SUN EDITORIAL:

How not to respond

Latest revelation about FEMA trailers should trigger a top-to-bottom review

Mon, Jul 14, 2008 (2:06 a.m.)

The company that built 40 percent of the trailers furnished by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for victims of Hurricane Katrina knew shortly after the trailers were in place in early 2006 that formaldehyde fumes in many of them were testing at unhealthy levels.

Testimony last week before a congressional committee, though, revealed that the company kept the results to itself. Many trailer residents had to wait until this year for federal confirmation that it was formaldehyde, a chemical used widely in building materials, that was making them sick.

Fifty thousand of the trailers were furnished by Gulf Stream Coach, an Indiana company, for a price of $520 million. Almost immediately after people began moving in, Gulf Stream began receiving complaints.

The company tested 11 occupied trailers and the results showed all of them containing formaldehyde gas at levels well above a standard set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tests on nearly 40 unoccupied trailers revealed hazardous levels in more than half of them.

Yet the company notified neither residents of the trailers nor FEMA of the test results.

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaped to the company’s defense, saying government agencies had the responsibility to ensure the trailers’ safety.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., however, told Gulf Stream Chairman Jim Shea: “It sounds like you handled it very carefully as a public relations and a legal problem. But I think you had more responsibility to the people living in the trailers.”

Our view is that a special commission should be appointed to prepare a report about the whole episode involving the trailers. The agonizingly slow responses by the CDC and FEMA to people’s complaints of getting sick have not ever been properly explained, let alone this latest revelation. With details of the multitude of mistakes that occurred, new regulations could be written that would offer at least some assurance the federal response to victims of future disasters will be more efficient.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By williams

7/14/08 at 6:43 a.m.

Suggest removal

I believe Gulf Stream Coach as well as Fema had/has a responsibility to the residents in those trailers. After all they were paid by tax payers money, some of the same tax payers that are in those trailers now. They did not care. Also the President did not care when the residents of New Orleans were stuck in the Katrina flood. It was sad to see the residents in New Orleans during the flood, one would think they were looking at a 3rd world country. No one was in a hurry to rescue them. I believe those residents should be compensated and their medical expenses taken care of by Gulf Stream Coach and FEMA. But that will probably not happen, a prime example; our wounded soilders are not being taken care of after fighting not only in a war that should not be going on in Irag but all of our wounded veterans. It's good to know that Bush will not be in the White House for the next term, the country can not survive another 4 years of him and I pray that McCain does not get there, he's just as bad if not worse than Bush!!!
By JAMES

7/14/08 at 9:01 a.m.

Suggest removal

HUD had set a limit on Formaldehyde inside of the Mobile Homes of .04 parts per billion over 24 years ago. FEMA has set a new guide line of .016 parts per billion. By the States adopting the old standards of HUD what will the Indiana peoples health be in two months time? How can any State Dept. of Health decide at what level of Formaldehyde is safe. There is no one that can tell at what level of Formaldehyde causes cancer or at what time exposure might start the symptoms that the people in the South have had to go through. Even the Famous Katrina Cottages or Mississippi Cottages were found to have high levels of Formaldehyde in them.

Why are the people of any state allowing their States Governments to put them into anything with Formaldehyde, when there is one company that has a Formaldehyde Free and Mold Resistant emergency Housing Solution?????????

ABC World News Reports On Formaldehyde Free Recreational Vehicle For FEMA Disaster Units

WEB SITE:
http://www.pilgrimintl.com/index.php/int...
By Twitchy

7/14/08 at 9:19 a.m.

Suggest removal

Why would "government agencies" have any "responsibility to ensure the trailers’ safety" beyond, in this case, specifying what the allowed limits of formaldehyde were? The company that built the trailers clearly seems to be at fault here.