factors that have come into play since then, which are the 

resistance to having large mobile home group sites in and around 

some communities, as well as the floodplain regulations, prevent us 

now from using that excess to the extent that we would like. 

17

Chairman COLLINS. Well, we have learned that virtually the entire region that was affected by Katrina is in a floodplain. I am curious about your comment and your testimony when you say that 

you anticipate a residual inventory of 5,000 units at Hope to be 

ready for immediate deployment to the Gulf Region in the event of 

another hurricane catastrophe. It is still a floodplain. I do not understand planning to use 5,000 homes for the Gulf Region when 

your own regulations continue to prohibit that kind of use. 

We are not talking about a small area that is the floodplain. It 

is an enormous area, and people want to be as close to their homes 

as possible, which was the failure of the first point that you made. 

So I do not understand your hope that you are going to be able to 

use some 5,000 units that would be stored here for immediate deployment to the Gulf Region in the event of another hurricane. It 

sounds to me like you are making the same miscalculation again. 

Mr. GARRATT. Madam Chairman, we have already used, and we 

have people occupying, close to 6,000 mobile homes in the Gulf 

Coast region of the States of Louisiana and Mississippi right now. 

And while I will acknowledge that there are great tracts of both 

States that are within a floodplain, there are also areas within 

both States that are outside the floodplain. There are also fringe 

areas of the floodplain where the elevation requirements are extremely modest. It is one thing to elevate a mobile home six feet 

off the ground, and the costs and effort associated with that; it is 

another to elevate it one foot off the ground or less, so we have options to employ those mobile homes. 

And again, we have executed those options in response to Hurricane Katrina, so we would expect in another catastrophe there will 

be an opportunity to use those 5,000 mobile homes. And as mentioned in the testimony, we are still planning to use an additional 

3,000 mobile homes in the State of Louisiana, and they are still 

proceeding to move mobile homes into the State of Mississippi. 

Chairman COLLINS. Well, Louisiana has not had its housing 

needs met, and that is a complaint that Senator Pryor and I have 

received every time we have talked with Louisiana officials. In that 

case, however, there are some complications which are not attributable to FEMA. I read just recently, for example, that a plan to 

locate some travel trailers and manufactured homes in the New 

Orleans area was approved at first by the Mayor, and then that approval was rescinded. 

That gets to, I think, the second point that you made, of dealing 

with the reluctance of communities to accept mobile homes in 

group sets. How big of a problem is that and how is FEMA taking 

that into account in its planning for the 2006 hurricane season? 

Mr. GARRATT. That is a very good question, Madam Chairman. 

It is enough of a problem that we still have individuals in hotels 

and motels in the State of Louisiana. I think we still have, in Louisiana and Mississippi combined, something over a thousand households that are still in hotels and motels. That is out of the tens of 

thousands that we had in hotels and motels several months ago. 

The only ones remaining are in Gulf Coast States, and the reason 

that they are still in hotels and motels is because we have run into 

some resistance with some of the group sites that we had planned 

and that we had hoped to have up and running by this time. 

18

We are working around those issues. We are continuing to press 

on some of those group sites, and we are looking for alternatives 

for group sites that we cannot pursue. In terms of the 2006 hurricane season, I participated in a couple of after-action and planning 

conferences very recently, both with the Corps and with our Federal partners. We recognize that this is a key issue and that upfront planning with the localities would go a long way toward helping us overcome these situational issues. 

So we will be redoubling our efforts this year, working principally through Gil Jamieson, who is our new Deputy Director for 

Gulf Coast Recovery, to work with those States to identify in advance those areas that they would establish as group site locations 

so that we do not need to negotiate these locations after the fact, 

but have in fact identified several of these locations that we can 

take immediate action to begin setting up following an event. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Skinner, in the testimony that we will 

hear from Mr. Harper on the next panel, he makes the point that 

there was existing inventory of manufactured housing at retailers 

that could have been used to meet some of the needs of the hurricane’s victims, but instead FEMA required manufacturers to interrupt their production and produce manufactured housing that met 

FEMA specifications. 

Typically, when the government requires an item to be built to 

different specifications than is common for the retail version of the 

item, it increases costs and it also delays delivery. Do you have any 

comments on that? Was it necessary to go for a unique product or 

could FEMA have used some of the already available inventory? 

Mr. SKINNER. That’s a good question. We have not looked at that, 

at least from that perspective. FEMA does have specifications. We 

want to be consistent. It creates problems, and I know we have observed this in our work. That is, if one trailer doesn’t have the 

standard equipment and another does, that creates friction among 

those that want the trailers. And as far as applying for assistance, 

I think it would be better if we could be as consistent as possible 

when we do assign trailers to evacuees, or to the homeless, to those 

that need temporary housing. Did it cause delays? Did it increase 

manufacturing costs? We have not looked at that. 

Chairman COLLINS. OK, thank you. Mr. Garratt, before I yield 

to my colleague for his first round of questions, let me just ask you 

one final question for this round, and that is, who was the individual at FEMA who made the decision to purchase nearly $850 

million of manufactured housing? 

Mr. GARRATT. Madam Chairman, I approved that decision. I believe that the Director of Recovery, at that time Danny Craig, also 

approved that decision. And we communicated our approval of that 

decision to our procurement officials. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Pryor. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Let me follow up 

on that. So you were involved in the decisionmaking process on the 

manufactured homes? 

Mr. GARRATT. Yes, sir. 

Senator PRYOR. And one thing, as I understood, that you said a 

few minutes ago, was that you set up the Housing Area Command. 

19

Did that system work pretty well and is that something you would 

replicate in future hurricanes? 

Mr. GARRATT. I am not sure that we are going to replicate that 

plan in future hurricanes. We had a mixed response in terms of 

how well it worked. My personal opinion, Senator, is that the plan 

did a bang-up job, for the reasons that I talked about in my testimony, and that they could hit the ground running immediately 

after landfall without interfering with the immediate life-saving response and recovery efforts and begin scouting and finding candidate group site locations, as well as identifying what was available, so that we could start rolling in resources just as soon as possible. In that regard, I think they did a pretty good job. 

Senator PRYOR. I want to ask about that. The Housing Area 

Command at some point ordered these homes, and you approved 

that. Who made that recommendation to you? 

Mr. GARRATT. The Housing Area Commander. 

Senator PRYOR. And who is that? 

Mr. GARRATT. His name was Brad Gair. 

Senator PRYOR. So he made that recommendation, and you approved it, and then you started ordering homes. If you can just 

walk the Committee through that process and whether you were 

working through a contractor or a middleman. Explain to us how 

that played out. 

Mr. GARRATT. I am probably going to have to rely on my Chief 

Procurement Officer to help me out with this, but I can at least 

bring it from the field level. Brad Gair is the Housing Area Commander. We asked him to be very aggressive out in the field, to 

lean far forward to identify what those requirements were and to 

press hard to start getting the resources into the area to address 

what we knew was going to be a pretty compelling housing situation. He did begin to identify——

Senator PRYOR. Let me interrupt just for a second. In terms of 

timing, are we talking about before, during, or after Hurricane 

Katrina? 

Mr. GARRATT. We set them up before Hurricane Katrina and 

gave him his marching orders before Hurricane Katrina ever hit. 

What I just described was his mission, essentially, to do that. 

So I’m not sure how long, how many days it was after Hurricane 

Katrina, but I am certain it was a very short period of time after 

landfall, if not during landfall, that he began communicating what 

the requirements were, in terms of travel trailers. And at one 

point, I think it was—said something to the effect of, ‘‘We need to 

order these things, continue rolling these things down here and 

order them until I say stop.’’

Senator PRYOR. And are we talking about travel trailers or are 

you talking about the mobile homes? 

Mr. GARRATT. Both. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. 

Mr. GARRATT. Our strategy is always to maximize use of travel 

trailers rather than mobile homes. Travel trailers we can put with 

far more ease on an individual’s private property. Mobile homes do 

not have that capability. Mobile homes are used for group site locations, large families, extended families, and for individuals with 

20

disabilities, for example. So travel trailers are our preferred mobile 

housing option. 

