Mobile home park gives weather radios to its owners Saturday

EVANSVILLE – The owners of a southwestern Indiana mobile home park have given each of its 120 residents weather radios to help give them adequate warning in the event of an approaching tornado like one that killed 20 people at another trailer park.\nThe radios, which cost a total of $3,600, were handed out along with packets of emergency information and tornado tips Saturday to residents of the Wells Town and Country Estates Mobile Home Park in Evansville.\n“It’s a big investment for us, but we wanted to do something for our folks who live here,” said manager Harry Wells, who also lives there. “We’re a small community, and some folks have lived here for 30 years. They’re like family to us.”\nWells’ wife thought of handing out radios after the Nov. 6, 2005, tornado that devastated another Evansville mobile home park and killed a total of 24 people in the area.\nThe disaster also inspired state legislation to require emergency weather radios to be installed in most mobile homes. Proponents said weather radios could alert residents and give them time to seek shelter in case of a tornado.\nThat bill passed the Indiana House last week and next goes before the state Senate.\nThe German Township Fire Department helped distribute the radios Saturday. The rest of the radios were to be delivered Sunday to those who were unable to pick them up.\nWells said he hoped other mobile home parks followed his example.\n“I can’t say that they should, but if this makes them aware of it and decide to do it, I think it’d be a great thing,” he said. “We want to be proactive, and this is our way of doing that.”