Would you buy a used Trailer from these guys?

FEMA issued a press release Thursday April 26.

In it FEMA set a deadline for vacating trailers of April 1, 2009 (it was August 29 2007 or two years after Katrina) or residents must pay rent, beginning at $50/month and rising each month.

The most important announcement however, was that you can now purchase your trailer from FEMA, at a fair and equitable price (whatever that means).

Of course FEMA has previously told people who asked about purchasing their trailers that they could buy a trailer, but not their trailer. Their trailer would have to be returned to a trailer depot and refurbished then put up for auction, where anyone could purchase it. A typically bureaucratic response, adding stupidity to the process to prevent someone for taking advantage of the government. Rather that selling someone a trailer they were familiar with in a location convenient to them, FEMA wanted to pay a contractor to disconnect the trailer, haul it to a refurbishment center, pay for inspection and refurbishment finally advertise an auction and sell it to the lowest bidder, probably for less than to cost to haul it all over the country and probably get less than it former resident would have happily paid.

I've grown kind of fond of mine. It might make a sort of guest house but, I certainly don't want to leave it in my back yard, it doesn't match the decor.


One thought was to make it a weekend camp somewhere. In fact the idea of a cooperative Blogger Katrinaville in the country has some appeal. It could be a sort of permanent memorial refugee camp. Ready to receive its residents whenever New Orleans is threatened. Of course we'd have to restrict residents to the "right kind of people".


But then again it might become a sort of eco-community, I have long wanted to experiment with a truly off the grid installation. Trailers are remarkably frugal with energy usage. A single 30 amp 120v circuit powers the trailer and it is only really needed if you run the Air Conditioning. A 4KW wind turbine could easily power a single trailer. A 10KW could probably power three or maybe even four, if there were enough diversity. A 50 KW could probably power 20 at a time.

Anyone want to sign up?