Senator PRYOR. And not to get off track, but what I am really 

asking about is the process by which they were procured. Did you 

contact the manufacturers directly? Did you look for an independent contractor? Did you have a series of contractors who had 

expertise in this? That is what I am asking. 

Mr. GARRATT. We worked that through our Chief Procurement 

Officer, sir. We communicated the requirements to our procurement office, and our procurement office has to use those requirements. 

Senator PRYOR. And that procurement office is in Washington? 

Mr. GARRATT. Yes, sir. 

Senator PRYOR. And what did they do? I know you made the request or made the order, and then what happened? What did they 

do? I guess I am trying to get a handle on how much control FEMA 

had of what you received and what you purchased. 

Mr. GARRATT. With the permission of the Chairman, I would like 

to ask Patricia English to join me at the table? 

Chairman COLLINS. Certainly. 

Mr. GARRATT. Thank you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Just for the record, would you state your 

name and your position, please? 

Ms. ENGLISH. My name is Patricia English, and I am Chief Procurement Officer for FEMA. At the time we received the request, 

we did a couple of things. We initially mobilized——

Senator PRYOR. Did you receive the request before, during, or 

after the storm? 

Ms. ENGLISH. I think we received it—I’m not really sure. 

Mr. GARRATT. I think it was immediately afterward. 

Ms. ENGLISH. I think it was, too. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. Go ahead. I’m sorry, I did not mean to 

interrupt. 

Ms. ENGLISH. After we received the request, we did a couple of 

things. First of all, we mobilized the FEMA contract specialists to 

help procure these in a very fast manner. 

Senator PRYOR. Now, are those government employees or are 

those contractors? 

Ms. ENGLISH. No, government employees. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. 

Ms. ENGLISH. All FEMA officials, with the assistance from subcontracting officials from Department of Homeland Security Headquarters Procurement Office. We did two things: One, we had a 

group of folks that went directly to the manufacturers with our 

specifications, to secure bids so they could start manufacturing 

units as fast as possible. In the interim, we had another group of 

individuals who started calling the dealers to find out what was 

available on the lots. And dealers started faxing in their specifications, their estimated costs, and so forth. 

What we did at that point is we went for the lowest offer and 

just kept buying off the lot, to the extent that we could, as the 

manufactured units were coming on-line. 

Senator PRYOR. Now, would you call that a competitive bid process? 

21

Ms. ENGLISH. The manufactured units was clearly a competitive 

bid process. 

Senator PRYOR. And how long were the manufacturers given to 

respond to your request? 

Ms. ENGLISH. I don’t know the exact time, but I can tell you it 

was probably around 5 days. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. 

Ms. ENGLISH. It was a very quick response. 

Senator PRYOR. Keep going, I’m sorry. 

Ms. ENGLISH. So the manufacturers clearly was a competitive 

bid. The off-the-lot, although it wasn’t what you would call formal 

competition, we did seek prices, we did try to negotiate discounts, 

and we did award to vendors offering the lowest prices first. 

Senator PRYOR. Maybe I am misunderstanding this, but my understanding is that there was a middleman or contractor or set of 

contractors involved in the purchasing of these homes. Is that not 

right? 

Ms. ENGLISH. To my knowledge, I am not aware of a middleman. 

Now, there was a recent purchase that we had in the State of Louisiana where we worked through a middleman, but to my knowledge, we went straight to the manufacturers and to off-the-lot dealers. 

Senator PRYOR. Are you familiar with how FEMA used to do its 

mobile home and trailer purchases under James Lee Witt? Are you 

familiar with how they did it then? 

Mr. SKINNER. Yes. 

Senator PRYOR. As I understand it, what they would do is they 

would solicit the industry long before any storm came, on a competitive basis, and sort of have an open contract. I don’t know exactly what they call the process. And then, once the need was identified, they would then contact the manufacturers, is that correct? 

Do you know how they did it? 

Ms. ENGLISH. No, we did not necessarily do it that way under 

James Lee Witt. What happened was we did do a full, competitive 

competition, but we did not have contracts sitting on the shelf waiting to use at the time of the hurricane. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, how would you do the full, competitive bidding? 

Ms. ENGLISH. Very quick, same way we did it this time. 

Senator PRYOR. I may have had some wrong information there, 

and I’d like to get back to you on it. 

Let’s see, I have another question. If I may, Mr. Garratt, on the 

question that Congressman Ross asked about the 3,000 or maybe 

5,000 houses—where are they going and when will the people who 

need housing actually get the 3,000 to 5,000 houses over the next 

few months? Where are they going and what is the time frame on 

people actually using them? 

Mr. GARRATT. Also a very good question, Senator. That is being 

worked up now between our Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery working with the Joint Field Office in the State and locals to 

identify that. As I indicated, the plan is to bring these mobile 

homes into fringe areas within the floodplain where—following the 

eight-step process would require only a modest amount of elevation, and we can do that in a cost-effective way. What the DepVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:42 Aug 29, 2007 Jkt 028240 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\28240.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
22

uty Director is doing right now is working with them to identify 

those sites and locations where they would agree to support that. 

Based on initial indications from the field, we think that it can 

support up to an additional 3,000 mobile homes, but we don’t have 

all of those sites identified at this point. Additionally, another couple of thousand, as indicated, will be rolling out of Hope, going to 

Edison, New Jersey, to a site we have there and to Cumberland, 

Maryland, to a site we have there, and hopefully to a site on the 

West Coast, to support potential disaster operations in different 

parts of the country. 

Senator PRYOR. So as I understand it then, you have a plan to 

remove them from Hope, but not necessarily to deliver them to the 

people that need them? 

Mr. GARRATT. We will be delivering them to the people that need 

them when they need them should a disaster occur in a part of the 

country that we have re-staged these units to. That is except for 

the 3,000 that we plan to push from Hope down to Louisiana. 

Senator PRYOR. That is all I have at this time, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Garratt, I want to clear up 

an issue where your testimony seems to be in conflict with that of 

the Inspector General’s at a previous hearing that we held which 

touched on this issue, and that is the condition of the manufactured homes that are being stored here. At a previous hearing, we 

saw some photographs which seemed to indicate that some of the 

homes were sinking in the mud in a way that is causing them to 

warp or causing some structural problems, but your testimony here 

this morning was very clear that you felt that those reports were 

erroneous, and you said that every home is ‘‘mission ready.’’ I want 

to try to clear up this issue by asking Mr. Skinner whether he has 

changed his judgment upon further investigation. Before I do that, 

if, in fact, the homes are in good shape being stored on this site, 

why is FEMA spending $4.2 million to lay down gravel? 

Mr. GARRATT. A couple of reasons regarding the question we are 

on. Right now, when it does rain in Hope, we do get pooled water 

there. A crush and run surface will be more stable. We’ve got areas 

on the Hope compound where—to address, for example, the warping or bowing issue. We may have a mobile home that is perched 

on a rise, and it will, if you drive by that, appear to be bowed, and 

in fact, it is. It doesn’t affect the efficacy of that unit, it is still completely usable, but because we’ve got an 80-foot unit that is perched 

on jack stands over that expanse that is uneven, you will see that 

sort of bowing. 

So what we are interested in doing is creating a more environmentally stable environment for those mobile homes since we may 

be keeping some of these mobile homes here for some period of 

time. As we have indicated, we want to maintain at least 5,000 of 

these mobile homes there for the 2006 hurricane season. My hope 

is that we have no opportunity to use those in the 2006 hurricane 

season. However, if that in fact does not happen and we have a catastrophe and a requirement to do that, we want those things to 

be stored in the best way possible. And our logistics folks have told 

us that providing this crush and run does provide surface stability 

23

for the long-term surface maintenance environment that we want 

these mobile homes to have. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Skinner, is a bowed mobile home mission ready? 

Mr. SKINNER. It is my understanding it can be made mission 

ready, but I am not an expert on the manufactured homes. You 

may want to ask the expert on the next panel. When we made our 

initial visit here—we made two visits, I think, in January and February, and it was right after a rainstorm. Like today, we did not 

plan for a rainstorm. We were out there again this morning. We 

did observe that they were sitting in open fields, and we took 

photos where some of the hitches on which the trailers were being 

stored were beginning to sink into the mud. 

