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.

Comments

[sethrp]

Oh, Harry. This is just so... expected, isn't it?

My dad's response from New Orleans was "Well, it's just another excuse for ridiculous lawsuits." That gem was followed by "Those people shouldn't have gotten trailers in the first place."

How do we reconcile this kind of thing, Harry? My scenario isn't unique, surely - there's a kind of compassion gap prevailing in this situation, prevailing in the wind. It's blowing on New Orleans, on climate change, on poverty.

Between this and the Lawrence King murder and the other school shooting (that paradoxically received more coverage than the two aforementioned tragedies combined), last week was undeniably strange and shitty.

[luziannagirl]

What, you mean FEMA's official line on how to deal with interior trailer air quality isn't still "crack open a window"?

[tbone99]

John Edwards - we have a class action lawsuit for you ....

[desmirl]

Is there ANYTHING the Bush Administration has touched that they haven't fouled up? Now the FEMA trailers are poisoning the people who are living in them. Good job, Georgie!

[wm1066]

My parents retired in a gated community in a double wide mobile home. Within ten years they both got cancers and died. My dad told me he blamed the outgasing of formeldehide for thier sickness....and this was in 1999.
The building industry has known about this for a long time but they make money on the cheap building products.

[j70460]

Thanks Harry, you keep throwing those lifelines to us, we'll keep trying to catch them. I'm IN a FEMA trailer, this is even more depressing.

[fogbreath]

Here's hoping that the thousands have clean safe homes to move into before they are permenently damaged by the fumes.

[mbinKS]

How can we get this message to Barack Obama? One of many incompetencies costing health and ultimately lives.

[SamThornton]

Thanks for spotlighting this issue, Harry.

One possible downside of the CDC finding: I'm guessing the Bush FEMA response will be to procure future trailers from China.

[campaignman]

Kudos for staying on top of this!

This should be a no-brainer issue for Barack and Hillary except they are now in other parts of the country.

It will be interesting to see what Congress does about this. If the Dems really want to show they are different, they will go after this harder!

[GulfAaron]

Did you catch this?
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/120279729951810.xml&coll=1
Tuesday's NOLA Times-Pic editorial accusing FEMA of a cover up. Kind of interesting that they cite the 18 months that FEMA sat on the issue after the Sierra Club worked incredibly hard to publicize the public health concern as 'sluggish' and 'worrisome.' I'd agree. I'd also point out that the Times-Picayune similarly buried their head in the sand on this one. Despite coverage of the issue in Mississippi (and the fact that MS has the SAME TRAILERS as LA), the T-P ignored the story for far too long.

[indycar]

Harry - Thanks for staying on top of this (and many others) issue! You continue to keep highlighting issues that seem to get buried in the MSM. You are to be commended!

Love Le Show, BTW.