HOPE, Ark.—The 146 acres leased by FEMA at the city airport for $25,000 a month to store trailers for victims of natural disasters isn’t enough to meet the agency’s needs, so the city board has approved rental of another 85 acres for an additional $5,000 monthly.

“It has gotten sort of like one of those little games where you can’t move one square without moving another,” City Manager Catherine Cook told the board at a meeting Tuesday. “And, they’re running out of slots.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has leased space next to the airport’s main runway to store about 10,000 trailers since the fall of 2005, after New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Some of the trailers have since been shipped to other areas hit by disasters, including the sites of several tornadoes in Arkansas.

Cook said FEMA officials told her recently that the massive inventory of mobile homes and travel trailers is becoming difficult to manage without additional space. In addition to storage of trailers before they are provided to disaster victims, the airport staging area is being used to recondition some trailers after those victims move into other housing.

The agency also asked to extend its lease on the 146 acres ahead of the scheduled October, 2009, renewal date. That extension was approved at Tuesday’s meeting, along with the lease of the additional 85 acres.

City Attorney Joe Short wanted to know if FEMA intended to improve the new 85-acre portion of the leasehold as it has done on the original 146 acres.

“Are they going to put down any gravel or make any improvements?” he asked.

Cook said no improvements were planned for the additional 85 acres, since it will only be used to provide transit staging. She said the agency will be required to use existing roadways to get trailers to and from the staging area.