We also observed that they were beginning to bow because they 

were not placed on jacks. If they just bow slightly, that is not going 

to create a problem. But if we do not store them properly, they 

could deteriorate and be damaged. That is what we were told. 

So we made recommendations: One, if you are going to maintain 

these things here, then you need to put them on a stable surface, 

and, two, if you are going to store them for an extended period, you 

need to store them as recommended by the manufacturer, and that 

is on jacks. We went out there this morning, and in fact, they are 

laying gravel as we speak, and they are putting in the jacks as we 

speak. Not all of them are complete, but they are in that process. 

Chairman COLLINS. Mr. Skinner, do you have any concerns about 

the monitoring of the project that you have just described, laying 

the gravel bed? 

Mr. SKINNER. The actual monitoring? 

Chairman COLLINS. Yes. 

Mr. SKINNER. No one has brought any problems to our attention. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Finally, Mr. Skinner, the hurricane season, as I mentioned, begins June 1, 2006. How prepared 

do you think FEMA is for this year’s hurricane season? 

Mr. SKINNER. I really do not want to speculate. I can say that 

there is very aggressive action ongoing right now to put us in a position where we are better prepared than we were last year. For 

example, there is hiring of additional contracting officers and contracting technical representatives. There is some very intense 

training going on and many exercises going on—in the hurricane 

regions—so that people will better understand the national response plan, understand the role of the PFO, the Principal Federal 

Officer, and the FCO, the Federal Coordinating Officer. So there 

are steps that are being taken in a very fast and aggressive way 

to help us be better prepared. 

However, will we be better prepared to handle another Hurricane 

Katrina? I would not want to speculate. I can say also that the Department is working very well now with DOD, and that is very important, defining what their role will be if we have something that 

catastrophic. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Garratt, one final question 

for you. Part of being prepared, and part of keeping down costs, is 

to have in place prior to the hurricane season contracts that have 

been competitively awarded and that you can take off the shelf and 

use if need be. Initially, Secretary Chertoff assured me that there 

24

1The chart referred to by Mr. Skinner appears in the Appenxix on page 74. 

would be competitively awarded national individual assistance contracts in place prior to June 1, 2006, the start of the hurricane season. Does FEMA still intend to meet that goal? 

Mr. GARRATT. FEMA still intends to meet the goal of having individual assistance, technical assistance contracts, in place as soon 

as we can get those in place. I do not believe we are going to meet 

our target goal of June 1, 2006. The competitive bid process—we 

have encountered some delays in accelerating that process, and as 

a result, we are probably looking at some time after July 1 before 

we are able to award those contracts. 

However, in the interim, we recognize that we have a gap, in 

terms of being able to provide housing assistance or executing a 

housing mission, so we have coordinated with the U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has performed 

this mission for us in the past prior to the use of the IA TACs last 

year, and the Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to execute that 

mission and provide any housing support for us in that interim period while we work to complete the awarding of the new IA TAC 

contracts, which again, we expect to have completed certainly well 

before the end of the hurricane season, but probably, again, not by 

June 1, 2006. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Pryor. 

Senator PRYOR. Mr. Skinner, you mentioned in your testimony a 

few moments ago that you hope to have a report prepared by late 

summer or early fall? 

Mr. SKINNER. Yes. In the September time frame is what I was 

looking at. 

Senator PRYOR. And what is that, a set of recommendations? 

Mr. SKINNER. We are doing an assessment right now of FEMA’s 

housing plans and its policies and procedures with regard to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Wilma, with the objective 

of identifying the gaps and problems, and making recommendations to address those problems. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. Is it consistent or inconsistent in your 

mind that the Inspector General’s office is in the process of doing 

this report, making recommendations, listing out your findings, but 

at the same time, and in an uncoordinated fashion it seems to me, 

FEMA is planning on moving many of these mobile homes from 

Hope to various parts around the country. Is that inconsistent in 

your mind or is——

Mr. SKINNER. Well, we have not drawn any conclusions yet, but 

that particular issue of how would we use some 16,000 mobile 

homes that are currently in our inventory is something, I think, 

that requires further study. We have already made some recommendations informally. 

Senator PRYOR. And I know that in a few minutes you are going 

to step down. I would like for you to keep chart 4 handy,1 because 

I may use that with another witness here in a few minutes. Are 

you familiar with the process that was gone through on these mobile homes here in Hope, in terms of the purchase of them? 

Mr. SKINNER. Beforehand? 

25

Senator PRYOR. Before they were purchased. To purchase the mobile homes here and deliver them here, are you familiar with that 

process? 

Mr. SKINNER. Not in such detail as Ms. English. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask about the jacks. You have identified 

that some of these need jacks. Are those only the units that are 

over 60 feet? 

Mr. SKINNER. Yes. 

Senator PRYOR. Just the shorter ones do not need those? 

Mr. SKINNER. That is what I am told. That is correct. 

Senator PRYOR. And as I understand it, some mobile home parks, 

etc., do not like these longer mobile homes. Do you know anything 

about that? 

Mr. SKINNER. I’m sorry? 

Senator PRYOR. They cannot accommodate the longer mobile 

homes? 

Mr. SKINNER. Most of the traditional mobile home parks cannot 

accommodate them. We cannot place them on the pads because the 

cement pads on which they rest are too small. 

Senator PRYOR. Right. 

Mr. SKINNER. So that is the dilemma that we have, or that 

FEMA has, how do they place them on the pads, because they require larger pads. 

Senator PRYOR. Do you know why FEMA ordered the longer 

homes that would not fit on the mobile home park pads? 

Mr. SKINNER. It is my understanding that the order was given 

to buy all mobile homes, as many as you can buy. There were a 

lot of mobile homes, and a lot of travel trailers as well, that were 

delivered to FEMA that should not have been accepted. And we 

probably should not have bought those larger mobile homes. 

Senator PRYOR. If I may, Mr. Garratt, let me ask you, you mentioned that some of these homes, these 3,000 homes are moving 

back out to various staging areas around the country. Did you mention some were going to Maryland? 

Mr. GARRATT. Cumberland, Maryland. 

Senator PRYOR. As I understand it, and maybe I am wrong on 

this, some of the homes were manufactured in that area and then 

transported to Hope. Do you know? 

Mr. GARRATT. I can’t verify that, Senator, but we can certainly 

find out and get that information to you. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask this. Do you know how much FEMA 

pays per mile to move these homes? 

Mr. GARRATT. Ask Ron Goins. 

Chairman COLLINS. Again, if you could identify yourself so the 

court reporter has your name, and also your position? 

Mr. GOINS. I’m Ron Goins, and I am Chief of Support Services 

Section for Logistics. 

Senator PRYOR. And do you know how much FEMA pays to move 

these homes—is it paid per mile, or how does that work? 

Mr. GOINS. Well, a lot of the transportation costs are rolled up 

into the purchases, but when we do our own internal moves, or if 

we have a commercial hauler, it is approximately $1.50 per travel 

trailer per mile, and approximately $4.50 per mobile home. 

Senator PRYOR. Per mile? 

26

Mr. GOINS. Yes, sir. 

Senator PRYOR. So if you move them to Maryland, that is about 

1,000 miles. That is pretty pricey to move one mobile home that 

distance. Let me ask this, also, Mr. Garratt, if I may, and that is 

in your opening statement you mentioned that there are 115,000 

manufactured homes, I think you said, that were ready for occupancy in the region already, provided by FEMA? Tell me what you 

said? What was that 115,000 figure I heard? 

Mr. GARRATT. There were 115,000 travel trailers, mobile homes, 

total, that have been set up in the Gulf Region. 

Senator PRYOR. How many are travel trailers and how many mobile homes? 

Mr. GARRATT. Let me check and see if I have that. 

Senator PRYOR. And people are occupying those right now? 

Mr. GARRATT. I think the occupied figures for those are something less than that, in the neighborhood of 110,000. 

