The Other Shoe Drops on the FEMA Trailers

Finally, although there was no room for it in today's NYT, the Federal Centers for Disease Control comes out with the results of testing on the formaldehyde levels in the FEMA trailers on the Gulf Coast, and the bottom line is: get the people out of those trailers. For anyone who thinks FEMA since Mike Brown has improved, the inexcusable slow-walking on an issue of public health affecting 100,00 people should be, in CDC head Julie Gerberding's phrase, a "wake-up call".

Even though FEMA managed to delay the testing until the coldest months, when the trailers were most likely to have some ventilation, the results are still dire enough that CDC is recommending trailer occupants be ex-occupants before the warm weather returns. So two years of breathing toxic fumes, apparently, is enough.