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FEMA puts mobile home sites on hold
With thousands of Galveston County residents living in motels after being displaced by Hurricane Ike, federal authorities confirmed two of the county’s planned community mobile home sites likely won’t be built because the demand just isn’t there. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials had planned to place as many as 400 mobile homes on four sites in the county. However, the number of eligible heads of household who have said they are willing to move into a FEMA mobile home community is 116, according to figures released Thursday. Because of the apparent lack of demand, FEMA is holding off on construction of the Edgewater site in Bacliff, on property that once was a red fish farm, as well as the site near the Galveston County Justice Center on Broadway in Galveston, said Stephen M. De Blasio Sr., the agency’s federal coordinating officer for Hurricane Ike. FEMA instead will focus on building out the community site dubbed Schreiber Field near Scholes International Airport and a smaller one at High Island on the Bolivar Peninsula. De Blasio said the agency will have several smaller sites where two to five temporary homes could be placed. There are about 24 “identified” sites on Galveston Island that could be used as the smaller mobile home sites, said Gerard M. Stolar, the agency’s Galveston Branch director. Those are in addition to the 508 trailers placed on the homesites of Hurricane Ike victims. The revelation that the agency is lowering its expectations for community site efforts came after FEMA started conducting reality check calls to those eligible for mobile homes. For example, while saying for two months — and as recently as a week ago — that 47 heads of households were eligible and wanted to move into a mobile home community in Bacliff, FEMA dropped that number drastically. On Wednesday, Dave Parks, who oversees the county’s mobile home sites, told county commissioners seven applicants said they would move into the mobile home site in Bacliff. When County Commissioner Patrick Doyle asked why the number dropped so much, Parks said he didn’t know. De Blasio said those numbers were the agency’s best estimates. “We never had 47 (at the Bacliff site),” he said. “It was never that number.” The numbers FEMA had been using were individuals coded within FEMA’s system as eligible for mobile home communities and considered “likely” candidates for living in mobile homes. But the numbers don’t get firm until construction of a community site is about to start, De Blasio said. That’s when calls to those who are on the list for a community site are made and they asked, “Do you really, really want to live in a trailer?” he said. When that question was asked of those eligible for living at the Bacliff site, the applicants willing to move into a mobile home at a community site actually dropped to three. That low interest is what convinced FEMA to put the Bacliff site on hold. That may be good news for residents of the neighboring Chase Park Subdivision, who have led a protest effort against the Bacliff site. However, because FEMA is far enough along with its design and construction plans, should the need increase, it could quickly have the site up and running, Stolar said. The same goes for the Broadway site. +++ Mobile Home Demand Likely to be constructed — Demand Schreiber Field in Galveston — 100-plus High Island — 13 On Hold — Demand Edgewater in Bacliff — 3 Justice Center West — 0 Mobile homes on private sites City of Galveston — 162 Rest of Galveston County — 346 SOURCE: FEMA Galveston Branch http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e00ccdaf699b1979 |
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