Mr. SKINNER. We looked at this, at the status, this past Monday. 

For mobile homes, I think it was closer to 10,000, and I think it 

was about 79,000 travel trailers that are currently occupied, 17,000 

that are ready to be occupied, and I don’t have the exact figure, but 

I think it was 23,000, or something like that, trailers that are 

ready to be moved and are available for occupancy. 

Mr. GARRATT. I’m sorry, Senator, your question to me again was? 

Senator PRYOR. Well, I was asking about the 115,000 figure that 

you had——

Mr. GARRATT. Right. 

Senator PRYOR [continuing]. And the question I had was how 

many are mobile homes and how many are the so-called travel 

trailers. And it sounds like Mr. Skinner has given me a rough 

breakdown. Is that consistent with what you have? 

Mr. GARRATT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SKINNER. And those are the figures that FEMA gave me last 

Monday. 

Senator PRYOR. But it still sounds like there is a percentage that 

are not—is that just because of paperwork or is that because we 

cannot find locations, or what is that? 

Mr. GARRATT. It is a combination of issues, sir. For example, 

when a contractor is establishing a group site and making units 

available for occupancy on a group site, they may be available for 

occupancy, but we do not allow anyone on that group site to inhabit 

any of those trailers until they are all ready for occupancy because 

of the construction that is going on and because of the safety 

issues. So we may have multiple ready-for-occupancy units, but it 

may also be a question if it is being placed on an individual’s private property that a contractor will say this is ready for occupancy, 

but it is awaiting a certification, the City of Hope to come on and 

make that certification, that it is OK. So a number of different reasons contribute to that, to that delta between ready for occupancy 

and occupancy. 

Senator PRYOR. All right, Mr. Garratt, this is my last question—

Congressman Ross and others have talked about how there are apparently many parishes down in Louisiana—I have heard eight, I 

have heard more—I do not know the exact number, that have done 

something on a local level to waive any sort of restrictions they 

27

might have on mobile homes to allow your FEMA mobile homes to 

be placed in those parishes. Senator Collins mentioned some of the 

issues in New Orleans. Let me ask this: In your opening statement 

you said that there was ‘‘widespread resistance’’ placing these mobile homes down in the Gulf Coast area, but isn’t it true that many 

of the parishes have waived their restrictions and are allowing 

these to come in? 

Mr. GARRATT. Sir, I am not aware that any parishes have waived 

the floodplain restrictions for any of the mobile homes. 

Senator PRYOR. The floodplain restriction is your restriction. 

Mr. GARRATT. That is correct. 

Senator PRYOR. Well, I mean they cannot waive that; I am saying they have local ordinances or whatever they may call them in 

Louisiana, I do not know the State law, but they have ordinances 

that say no mobile homes in this part of the city or this part of the 

county, whatever that may be, and apparently, they have taken 

steps to waive those. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. GARRATT. In some instances, we have had some parishes 

that have indicated that they are willing to take some of these on. 

Those form part of that 3,000 that we expect to move from Hope 

down to Louisiana. In many cases, these are going to require some 

rather extensive site preparation, but yes, we have made some inroads in some cases. Again, we are also continuing to encounter 

some resistance in some cases, but that portion that you referred 

to is calculated into that 3,000 figure that we are working. 

Senator PRYOR. What about in the City of New Orleans itself? 

Are they—New Orleans Parish, are they resistant? 

Mr. GARRATT. We have had some issues in New Orleans Parish. 

Senator PRYOR. Are some of the homes going into New Orleans 

Parish? 

Mr. GARRATT. Yes, sir. We have begun some site development 

there, and we have already spent, at least in the case of one site, 

over $1 million on the site development, and we are at the point 

of virtually beginning to occupy those trailers, and we have proceeded to do that. 

Senator PRYOR. Do you know how many homes have made it into 

Orleans Parish? 

Mr. GARRATT. I can get that number for you, sir. I do not have 

that. 

Senator PRYOR. I believe that is all I have. Thank you, Madam 

Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Garratt, I know I promised 

that I had asked you the last question, but the question my colleague just asked you gives rise to another one in my mind. The 

Committee has been told that FEMA has met most of the requests 

for travel trailers in Mississippi and in Alabama, but that 60 percent of the requests in Louisiana have not been satisfied. Is that 

an accurate assessment? 

Mr. GARRATT. Madam Chairman, I’m not sure what that 60 percent represents. If it represents the number of individuals who are 

currently in Louisiana, for example, in hotels and motels, living 

with family and friends, and are waiting for a travel trailer there, 

I think that figure is probably very much in play there. It represents, perhaps, individuals who are across the United States, 

28

based on wherever they were evacuated to or where they’ve migrated to, and have indicated that they would like a travel trailer 

or mobile home. That may be after——

Senator COLLINS. I am trying to figure out why most of the requests from Mississippi have been satisfied and most of the requests from Louisiana, according to the data that I have, have not 

been. I am trying to determine whether that is the problem we discussed with local officials not allowing the placement of homes in 

certain areas. But if most of these we are talking about are travel 

trailers, which are different, obviously, from the manufactured 

homes, is there a disparity, and if so, why? 

Mr. GARRATT. There is a disparity, ma’am, and that disparity is 

related just to the size of the population that requires housing. Alabama had a much smaller population that required housing than 

Mississippi, and Mississippi the same for Louisiana. Mississippi’s 

projected needs total were 39,000 travel trailers and mobile homes, 

and we are virtually there. We’ve got 39,000. Louisiana’s projected 

total needs were approaching 100,000 travel trailers and mobile 

homes, so we are not quite there yet. There is still a delta between 

that, and that is what causes the difference between Louisiana and 

Mississippi. 

Senator COLLINS. I guess you can see our concern, even frustration, when we flew in today and see thousands of manufactured 

homes ready to go here in Hope and then we keep receiving the 

pleas for assistance for housing from individuals from Louisiana 

that FEMA cannot seem to meet. That is the frustration that we 

are seeing, when here you have the homes that are so desperately 

needed. What is the barrier? 

Mr. GARRATT. The principal barriers right now, as indicated, in 

employing these mobile homes in Southern Louisiana are the 

issues of the floodplain restrictions and the issues we have been 

running into regarding the group sites. But we are attacking those. 

I mean, we recognize that is an issue. We recognize, as Mr. Skinner indicated, that we need to pursue some outside-the-box solutions to some of these issues, and we are actively doing that. 

We have the authority, or may have the authority, to donate 

these units to States and to locals, providing their use for disaster 

purposes. And we are actively working with the States to identify 

methods for potentially donating these mobile homes or—again, 

provided that they are used for a disaster purpose. That would enable these to be used for purposes other than we are constrained 

by under the Stafford Act. 

Our Deputy Director for Gulf Coast Recovery, Mr. Jamieson, is 

actively working with the States to determine if there are other potential solutions for the use of mobile homes in both Mississippi 

and in Louisiana. And we are expecting Mr. Jamieson to come back 

with some recommendations fairly soon on methods that—that I do 

not want to necessarily go into at this point because we just have 

not fleshed these out fully, but I have every reason to believe that 

we may have an opportunity in the very near future to begin using 

some of these mobile homes in an innovative way in the affected 

area. 

Chairman COLLINS. I thank you for your testimony and for being 

here today. I feel, however, as if we have come full circle. We are 

29

1The prepared statement of Mayor Ramsey appears in the Appendix on page 75. 

back to the floodplain regulations, which raises the question why 

they were purchased in the first place if they cannot be used in this 

area. It seems to me that we have to come up with better housing 

solutions that avoid that problem in the future. It is just a tragedy 

that nearly 8 months after people have been displaced, we cannot 

seem to match up victims in need of housing with housing that is 

here in Hope. We stand ready to work with you to help achieve a 

solution to this problem and also to ensure it does not happen 

again in the future. 

I would hope as you pursue these innovative approaches that you 

have alluded to that you will share your thoughts and advice with 

the Committee. Mr. Skinner, I would like you to do so as well. 

