Lesson: Work for FEMA, Don't Get Helped by It

The sad comedy-drama of the FEMA trailers sent to the Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Mississippi alike, just got a new chapter. These trailers, which have been home to hurricane and flood victims for a year and a half now in thousands of cases, have been long since known not to have been put through the "curing" process (due to rushed FEMA orders) that ventilates out the toxic formaldehyde fumes. This year, FEMA had finally agreed to have the trailers tested for the fumes, although the testing, by the Centers for Disease Control, has been repeatedly postponed.

Friday's Washington Post, following up a report by CBS, adds the latest twist: FEMA prohibits its own employees from entering the same trailers in agency storage. But, lest you think that's a double standard, FEMA head David Paulison demurs:

Paulison said there is no double standard for Katrina survivors and FEMA employees. Instead, he said, the difference is between trailers that have been aired out by occupants and those sealed in storage. A new FEMA memo states that the latter be ventilated by forced-air pump for 30 minutes before any entry by workers, Knocke said.

"Aired out by occupants"? Herein may lie a clue to the postponements. Testing the trailers in the heat midsummer, when the vehicles' windows are shut and the AC is on, might result in higher, even dangerous, levels of the noxious fumes than after Thanksgiving, when trailer inhabitants may actually have had the windows open for a few weeks. Never too late to let the evidence blow away.

Comments

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

I sold these trailers for years and my family had a dealership for 46...

About half we ordered, came in with this formaldehyde. It was so bad sometimes, you could not walk in and breathe...Your eyes immediately teared up and one could not stay in it for more than a min...The parents would get very upset if they went in and discovered this, and their children were there with them...
One would never know which trailer had this and which ones did not, so it was a drawing of straws..
This usually happened to the cheaper trailers...The cheaper the trailer, the worse it got.
These trailers are built differently, than one and other...
The Katrina people got the bottom of the barrel..We would refer to those type of trailers as "throw aways" because they would last maybe 2-3 years and would be worth nothing in a trade, because of their inferior construction...Junk and no insulation...Leaks, pipes were not fit....These are more of a pain for the owners then they are worth, trust me....Compare them to Pintos back in the early 70's...Cheap and non functional.
I feel sorry for the people being forced to live in them....They must think it is the government poisoning them.
They would be right, but not directly...They have no oversight for these Mfrs.
We would call these Mfrs and ask them what is the problem? We would be told to air them out and open windows...We were told it is all the chemical compounds from the furniture, carpet and building materials coming together and making a noxious fume...
It was horrible....

cont below:

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

It took a month or two to go away, but anyone who had to live in there during that time was
under great poison.
I am so shocked that these trailers were not tested for these "fulltimers".
Although the trailers were bought by the federal government, I believe it is these companies that should be held responsible....
This has gone on for years and several hundred dealers were complaining about this....
These Mfrs are so big, and worth so much money...They should be made to pay.
I feel it is there responsibility.....The government bought these trailers in good faith, I believe....We can not fault them.
The blame must be placed on the Mfrs, they knew what was in their trailer and they sold them anyways at a profit of about $7000.00 each.
This would be a dynamic class action law suit....Many hundreds from around the country would join, Im sure.

[KarenZipdrive]

New Orleans is one of America's most historically significant cities. For many of us in the Southwest, it's been our preferred vacation destination.
The idea that the Bush administration has fucked up its restoration IN EVERY CAPACITY is revolting.
With the money Bush has borrowed to fuck up things in Iraq, those funds could have been used to make NOLA America's greenest, most beautiful gateway to the future.
Alas, a lot of black people live in that region and Bush doesn't give a damn what happens to people who didn't vote for him.
FEMA is a joke and the Corps of Engineers is led by more of Bush's imbecilic toadies.
Any remaining Republican leaders with skills or abilities and a true willingness to act on behalf of The People of NOLA wouldn't be caught dead serving the Bush administration because it's a resume killer. Observe Colin Powell's meteoric crash to oblivion.
The fine people of New Orleans and the region will have to wait until a Democratic president and cabinet are put into place before they can expect any results.
Al Gore would have had this shit cleaned up by now, and the region would have had the levees and protection they need to survive the next Katrina.
I wish Bush and his family were condemned to live in a FEMA trailer for the rest of their lives.

[Mariel]

Yes of course! I have to wait a few weeks for a new car to be "cured" of the "new car smell", which is toxic.
Rather than do this I buy a car which is not new. If the car is sprayed with "freshener", it's a dead car to me. I had to sell such a car.

I was half ruined by FEMA in the Los Alamos fire of May 2000. They treated me and my husband like the poor slobs in Louisiana. We had enough money to be out of town for two years, as recommended by my doctors, (toxic smoke in what was left of our house, plus in the general environment). But we spent our disposable money doing this, and FEMA did not settle for two and a half years, ruining us in a "housing bubble". (The gov't started our fire in Bandelier and it spread into our town at 60 miles an hour. There is another controlled burn there now, as I write today).

We had FEMA trailers here too. I knew the formaldehyde would have me in constant "attack" so didn't even sniff one out. And got blamed by the gov't for taking my illness too seriously. Some people made out on government compensation; others got blamed for being who they were.

[ibsteve2u]

Lighten up! Is it FEMA's fault those Katrina victims don't have enough money to matter to Bush?

