Send FEMA units to Haiti
Fri Jan 15, 2010
Author: Greg Gerber
Source: RV Daily Report
One of the best ideas I have heard lately was submitted as a comment to an article we posted recently about the federal government auctioning off more than 100,000 travel trailers and park models this month. The reader suggested that, instead of flooding our market with cheap trailers, the government should send all the old FEMA units to Haiti where they can be used immediately as they were intended -- as temporary emergency shelters.
The Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper reported Jan. 13 that the largest bid submitted so far for a lot of 15,000 units was $106.84 per unit. Surely the federal government can find a better way to use a $25,000 travel trailer than by letting it sit on a lot for five years and then selling it for a hundred bucks. There are likely a few people in Haiti willing to pay $110 for a place to live for the next six to 12 months.
In Haiti, a 7.0 earthquake earlier this week destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes. Shipping the unused and used FEMA units to a country a few hundred miles from Florida sounds like a great way to dispose of the problem and create a blessing to desperate people, who probably don't have lawyers waiving hundred dollar bills looking for victims living in "formaldehyde infested" free housing.
My guess is that those folks would be happy to get one of the units maligned by the American media and a handful of trolling attorneys as "dangerous." If the units are so dangerous, what is the federal government doing selling them? And if they can be sold, they can be used. So let's put them to good use.
Working in cooperation with a few shipping firms, the U.S. government could have thousands of emergency shelters delivered to Haiti within 24 to 48 hours, if we could only get politicians to stop pointing fingers long enough to agree upon a real solution to a real problem.
Yet, here we are again. A major natural disaster has impacted a huge number of people desperate for food, water and shelter. And our government is once again debating the "best way to respond." If only American Idol hadn't started this week, perhaps we could rush aid to the devastated area.
When I was in the Air Force, I was stationed at Holloman AFB, N.M., which was home at the time to the 4449th Mobility Support Squadron. The unit managed a huge inventory of food, equipment and supplies which could be shipped anywhere in the world and erected as a working Air Force base within 48 hours. Once the alarm sounded, a fleet of cargo jets would arrive where they would be loaded with dozens of pallets and sent wherever needed. If necessary, the first plane would leave within two hours.
Recognizing the fact that natural disasters take place every year throughout the globe, I can't think of a better way for the United States to respond to these emergencies than by preparing in advance to do so. Rather than waiting for a disaster to happen and then figure out the "best way to respond," why can't we create a similar emergency response squadron to handle civilian emergencies?
I'd even bet that there are a number of companies in our industry that would be delighted to create lightweight emergency shelters that can be easily stored and easily transported. If the Obama administration were genuinely serious about spending "stimulus" money, here's one way to put an entire industry back to work quickly.