Again, I want to thank you both for being here today and for 

helping to advance our knowledge. 

I am now going to call forward our final panel of witnesses. 

Mayor Dennis Ramsey was first elected to the Board of Directors 

of the City of Hope in 1978 and has served as Mayor since 1993. 

J.D. Harper serves as the Executive Directive of the Arkansas 

Manufactured Housing Association. 

Mayor Ramsey, being an elected official has its privileges, and 

one is that you get to go first. 

Mayor RAMSEY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. DENNIS RAMSEY,1 MAYOR, CITY OF 

HOPE 

Mayor RAMSEY. Again, Madam Chairman, I’d like to welcome 

you and your staff to Arkansas, especially the City of Hope. It has 

been an honor to have you here. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mayor RAMSEY. Of course, Senator Pryor, it is always nice to 

have you back in Hope, Arkansas. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you, Mayor. 

Mayor RAMSEY. Senator Pryor noted a while ago that no Senate 

hearings at this time have been held at Hope, and I think you are 

entirely correct. This is our first one, and maybe it will not be our 

last one, but it is a unique experience for our city. And we appreciate the opportunity to display our college and the work that they 

have done. 

Prior to Hurricane Katrina striking the Gulf Coast, several hundred people evacuated to Hope, Arkansas. When it became evident 

the devastation to the Coast Region would be significant, as a community we came to the realization that the stay for many of the 

evacuees would be prolonged. Our community, as many other communities across our State, began a grass roots effort to become a 

source of strength, both emotionally and financially, for these 

guests. Funds were raised and distributed; lodging provided; twice 

daily meals served; job fairs held; and friendships extended. All 

was done with no concern for reimbursement. It united us as a 

community and introduced us to many new friends with whom we 

still correspond. Of course, this continued weeks later with Hurricane Rita. 

30

1Supporting documents submitted by Mayor Ramsey appear in the Appendix on page 78. 

On or about Saturday, September 24, I receive a phone call from 

Robert Hoban, who identified himself as a representative of FEMA. 

He stated that FEMA had let or was in the process of letting contracts to purchase upwards of 20,000 manufactured homes, or mobile homes. The staging and distribution point for these homes was 

to be Red River Army Depot in Texarkana. However, much of the 

affected acreage over there contained trees and other vegetation, so 

the cost of clearing and preparing to store them on this acreage 

was prohibitive. On this day, he and other individuals had already 

visited our airport property and thought it would be ideal to store 

several thousand mobile homes here at our airport temporarily. 

Mr. Hoban wanted to know how much acreage and if the City 

would lease the property to FEMA and also about the possibility 

of closing the entire airport. 

I told Mr. Hoban, as Mayor, I did not have that authority to 

make a decision, and there were several issues that would have to 

be addressed: Approval of the Federal Aviation Authority, since 

this is—and still is—an active airport; our visiting with the Arkansas Aeronautics Department; consulting with our Airport Advisory 

Board and local pilots; obviously, approval by a vote by the Hope 

City Board of Directors. Closing all runways was not an option as 

preservation of the airport functions was of primary importance. I 

contacted City Manager Catherine Cook and told her of our conversation. 

On Monday, September 26, 2005, I received a call from a representative of the Government Services Administration, Dorothy 

Keisler. She wanted to fax a lease for our consideration. I told her 

essentially the same conversation I had with Mr. Hoban and that 

it would be premature as I had no authority to negotiate a lease, 

but I felt confident the City would do all it could to accommodate 

the request. 

The City Manager began contacting our airport engineers, FAA, 

Arkansas Aeronautics, the City Board members, and local airport 

groups. We also had ongoing conversations with FEMA representatives, informing them we had approximately 453 acres. Per their 

calculations, they could place approximately 13,000 mobile homes 

on the site. 

We informed them of the soil conditions present at the airport. 

This is an old army airport built in 1941 with three runways, two 

of which are still active. The third one has been closed permanently. The airport was constructed on what was then very fertile 

farmland. We informed FEMA that, when wet, this soil became 

very spongy, and during periods of rain, ingress and egress would 

be very limited, i.e., become stuck in the mud, but no one ever inferred that the mobile homes would sink in the ground. 

On Tuesday, October 4, 2005, Mr. Hoban addressed the Hope 

City Board of Directors and requested leasing the 453 acres of airport property for 2 years with an option to renew for two additional 

one-year periods. The reason for the two options is that when the 

units are recovered from the Gulf Coast area by FEMA, they will 

be returned to Hope for minor refurbishing. The Board recommended a lease price of $25,000 per month.1

31

2The prepared statement of Mr. Harper appears in the Appendix on page 88. 

On October 7, 2005, the lease with the GSA on behalf of FEMA 

was signed. 

During the week of October 9, 2005, mobile homes actually began 

arriving at the Hope Airport. 

On October 21, 2005, at a special called board meeting, Mr. 

Hoban again addressed the City Board. He stated there were approximately 400 mobile homes housed at the airport on available 

runway space and that FEMA was interested in establishing a 

geotech fabric and gravel, called crush and run, in 50-acre parcels 

to stage additional mobile homes. The Board agreed to the proposal. 

By November 1, 2005, there were approximately 1,500 units at 

the airport, but no crush and run had been laid except for the road 

at the south end of the property. 

Mr. Hoban subsequently stated that FEMA desired to develop 

170 acres and possibly up to 290 total acres with Geotech fabric 

and four to six inches of SB–2/Class 7 crushed stone applied over 

the fabric. At the meeting, local FEMA personnel thought the 

amount would only include about 97 acres. The GSA amended this 

contract from the original 170 plus additional 120 acres. The Board 

also asked if it would be possible for the crosswind runway to be 

reopened. This work, to my knowledge, is currently under construction. 

To my knowledge, the maximum number of mobile homes staged 

at the Hope Airport property was 10,777, and currently the number 

is around 10,000. 

FEMA has on several occasions told representatives of the City, 

as well as members of the House and Senate, on various occasions, 

there’s a real possibility that this site may become a permanent 

staging area for FEMA. 

I’d just like to say in closing the local FEMA representatives, as 

well as Mr. Hoban, have been cooperative, responsive to our questions and concerns when voiced, and have responded to them 

promptly when asked. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Harper. 

TESTIMONY OF J.D. HARPER,2 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

ARKANSAS MANUFACTURED HOUSING ASSOCIATION 

Mr. HARPER. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, and welcome to 

Arkansas. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. HARPER. Good to see you here. Senator Pryor, it is good to 

see you. It is a great honor to be invited to testify before this Committee at this hearing today. 

My name is J.D. Harper, and I am Executive Director of the Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association. Our trade association 

represents businesses with an interest in the manufactured home 

industry: Builders, retailers, transporters, installers, finance and 

insurance companies, and other businesses. Since our inception in 

1967, it has been our goal to provide quality, affordable housing to 

the people of this State. 

32

At this time, I would like to make it clear that my testimony reflects the views of the Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association 

and should not be construed as a statement on behalf of the entire 

industry. The comments that I am going to pass on to you today 

are based solely upon the deliberations and discussions of our 

Board of Directors. 

It is my understanding I have been invited to testify on issues 

related to disaster housing, with manufactured housing units in 

the forefront, especially the homes staged here at Hope. And the 

invitation said the things that we were asked to look at were: Procurement, installation, maintenance, future use, and deactivation 

and/or disposal. I have arranged my comments in this order, and 

I will do my best to address each issue. 

Again, of course, I would like to say that our industry was deeply 

touched and our thoughts and prayers went out to the people 

whose lives were forever changed after Hurricane Katrina hit the 

Gulf Coast, and our thoughts and prayers are with them still today 

as recovery efforts continue. We also believe that another thing was 

forever changed; the relief and recovery efforts that you see from 

Federal, State, and local governments. And it is our sincere hope 

that the successes that have been seen and the failures that we 

have had since the recovery effort started are something we can all 

learn from, and we can create a better response mechanism in the 

future. 

Having said that, I will take a few minutes to talk about the procurement issue. FEMA has long viewed manufactured housing as 

a resource for emergency housing relief in the aftermath of disasters. Our industry believes that manufactured housing can continue to be a major source and an integral part of an emergency 

housing plan. 

