While the Federal Emergency Management Agency does not yet have any firm number of long-term refugees created by the storm, it is preparing to house 200,000 households for as long as five years, FEMA's housing area commander Brad Gair said.

"We're planning for having to take care of a significant number of people right now for three to five years, until someone can give us some better information," Gair told reporters in the Louisiana capital of Baton Rouge.

Most of the long-term displaced victims of the killer storm that ravaged the US Gulf Coast two weeks ago are from Louisiana, where more than 450,000 people fled now-flooded New Orleans before or soon after the disaster, he said.

The remainder are from the stricken states of Mississippi and Alabama, where Katrina turned kilometers (miles) of once-scenic coastal towns into matchwood.

"For planning purposes, we are using approximately 300,000 families or households that we are starting to make some sort of provision for across the three states, with the bulk of them being here in Louisiana," Gair said.

Of those 300,000, however, around 100,000 are likely in a position to make their own arrangements and will not have to rely on the US government to support them, he said.

"Housing is a big issue on this disaster," Gair said. "Long after the flood waters recede housing is still going to be a big issue," he said.

About one million people were displaced by the storm.

"It's clearly going to be the most expensive housing operation we've ever taken part in, but as to the price tag, I don't know," he said.

Louisiana, hardest hit in terms of the human exodus, faced an enormous challenge as it called for federal help in bringing its citizens, spread out in shelters across 10 states, to temporary accommodations back home.

"We are talking about bringing hundreds of thousands of people back to Louisiana and trying to find some place to provide housing for them for as long as it takes for New Orleans to be repopulated," Gair said.

A day after FEMA came under fire from the Louisiana state government for failing to move fast enough to enable hundreds of thousands of evacuees to leave emergency shelters across the United States, the agency said it was mobilising a flotilla of trailers and mobile homes.

"Travel trailers and mobile homes remain the first line of defence because they are readily available and quick to set up."

"We now have 6,000 already in the state (Louisiana) and hundreds more are coming every day," he said, adding that the next challenge was to find sites to place the homes and to get electricity and plumbing to them.

He said another 100,000 or so trailers were on order. "When they asked me how many (we needed), I said we may need all the trailers in the western hemisphere," Gair said.

Officials are seeking sites that can house up to 15,000 homes and trailers at a time, and are looking at state parks, abandoned apartment buildings and housing projects as well as at smaller land parcels.

"This is going to be a very, very difficult process," Gair warned. "It's important to bring people back to Louisiana, but we don't want to overburden the state."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

Related Links
TerraDaily
Search TerraDaily
Subscribe To TerraDaily Express

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only