Hewes wants to send unoccupied FEMA trailers to Haiti - State - SunHerald.com
Hewes wants to send unoccupied FEMA trailers to Haiti
By MICHAEL NEWSOM
GULFPORT — State Sen. Billy Hewes III wants to send unoccupied FEMA trailers from Mississippi to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, which is believed to have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced many more.
That was just one local development Friday related to earthquake relief. A South Mississippi man also is heading to Haiti to help make water-related repairs, and an international group is asking locals for supplies that can be sent to the country.
Hewes, R-Gulfport, said Friday he was working with government officials to get the trailer plan moving. State officials have determined the decision rests with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which owns the trailers. Hewes notes tens of thousands of Mississippians lived in temporary housing after Hurricane Katrina, so they understand the need in Haiti.
“If they’re being staged in Mississippi and there is no apparent use for them, there’s a great need for them down in Haiti and there’s no need for them to sit here in Mississippi,” Hewes said.
“Nobody understands that better than folks who have lived through it.”
President Barack Obama has pledged $100 million in relief and thousands of soldiers to help in the aftermath of the quake. Preliminary estimates from disaster experts at the United Nations are that at least 10 percent of the housing in and around Port Au Prince was destroyed, which may leave more than 300,000 homeless.
Gov. Haley Barbour’s Press Secretary Dan Turner said Friday that, at one time, Mississippi had about 40,000 FEMA trailers, but is now down to less than 170 occupied in Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties. There are a couple of storage sites for FEMA trailers in the state, Turner said. A FEMA spokesman in Biloxi referred questions about the number of available trailers in Mississippi and other issues to FEMA’s Washington office, but calls there were not returned Friday afternoon.
Turner as well as officials with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said the state doesn’t have any authority in the matter because the trailers belong to FEMA.
Hewes spoke with officials from the Port of Gulfport, who are planning to send supplies to Haiti. Port officials are also looking into helping transport the trailers if they are released by the federal agency. Hewes said one of the container companies at the Port of Gulfport, Crowley, has facilities in Haiti. That may make it possible to ship them from Gulfport. But Haiti’s main ship port is reported to have sustained heavy damage from the earthquake, Hewes said.
He said it might be possible to put a few trailers in military cargo planes.
