National Briefing | South: Arkansas: FEMA Trailers for Tornado Victims

Some of the thousands of trailers sitting unused since they were bought by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2005 for Gulf Coast hurricane victims may finally be put to use: to help victims of last week’s tornadoes, officials said. Some members of Congress have accused FEMA of playing down the danger of possible formaldehyde contamination in the trailers, 7,200 of which are stored at the Hope airport, but an agency spokesman said the trailers were safe. The decision to use some of the trailers for Arkansas and Tennessee twister victims comes after requests by state officials and members of Arkansas’s Congressional delegation, who have criticized the trailers in the past as a sign of federal ineptitude after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. David Maxwell, head of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said the number of trailers released would depend on the number of people who called FEMA and requested help, as opposed to simply releasing a blanket number.