City Receives FEMA Trailers for Aid in COVID-19 Crisis

As many as 50 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailers have been placed in the Rose Bowl parking lot.

Responding to posts on the Nextdoor site, City Manager Steve Mermell said that the trailers are currently not in use.

“The city obtained them from FEMA to be used as needed during this crisis,” Mermell said. “No particular use has been determined and they are currently empty.”

According to Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian, the FEMA trailers will used at the discretion of public safety.

Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would use $50 million of a $150 Coronavirus emergency funding package to buy 1,309 travel trailers and deliver them to cities across the state.

The money was also used to lease rooms in hotels, motels, and other facilities in partnership with counties and cities to provide immediate isolation placements throughout the state for homeless individuals.

“The state is immediately procuring 1,309 travel trailers from FEMA and private vendors to provide quarantine capacity – moving people out of shelters and into isolation placements, focused on people with COVID-19 or those demonstrating symptoms,” Newsom said in a prepared statement. “The purposes of this emergency protective measure is to protect healthy people in those facilities and create capacity in the existing shelter network.”

The state is also sending nearly 80 trailers to Orange County to help house homeless people who need to be quarantined away from shelters during the pandemic. Thirty-nine of the single-occupancy RVs will go to Anaheim, while 22 will be in Santa Ana.

Several stadiums across the country are being used to help combat the spread of the virus. Last week Derderian told Pasadena Now that the Rose Bowl could be used as a testing center.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on Monday on a motion that would transform the Convention Center into an alternative care facility if the number of infected patients surges.

According to Huntington Hospital, projections show that at the peak of the outbreak, currently estimated for mid-May, there could be as many as 1,300 persons requiring hospitalization at for treatment of the virus. If that projection holds true, the peak numbers would exceed hospital capacity by approximately 400 beds.