Delta Regional Authority

 

 May 18, 2009
    
 
 LITTLE ROCK — A stockpile of mobile homes and travel trailers at the Hope airport, originally destined for Gulf Coast hurricane survivors in 2005, is scheduled to shrink in the next two years, and so will the revenue it brings to the southwest Arkansas town.

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to reduce by two-thirds the amount of land it rents at the Hope site by 2011 as it cuts back on its supply of modular units,city officials have been told.

 

That means the federal government’s payments to the Hempstead County city will drop, along with the number of federal jobs and industry associated with the operation, city officials said.

 

“We’ll have less revenue to work with,” Mayor Dennis Ramsey said of airport funds. “But it’ll be - up until Katrina - still more revenue than we ever had on a monthly basis.”

 

He’s referring to money exclusively for the airport.

Money generated at the airport can only be used for airport operations and improvements, so FEMA’s downsizing will have no impact on city services, the mayor said.

 

An agreement with the U.S. Army, which gave the air field to the city in the 1940s, bans the city from using airport funds on anything else.

 

To date, FEMA has paid the city about $1.1 million to lease the land.

The monthly rate has gone from $25,000 to just under $30,000 as the agency in 2008 increased the amount of land it leases. The mayor said he expects that to drop to around $5,000 a month when the new lease takes effect in 2011.

FEMA stores a combination of units - mobile homes and the smaller travel trailers designed for short-term shelter.

About 20,000 units remain at the Hope Municipal Airport, which locals describe as one of the world’s largest trailer parks, visible by aircraft from 50 miles out of town.

 

The units became a symbol of the government’s much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina as so many sat unused at sites in southern states while displaced storm survivors waited for shelter.

 

FEMA spent some $2.7 billion for roughly 145,000 units after the storms, then had trouble finding suitable sites because under federal law, the units may not be set up in flood plains. Then concerns over formaldehyde levels surfaced, which limited their distribution.

 

Later, though, units stored at Hope were dispatched to disasters in Arkansas and elsewhere, while others were donated or sold as scraps.

 

“I’ve always been up front that economically ... it’s been good,” Ramsey said. “Talking to me as a taxpayer, that’s a totally different story.”

 

FEMA spends roughly $133 million a year to store the inventory of about 120,000 “excess” manufactured housing units.

Currently, some 800 are being trucked to tribal governments as part of the federal government’s plan to offload the excess, city officials said.

 

It’s unclear whether FEMA will pull out of Hope completely in coming years. FEMA officials declined to speculate.

“What we’re doing right now is considering which sites to retain as we make our plans for current and future readiness,” said Earl Armstrong, a FEMA spokesman in Denton, Texas.

 

The city has contingency plans for the property after the federal money is gone for good.

The property is prime for aviation and other industry, said Wesley Woodard, president of the Hempstead County Economic Development Corp.

 

“FEMA has come in and installed industrial roads, utilities, water, electricity,” he said. “Things like that are the building foundations for an industrial-type area.”

 

No prospective companies are lined up waiting for the trailers to leave, but the city is readying itself just in case, Woodard said.

 

“Right now, we consider FEMA an industry,” Woodard said. “You’ve got to have a plan in place in case they go away.”

And with about $750,000 of the FEMA money in the bank, the city plans to continue with major improvements at the World War IIera airfield, including redoing the main runway.

 

“That could easily be over a $1 million,” said airport manager Paul Henley. Without the FEMA funds to help match federal and state grant money, that project would likely be out of the question.

 

The FEMA money is by the far the biggest source of revenue at the city-run general aviation airport that sees around 20,500 takeoffs and landings a year.

 

Already, the city has made improvements that would have been impossible without it, Henley said.

Projects completed with help of the FEMA money include parallel taxiways, a new runway lighting system, perimeter fencing, and roof and window work on hangars and offices. The finishing touches on a major overhaul of terminal and office space that includes the addition of central heat and air, restrooms, a security area and other amenities should be done this month.

 

“For 20 years we’ve been talking about how wonderful our airport is,” Henley said. “And we never dreamed that FEMA would basically be that industry.”