Hit The Road, FEMA

Biloxi, Mississippi -- Six months post Katrina

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency today announced mandatory evacuations in Hancock and Harrison counties beginning tomorrow morning at eight for all residents still living in FEMA trailers after their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. This mandatory evacuation is in anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Gustav. Mississippi National Guard soldiers are going door-to-door warning people of tomorrow's evacuation. Someone in authority, it seems, has figured out that in addition to not being safe under any circumstances, the FEMA trailers will definitely not withstand a hurricane of significant size.

For some FEMA trailer residents this mandatory evacuation probably comes as good news. It gets them out of those potentially lethal trailers and their toxic, deadly gases. And then comes the horrific reality that they will either have to return to them because that's all they have or they will once again become homeless after the anticipated ravaging of Gustav. Either way the residents of the Gulf Coast continue living at the mercy of FEMA and this country's unbelievable lack of response to its own.