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FEMA Closes 6 Trailer Parks

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The Associated Press

Published: June 1, 2008

BAKER, La. - Cleveland Stampley grinned as he locked the door to his FEMA trailer one last time. Out front, a case worker's pickup waited to take him to his new home at a nearby apartment complex.

"Hope I ain't got to come back here for nothing else," said Stampley, 59, as he carried one last load to the truck.

Stampley was among the last Louisiana residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 being moved from the state's remaining six trailer parks managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
FEMA planned to close all six by today - the official start of hurricane season - but said it would take a few more days to move everyone into apartments or motels.

The last FEMA-managed trailer park in Mississippi closed in May. By Saturday, the state still had eight group sites for mobile homes open.

As of Saturday, only about 350 of the state's 15,912 FEMA trailers or mobile homes were in trailer parks, said spokesman Andrew Thomas. Thousands of people still live in trailers on private property, generally in front of hurricane-damaged homes they're fixing up or on lots they're rebuilding. In those cases, FEMA is helping municipalities in their efforts to get rid of the trailers.

There's a sense of urgency, underscored by Saturday's FEMA deadline for its parks. One reason is that tests of hundreds of trailers found high levels of formaldehyde, a preservative commonly used in building materials that can cause breathing problems and is classified as a carcinogen.

Stampley blames formaldehyde for aggravating his asthma and bronchitis. "The symptoms got worse after I moved here," he said.

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