Hope Field FEMA Trailer Yard, Arkansas

The municipal airport near the town of Hope became one of the largest FEMA trailer storage and staging areas in the country after Hurricane Katrina, and other southern disasters, including the FEMA trailers themselves. Following the hurricanes of 2005, FEMA ordered 145,000 manufactured homes and trailers from manufactures across the nation, at a cost of more than $2.7 billion. Most were delivered and deployed, but many tens of thousands of nearly identical and brand-new trailers remained at storage yards, the largest of which were in Purvis, Mississippi, and Hope, Arkansas, unable to be delivered due to concerns about formaldehyde. Of the ones that were deployed, after the allowed period of use in the field, they were taken back by FEMA, and they too were stored, and auctioned off, sometimes in lots of 10,000 at a time. On one sale day January 29, 2010, more than 100,000 units were sold for $133 million, 7% of the price paid.