I would like to recognize the efforts of our industry, particularly 

our manufacturers and our transporters for their efforts and their 

response to the demand for emergency housing in the wake of the 

storms. We responded immediately, fulfilling FEMA’s requests for 

thousands of homes built to their exacting specifications and delivering those units to staging areas that were designated by FEMA 

in a very timely manner. In a number of cases, participating builders found it necessary to suspend their normal production of homes 

for retail inventory and custom-designed units for waiting home 

buyers in order to produce FEMA-approved units for disaster relief 

efforts, creating major disruptions in the normal course of business 

and in the normal supply of manufactured housing. 

In recent history, we believe that FEMA has greatly reduced or 

eliminated the inventory of manufactured home units being held 

for such use and has gone with their preference of ordering manufactured homes through GSE-approved third-party contractors or 

directly from manufacturers for use in disaster-stricken areas on 

an as-needed basis. 

According to Inspector General Skinner’s testimony before this 

Committee on February 13, FEMA purchased 24,967 manufactured 

homes and 1,295 modular homes for use as emergency disaster 

housing. 

Manufactured home units built for FEMA in 2005 were built to 

very strict specifications. In a Request for Quotes dated Thursday, 

33

September 8, 2005, producers were given structural design requirements for the houses, including the size—that they would be 60 

feet long by 14 feet in width; the floor plan with the number of bedrooms, three, and the number of bathrooms, one; the appliances, all 

electric, range, refrigerator/freezer; furnishings, they would be fully 

furnished with a dinette set for six; interior and exterior requirements, including no carpet throughout the unit and vinyl siding on 

the exterior; roof load, thermal zone, and wind zone requirements; 

and a structural design requirement that was unique in that the 

homes were built for multiple installations and removals. Proposals 

from interested producers were required to be received no later 

than 3 p.m. the following day, September 9, 2005. 

It is our understanding that efforts are currently underway to revise and review the construction specifications that FEMA has 

used in the past. We support the review and revision of those specifications in order to simplify the procurement process. Our organization would encourage FEMA to revisit its former policy of using 

stand-by contracts for the purchase and procurement of emergency 

housing in future disasters. 

I have been asked on many occasions if FEMA paid too much for 

the homes which they ordered for hurricane relief. Most of these 

questions have included some sort of comparison between the average price of the stock unit that is held in inventory by retailers and 

average prices of FEMA units, based on dividing the total dollar 

amount that was spent, the $800 and some odd million, we were 

told, by the number of homes received by FEMA. I believe it is important to understand that units meeting the specifications that 

were released on September 8, 2005, did not exist in Arkansas 

prior to that date. These homes were built specifically for this request, and any comparison to the price of stock units is an unfair 

comparison. I do believe that if the homes sitting on the airport 

runway here in Hope are not used for the purpose for which they 

were ordered or used in some other public interest, then any price 

paid by the government for these homes was too high. 

I also believe the question is not necessarily how much was paid 

for the homes, but how many homes were ordered. I believe if there 

were only 500 homes waiting we would not be having this hearing 

today. In the hours following the hurricanes, between 2004 Hurricane Charlie and 2005 Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, our 

industry, including my office, was asked to identify available inventory by the Department of Homeland Security and by FEMA for 

use in the disaster areas. In both instances, FEMA instead elected 

to order new manufactured houses built to their specifications, 

rather than purchase manufactured home inventories off the lot, 

except for a very small percentage of some homes that are here at 

Hope. 

A lot of the testimony you have heard talks about off-the-lot purchases. For the most part, those were travel trailer purchases, not 

manufactured homes. Inasmuch as I believe our business wants to 

help in the aftermath of disasters, I do not believe we are going to 

participate in future efforts to gather that inventory list from our 

retailers because we have not seen any real instance that FEMA 

is going to purchase retail inventory. We feel that FEMA is going 

to continue the process of ordering new product if it is needed. 

34

Federal and State authorities did work together, though, to work 

out the delivery of the FEMA units. State transportation authorities waived permit requirements and other restrictions to get 

homes moved very quickly, and we certainly feel like that was an 

example of a success with the States working together to make it 

happen. However, we found that when the waivers began to expire 

and enforcement mechanisms resumed, some of the out-of-state 

manufacturers were unaware and some of the transporters were 

unaware. We would encourage those entities to work together to 

better keep the lines of communication open with our transporters 

and manufacturers. 

The units began arriving at Hope within days. With the industry, 

the media, and the public focused on the delivery of emergency 

housing to those people left homeless in the Gulf Coast region, the 

number of homes delivered to the staging areas, specifically Hope, 

began to swell into the thousands, with relatively few ever moving 

on to displaced victims. The aerial photos of manufactured homes 

sitting on the runways here at Hope became synonymous with failures in FEMA’s emergency housing program. 

As far as why some of these houses are still here, I think it 

comes into the installation of these homes, and I group the installation into three basic areas—local restrictions against the placement 

of manufactured homes, the floodplain issue, and the success of the 

travel trailer program. I think these have all impacted the reason 

that only a small number of manufactured homes have been used 

as emergency housing. 

FEMA’s own policies state that travel trailers and manufactured 

homes are used only as a last resort, after all other rental housing 

options are exhausted. And in the case of manufactured homes, 

FEMA’s policy states that occupancy permits must be obtained and 

local zoning and building codes must be followed. 

As far as local building codes go, and zoning ordinances, many 

cities use zoning ordinances to restrict the placement of manufactured homes in good times, not only in disaster times, or to limit 

their placement to mobile home parks within those communities. 

Before the 2005 hurricanes, FEMA had most recently utilized large 

numbers of manufactured homes as emergency housing in the 

aftermath of the Florida hurricanes. FEMA’s method of operation 

there included the acquisition of large tracts of land, the development of streets, utilities, and other infrastructure, and the delivery 

of hundreds or even thousands of manufactured homes to centralized sites, which I believe Mr. Garratt called ‘‘group sites,’’ since 

known as ‘‘Charleyvilles’’ or ‘‘FEMA towns.’’ What had been envisioned as short-term emergency housing soon became longer-term 

housing solutions for displaced victims. 

FEMA’s requirements for the development of such ‘‘group sites’’ 

often recognize that the process does take time. As a matter of fact, 

a press release on FEMA’s website acknowledges such in saying, 

‘‘The creation of housing facilities is like building a small town 

from scratch. It may take months.’’

The scope and the nature of the development of such centralized 

sites, ‘‘group sites’’ as they have been called, often breeds public resistance, the ‘‘not-in-my-back-yard’’ syndrome, or NIMBY syndrome, and such public resistance only reinforces the prejudices inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:42 Aug 29, 2007 Jkt 028240 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\28240.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
35

herent to exclusive zoning ordinances that act as barriers to affordable housing. 

Our association would respectfully recommend that the Department of Housing and Urban Development, FEMA, and State and 

local governments review their existing policies, their guidelines, 

practices, and regulations with the intent of removing barriers that 

restrict affordable housing, especially in future disaster relief situations. 

We have talked a lot about the floodplain issue today. I think the 

floodplain issue has been a very convenient excuse for why these 

houses are sitting at Hope. Assertions that manufactured homes 

cannot be used in a floodplain can be refuted by FEMA’s own 

guidelines. FEMA Publication 85 consists of 247 pages about installing manufactured homes in floodplains, for placement there. 

Our organization applauds the efforts of Congressman Ross and 

Senator Pryor for the introduction of the Hope Housing Act of 

2006, and I understand it has been reintroduced, with a new bill 

number, a few days ago. Our organization respectfully encourages 

the immediate adoption of this much-needed legislation to provide 

assistance in hurricane areas. 

The use of the travel trailer program has also impacted the demand for manufactured homes. According, again, to Inspector General Skinner’s report from February, FEMA purchased 114,341 

travel trailers. Some 27,000 of those units were purchased off the 

lot from over 300 retail locations, in many cases without regard to 

construction specifications. Only, again, a very small percentage of 

the manufactured homes that were purchased were purchased from 

retailers, and those were held to exacting specifications by FEMA. 

