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What to do with 100,000 trailers that you probably will never use, but cost millions to hang on to? After the Katrina disaster had settled down, FEMA tried selling them as surplus, and plenty of folks came and bought -- to the tune of $3 billion for both trailers and mobile homes. But as the health issues associated with formaldehyde contamination took on giant proportions, the agency felt it wiser to stop the surplus sales and sit tight. They've been sitting tight ever since. According to a story developed by National Public Radio (NPR), FEMA's man on the ground for the tricky storage and disposal issue is Mike Miller. Miller oversees the agency's custody of its trailers in Mississippi. He told NPR, "We got folks, hundreds of folks that are calling us wanting us to buy these units. And over the months, probably thousands of folks," he says. "We had one gentleman come in. He wanted to buy 10,000." So why hasn't the agency taken up the offer? "What we don't want to do is provide travel trailers that have high formaldehyde values and sell that to somebody who may end up living in that unit. We've decided that we're not going to take that chance," says David Garrett, FEMA's deputy assistant administrator for disaster assistance. "We think the safest thing to do is to dispose of these things in a way that may not be a danger to anybody in the future."  Maybe the answer would be to test the units and sell those with low levels of formaldehyde. Garrett says that's one possibility. But from the looks of things, the jokes made to Mike Miller are probably closer to reality than the thought of some other kind of disposal: "Take them to Mexico and use them to build a border fence!"Sad to say, like the tons and tons of ice that FEMA bought and never utilized, the 100,000 RVs bought for hurricane victims will probably wind up in a similar fashion: A   bureaucratic meltdown. Top of Page Get your FREE RV Travel Newsletter every week - sign up now.
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