Date: July 22, 2006 7:12:18 AM PDT
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: OUR POLICE STATE: FEMA muzzling La. trailer-park residents]
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Date: 2006/07/21 Fri PM 03:30:15 CDT
FEMA muzzling La. trailer-park residents
By The Associated Press
07.20.06
MORGAN CITY, La. - Residents of trailer parks set up by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to house hurricane victims in Louisiana
aren't allowed to talk to the press without an official escort, The
(Baton Rouge) Advocate reported.
In one instance, a security guard ordered an Advocate reporter out of a
trailer during an interview in Morgan City. Similar FEMA rules were
enforced in Davant, in Plaquemines Parish.
FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Rodi wouldn't say whether the security guards'
actions complied with FEMA policy, saying the matter was being
reviewed. But she confirmed that FEMA does not allow the news media to
speak alone to residents in their trailers.
"If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be
escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview," Rodi
told the newspaper for its July 15 report. "That's just a policy."
Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press, said FEMA's refusal to allow trailer-park
residents to invite news media into their homes unescorted was
unconstitutional.
Morgan City Mayor Timothy Matte told The Advocate that he was surprised
residents were being barred from talking to reporters.
"I would think anyone who lives there would be allowed to have any
visitor they wanted," he said.
FEMA leases the land for the trailer park from the city, Matte said.
"It's public property. There's no question about that. You would think
the people would have the same freedom there as everyone else has," he
told the newspaper.
Hundreds of trailers at FEMA parks sit empty and unused in Louisiana,
according to The Advocate.
Officials in Morgan City estimate that FEMA has spent about $7.5
million to build the trailer park but that only about 15 of the 198
trailers are being used.
"We all wonder why no one lives there," Matte said.
FEMA officials refuse to say how much was spent to build the park or
why 183 of the trailers are vacant.
"We're not going to talk about cost," Rodi told the newspaper.
As in Morgan City, the 334-trailer FEMA park in Davant in Plaquemines
Parish is greatly underused.
The north side of the park is empty, and 92 families live in the south
side, Rodi said, adding that the empty trailers would be removed.
"We put them there at the parish's request," she said. "Now we've found
that the need is not as great there or that people don't want to live
there."
The trailers are going to be put on private property or in private
parks in the parish as needed, Rodi said. She refused to disclose how
much the park cost to build.
Meanwhile, Plaquemines Parish President Benny Rousselle blamed FEMA, in
part, for the slow return of residents to the parish.
Rousselle said FEMA knows where many evacuees relocated after the storm
but won't give that information to parish officials.
"FEMA told us because of privacy issues, they can't give us the
addresses of our residents who are spread out in all 50 states. And no
one but FEMA has that information," Rousselle said. "If we could
contact them, I think a lot of them would come back if they knew we had
places for them to live."