Travel trailers, yes, are more easily transported and installed on 

temporary sites than manufactured homes, due to their size and 

their self-contained nature in relation to utilities. Such temporary 

placement of this emergency housing is often overlooked by local 

zoning and building code officials because they are seen as temporary. However, also due to their size, travel trailers are less suited for long-term habitation by families. And I am not aware of any 

installation guidelines for travel trailers in the floodplain from 

FEMA, or any construction standards, that would mirror the specifications that are set for the manufactured home industry. 

As far as our organization’s recommendations here, we would encourage FEMA to make better use of local resources, State governments, and State emergency management agencies to maintain 

open lines of communication with those entities and to identify potential sites, both group and individual sites, for the placement of 

temporary housing, access to transportation providers, qualified installers and other necessary technicians, and many resources that 

are here that could help facilitate a faster response. 

As far as the maintenance issue goes, our organization was deeply troubled by press accounts from Mr. Skinner’s previous testimony before this Committee which characterized the homes as 

sinking in mud, their frames bending, and being cannibalized for 

parts. 

We certainly applaud FEMA’s public affairs staff for opening the 

facility here to the interested media and quickly dispelling the 

myth that these homes have deteriorated to the point that they 

36

would be unusable even if they were able to be sent to the Gulf 

Coast. 

We understand that measures are being taken, as the Mayor 

talked about, to maybe look at a long-term facility here at Hope. 

And we certainly applaud that and fully support the idea of Hope 

being used as a permanent or semi-permanent distribution facility 

for FEMA aid. 

As far as the future use of those houses, that is probably our primary concern. We believe that if these homes are given the opportunity, they will fulfill the mission for which they were purchased, 

and that is temporary housing. 

We understand that a number of homes have been sent to Texas 

and Oklahoma for wildfire relief and that a number of homes are 

currently being sent to Marmaduke and to Fitzgerald Crossing in 

Cross County for relief from tornadoes that hit the State earlier 

this month. And I am certainly encouraged by Mr. Garratt’s testimony earlier today about the use of housing in other areas and 

other disasters, the 3,000/3,000/5,000 numbers that he gave. 

Our organization has asked our Congressional Delegation and 

our Governor’s office to seek an organized exit strategy for these 

houses here at Hope, including the following components: Expedited delivery of as many homes as possible to displaced residents 

in the affected areas of the Gulf Coast; the possibility for eligibility 

of temporary housing for displaced residents who choose to locate 

outside of the States immediately affected by last year’s hurricanes; 

maintenance of a manageable number of homes in FEMA inventory 

for future disaster use; and finally, plans for disbursement and disposal of excess inventory through the Federal Surplus Property 

system, with the highest priority being given to other public uses, 

including public health facilities, police and fire departments, affordable housing applications, and other uses for the public good. 

As far as deactivation and disposal, that is probably our highest 

concern, and biggest fear, in that growing public pressure and political pressure could result in a wholesale auction of homes here 

at pennies on the dollar to any willing buyer. We feel that would 

cripple an already struggling market for manufactured housing in 

Arkansas and the surrounding States. 

A number of concerns arise for us if FEMA decides to dispose of 

these homes in that manner through a GSA auction. And in no 

particular order, these things relate to: The licensing of sellers; the 

auction of homes in Arkansas are regulated under State authority; 

the homes have to be anchored and installed in Arkansas under a 

cooperative agreement with HUD; they are subject to warranty requirements; they are subject to sales tax; and they are subject to 

lien and titling issues. 

These issues would certainly complicate the disposal of these 

houses in an open-market auction in Arkansas. We fail, as an industry and as an organization, to see how the Federal Government, 

if it is unable to override local requirements in Louisiana and other 

affected areas, will be able to dismiss Arkansas laws and regulations related to the sale and auction of these homes in Arkansas. 

And in conclusion, we certainly appreciate your having the hearing here, and your consideration of these issues is very important 

to our industry. It is our sincere hope that the majority of the 

37

homes purchased by FEMA and the ones here at the Hope airport 

will be used to provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing for victims of last year’s storms and in future disasters. 

Again, we hope that all parties involved can learn from successes 

and failures experienced on all levels in this recovery effort. Our 

organization looks forward to being part of the solution. 

Madam Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement, and I 

will be glad to try to answer any questions that you or Senator 

Pryor may have to the best of my ability. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you, and thank you for your excellent 

testimony. I think your caution at the end about disposing of some 

of these manufactured homes is a really important one. Generally, 

the taxpayer recoups only pennies on the dollar when surplus property is sold, so it is not a very good deal from the taxpayers’ perspective. You have also raised a very important point about the 

fairness to the industry because of the economic impact of flooding 

the market with these manufactured homes and what the impact 

would be on the manufacturers who participated in good faith, and 

I think that is a good caution for all of us. 

I just have one question that I want to follow up with you on, 

and that is the unique specification that FEMA required for the 

manufactured homes. You mentioned the September 8, 2005, solicitation and that the specifications were different from models provided for the retail marketplace. Given that manufactured homes 

built for FEMA are designed only for temporary use, would commercially available manufactured homes be a suitable alternative 

to meeting housing needs in future disasters? I am curious why 

FEMA came up with a unique set of specifications when you have 

testified that there was an inventory already available. What is the 

issue, from your perspective? 

Mr. HARPER. And it would strictly be from my perspective. 

Chairman COLLINS. I understand. 

Mr. HARPER. Our product is built to a Federal standard set and 

maintained by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and within those standards there are thermal zones that 

are geographically scheduled across the country and wind standards, wind zones that are geographically scheduled, based on your 

proximity to the Gulf or to the Atlantic Ocean. 

In the requirements that FEMA set forth in the request on September 8, 2005, there were some enhancements as far as wind and 

thermal zones to make the houses—in my opinion this is what they 

might have been thinking—more suitable for placement within 

those areas, even though some of the areas where these houses 

would be placed were not in what HUD had designed as that specific thermal or wind zone, so there is a little bit of confusion—they 

are not exactly on the same page there, in my opinion. 

As far as amenities, I mean the houses that were built have no 

carpet throughout the unit, they are three bedrooms, one bath. 

They are something that you would not find in our market, something that we do not generally build, so of course, the factories had 

to go back and retool and get ready to do what they were able to 

do with these houses. But I do feel that existing inventory throughout the country could have been used—and again, in two instances 

we have been asked to survey for existing inventory. Oddly enough, 

38

the first two faxes, I believe, we got, or communications on that, 

had differing specifications that we were trying to find in retail inventory than what FEMA ended up ordering in the long run. 

So I do not think the communication was really there to locate 

the type of inventory needed. I do feel that something should be 

done in looking at using the existing inventory first, rather than 

purchasing new homes built to different specifications, and hopefully save money. 

Chairman COLLINS. Well, that is why we asked you about that. 

In a previous incarnation, in a previous job, I spent 5 years in 

State government, and I was responsible for not only the regulations, insurance, banking, and securities, but a host of licensing 

boards, including the Manufactured Housing Board of the State of 

Maine, so I am aware of the standards. It is odd to me that FEMA 

came up with different specifications when we already have a department of the Federal Government that issues standards for 

manufactured housing. It seems yet another example of the right 

hand not knowing what the left is doing, and it is something that 

FEMA should take a look at. 

Also, in general, when you require a manufacturer to retool, it 

costs money. Even if the product that you are producing is a lesser 

product, if you will, in terms of the amenities that are included, the 

retooling of the manufacturing process is expensive. Stopping a line 

and making the necessary conversions is expensive. I think these 

are issues that we need to communicate further with FEMA on, to 

see whether this is like the infamous chocolate chip cookie many 

years ago, where the government had specifications that greatly increased the cost and finally switched to buying off-the-shelf chocolate chip cookies and found that they served just fine and were a 

much more efficient and cheaper way of doing business. So thank 

you for your testimony on that. 