[WigWamWag]

It would have been so much saner if all those crazy NOLA residents has just chosen not to live there in a geographically hazardous area. This point can not be under emphasized.

It is they who should bear the weight of their own faulty decision making.

It is they the insane NOLA residents that have often refused to come to terms with accepting responsibility for their own actions.

Since they have little backbones they blame everyone else including the government for their personal shortcomings.

[marymac]

My parents lost their home on the 17th Street canal. They are in their 80's. They are part of a class action suit against the ACOE.

The army corp of engineers is still doing a rotten job.

[WIpatriot]

The truth is that this administration has done so many things incompetently/criminally supported by secrecy and unitary executive priviledge that it is not possible to investigate it all. And they count on that, too.

Keep it on the front burner, Harry!

[criscokid]

Did FEMA import these trailers from China?

Like all government agencies, they spent several billions of dollars for these trailers. Where did they get them from?
HARRY RESPONDS: When I Googled this question some months ago, the ansewer came up, surprisingly, that these trailers were all American-made.

[GH]

FYI -- Bush strongly opposed the idea of the creation of the creation of the DOHS. It was this concept, born in the 90's (Hart Rudman)that folded all of these agencies under a bit top hat of buraucracy. Certianly added to FEMA's historcial blundering.

Not to mention the fact that it was the State of Louisiana that ordered the Red Cross (always FEMA's first line of assistance) not to enter New Orleans for almost a week -- the cause of all of the suffering at the Superdome and the Convention Center.

The Federally funded, adminsitered by the State of LA, Road Home program has paid 67,781 applicants — an average of $66,291 each.
Payouts now total $4.34 billion.

The federally funded program awards grants of up to $150,000 each to property owners affected by the 2005 hurricanes.

These are federal grants. They are not loans. They do not have to be repaid. The money is a handout, and is received tax free.

What an historic move by our Federal government and the administration.
HARRY POINTS OUT: They aren't handouts at all. They're compensation paid by the federal government to some of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the actions of the federal government--the faulty design and construction of the levees and floodwalls. Nor is it tax free. That's what citizens of NO were led to believe, until the IRS informed them that, if they, as everyone advised them to do, took their losses on their homes for the year in which they occurred, that will have to be taken out of the Road Home money. The Feds also, in their excess of concern about Louisiana's fiscal probity (isn't Illinois the state with three former governors in the pokey?), insisted upon most of the red tape that has been fouling up the Road Home program.

[Openeyes]

What did you expect? This is just like the toxic dust from the twin towers on 9/11 that was "safe to breathe." FEMA is doing exactly what Bush wants all government service departments to do - fail miserably, so they can be eliminated as "waste." Remember, the private sector always does everything more efficiently and less expensively. Just look at Blackwater or Halliburton - what bargains, and models of efficiency!

Remember the story a few months back about the company that charged the Defense Dept. about $450,000 to ship two small screws to Iraq? But I'm sure that's nothing compared to the average "welfare queen cheater." Yeah, we're really neck deep in those.

[SILVANUS]

The picture of our humanity just gets sorrier.
Is this the choice we have finally made after so many lessons?

[fogbreath]

Kevin,
Sadly, the levees were designed and built badly, before the neo-cons got in control of the whitehouse.
of course the "response" is all on them.
unless you think the democrats in congress should sholder some responsibility for not getting on them for their lack of action.
having given up on both wings of the "party of property" long ago i never expect anything but the worst, so i am pleasantly suprised whenever the rare occasion occurs that isn't.

[jubal8]

My brother's family made calls for weeks/months to get a trailer delivered to their property; then made calls for weeks/months to get the services hooked up; then made calls for weeks/months to get the services inspected so they would be given the key to the trailer door; then finally called to have the trailer taken away without ever setting foot inside.

I guess they were some of the luckier ones.

[campaignman]

kevin2323 is on the right track, but it is more insidious.

Republicans have appointed industry representatives to run our government agencies or people looking to get jobs with the industries regulated by those agencies. Thus, the people put in charge are usually not incompetent, they are extremely competent at undermining the mission of their agency.

Of course, as we have seen in this Republican administration, they have mixed industry control of our agencies with ideologues and cronies, tripling our problems.

FEMA seems to have risen to a new level of evil though. First, they had a horse lawyer in charge of disasters, making Katrina an even worse disaster. Now, the new leader of FEMA, David Paulison, an experienced firefighter seems to be doing as poorly, if not worse given Harry's blog. Why?

Well, in my view, it is the same reason that the far more qualified judge who has just been put in charge of the Justice Department wasn't allowed to admit that waterboarding is torture.

George W. Bush and his top advisors refuse to allow even qualifed people to do anything that would reveal the full extent of their criminality.

In the case of the new Attorney General, had he admitted that waterboarding was torture, he would have no choice but to investigate and prosecute administration officials who authorized and used it over the past few years.

In this instance, as Harry points out, they are restricting the ability of FEMA to act lest it reveal the criminality associated with these mobile homes.

No one should mistake it for a minute. Ultimately, the blame for this problem and so many others lies with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. They run this country and deserve all the blame for the criminality of their administration.

It is time that an independent organization be formed to hold a mock trial and bring forth all the public evidence on this administration and put this administration on trial.

Meanwhile, the only way to hold FEMA accountable is to sue it. The lawyers are our last hope.