FEMA City

Last year, FEMA set up emergency shelter in a meadow for fifteen hundred people left homeless by Hurricane Charley. The little town of 500 trailers is now a ghetto. Bradenton Herald:

[D]rug use, vandalism, break-ins and fights are widespread. Young people regularly call FEMA City a prison.

The troubles got so bad in the spring that the entire camp was fenced in, a county police substation was set up, and armed security guards were stationed at the one point where residents were allowed to enter and exit. (Emphasis added.)

The director of recovery for Charlotte County told the paper, “[T]his is my advice to New Orleans and the other Gulf Coast towns: Don't make big camps with thousands of people, because it doesn't work. It takes a bad situation and, for many people, actually makes it worse.”

The plan for Katrina: 125,000 trailers.

Update—Credit: Marginal Revolution.