Mayor, just one question for you. I have read a couple of press 

stories that reported that FEMA was either unable or unwilling to 

accept manufactured homes that were delivered to Hope that were 

either damaged en route or did not meet specifications. I would certainly understand why FEMA would not want to take delivery of 

damaged homes or homes that did not meet the specifications, but 

these reports have also indicated that in some cases the manufactured homes were stored in rest areas or beside highways until repairs or alterations could be made, clearly not a good situation for 

the communities involved. Has this been a problem for your community? 

Mayor RAMSEY. That is a little bit out of my purview, but what 

I know about that, they would not accept them on the site until 

they are ‘‘mission ready.’’ And of course, some of these mobile 

homes came great distances, and coming down Interstates, they 

lost shingles and they lost siding, so it was the manufacturers that 

were basically leasing space from private individuals or companies 

to pre-stage these mobile homes to get them mission ready to accept them onto the site here at Hope. It sort of sprung up as a cottage industry, so to speak, for some of the landowners in about a 

50-mile radius of Hope. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. Senator Pryor. 

39

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Mayor, let me just say that I want 

to thank you for your public service, and I know that you have 

worked very hard, along with the City, to meet the needs of the 

Federal Government and FEMA, and you have accommodated 

them by modifying contracts and meeting them at odd hours and 

doing all the things that you have done, so we really appreciate 

that. And I know that the City of Hope and Hempstead County and 

its communities are very proud to help in the effort to bring relief 

to hurricane victims. 

And I also noticed, thanks to Mike Ross pointing out, a few faces 

in the crowd. Sheriff Jerry Crane has been here, County Judge 

Wallace Martin, and Supreme Court Justice Jim Gunter. And so 

we want to thank them for being here. And of course, Todd Burrow 

of the Hope Star, who kind of helped break this story statewide 

and nationally, I thank him for being here and covering this hearing as well. 

Let me ask, if I may, Mr. Harper, about the standby contracts? 

Does that ring a bell for you? Can you tell the Committee about 

standby contracts under the previous FEMA administration? 

Mr. HARPER. Probably a question that could have been addressed 

by Mr. Garratt as well, but it is our understanding from our member manufacturers that under a previous Administration, and previously under FEMA, standby contracts would be solicited prior to 

the hurricane season coming about, in that FEMA would say, 

‘‘These are the type of units we want built,’’ solicit the bids from 

the manufacturers, and hold those bids until such time as the 

homes were needed. 

Senator PRYOR. Is it your understanding that in these hurricanes 

last year there were brokers and third parties that were being used 

to do this purchasing? 

Mr. HARPER. It is my understanding that FEMA purchased the 

manufactured housing in two specific ways: Either directly from 

manufacturers or from the third parties that contracted with the 

manufacturers for the building of the homes. 

Senator PRYOR. And also, do you know, do you have any knowledge of how long the industry was given to try to get information 

back to FEMA or respond to requests for proposals? 

Mr. HARPER. The fax that I have that came from the FEMA purchasing office gave out the specifications for these homes on September 8, 2005, and required the bids to be back on September 9, 

2005. 

Senator PRYOR. Twenty-four hours? 

Mr. HARPER. Less than. 

Senator PRYOR. Let me ask, if I may, about the wind protection. 

I know that one of the FEMA requirements is to make these homes 

sturdier for wind protection. As I understand it, that is just a matter of adding straps or somehow in the manufacturing process just 

adding something fairly inexpensive to the homes. Is that right or 

not? 

Mr. HARPER. To a degree, Senator. There is a full section under 

the HUD standards that deals with wind storm protection. It deals 

with not only the way that the walls and floors are affixed to each 

other, but in certain zones it will also bring out different types of 

40

1Table 4 appears in the Appendix on page 74. 

exterior treatments, and also anchoring and installation requirements. 

Senator PRYOR. Scott MacConomy, please put up Table 4,1 which 

one of the previous witnesses had, and I am sure you saw it a few 

moments ago when they had this up. This is an estimated cost for 

the life cycle of a travel trailer. Now, I assume that travel trailer, 

is that a manufactured home or is that actually the trailer? That 

is the trailers, OK. Are these figures consistent with a mobile home 

in terms of how much it is to haul them and install them, how 

much it is to maintain a mobile home? 

Mr. HARPER. This is the first time that I saw these figures, Senator, and I think they came from the Inspector General’s office, so 

I think that question would probably be better posed to him. 

Senator PRYOR. And let me ask if you know this. When a typical 

consumer buys a mobile home, how much does it cost him to have 

it installed—and I am not talking about the travel because I understand that is going to be a per-mile charge, but to get the site 

prepped, how much does that actually cost? On average. And I 

know it is different, but on average. 

Mr. HARPER. It is different, based on different sites and based on 

different conditions and different types of financing that are going 

to be used. If the home is going to be permanently installed, with 

a permanent foundation, footings, and those sorts of things, but the 

average, industry average is going to run somewhere between 

$4,000 to $6,000. 

Senator PRYOR. Per unit? 

Mr. HARPER. Per unit. 

Senator PRYOR. All right. My last question is just a general mopup type question in that, you have sat through this entire hearing, 

heard a lot of things asked and heard a lot of things being said. 

Before we close here, is there anything you would like to address 

or you would like to follow up on or clarify from other witnesses’ 

testimony or maybe a question that we missed? 

Mr. HARPER. I tried to incorporate some of the things that I 

heard in the other witnesses’ testimony in my review or summary 

of my comments, and I think everything was pretty well covered, 

Senator. Again, I did touch on Mr. Garratt’s comments about site 

development, and I think that is something that certainly needs to 

be addressed in a disaster-preparedness mode. For instance, after 

the mass exodus of people from the hurricane areas came to Arkansas, we coordinated with the Governor’s office here under their 

Katrina Assistance Relief Effort, or KARE program. And we surveyed our members in the State to find available individual sites 

in manufactured home communities and parks and available inventory for purchase here. We felt that was a good step in our direction for helping on the local level. We feel that needs to be expanded to other States and other regions. In my conversations with 

my counterparts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, they feel 

the same, that there needs to be more coordination before the disaster in order to make a better response afterward. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

41

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. I want to thank this panel of 

witnesses for their help today, and I want to thank all of our witnesses for giving us a better understanding of the situation with 

temporary housing. Our intent is not only to find out what went 

wrong with the response to and recovery from Hurricane Katrina, 

but also to ensure that we can put in place the necessary reforms 

as we go forward with the 2006 hurricane season, or respond to 

other disasters, whether they are natural or man made. 

This represents the 22nd hearing that the Committee has held. 

It has been a very valuable hearing. Our Committee has heard 

from 85 witnesses. We have formally interviewed 320 other individuals, and we have reviewed some 820,000 pages of documents. This 

has been a very comprehensive investigation, and I think it is appropriate that our last hearing is not in Washington, DC, but rather out where we can talk to people who have taken in the victims 

of the storm and who are seeking to assist them. 

I very much appreciate all of the cooperation, and I am grateful 

to Senator Pryor for suggesting this hearing, and I really want to 

thank our hosts here at the University of Arkansas Community 

College at Hope for being so gracious and helping us meet all of 

our many needs today. Thank you again, very much. 

This has been my first visit to Arkansas, but I certainly hope 

that it will not be my last. How appropriate that my first visit is 

to a city called Hope. Thank you very much for your hospitality. 

The hearing record will be held open for 5 days for the submission 

of additional questions or statements or any other materials. Senator Pryor, do you have any concluding comments? 

Senator PRYOR. I do not, other than just to thank you again for 

being here and doing this hearing here. It means a lot to the folks 

in Hope, and hopefully it will help us be more prepared. Thank 

you. 

Chairman COLLINS. Thank you. This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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72


28240.030
73


28240.031
74


28240.032
75


28240.033
76


28240.034
77


28240.035
78


28240.036
79


28240.037
80


28240.038
81


28240.039
82


28240.040
83


28240.041
84


28240.042
85


28240.043
86


28240.044
87


28240.045
88


28240.046
89


28240.047
90


28240.048
91


28240.049
92


28240.050
93


28240.051
94


28240.052
95

Æ


28240.053