[StBernard] Katrina Victims Call on FEMA to Test Air Quality Inside Trailers

[Westley Annis]

Very strange to believe that a FEMA trailer had more toxins and contaminants
in it than what we had to dig out of our homes and garages, land and our
bodies.

-=-jer-=-


-----------------------------------------------------
Katrina Victims Call on FEMA to Test Air Quality Inside Trailers
Saturday , November 17, 2007

NEW ORLEANS - 

Lawyers for a group of hurricane victims living in government-issued
trailers are asking a federal judge to order the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to test the housing units for hazardous fumes.

Earlier this month, FEMA postponed plans to test the air quality in its
travel trailers for levels of formaldehyde. The chemical, a common
preservative found in materials used to build manufactured homes, can cause
respiratory illnesses and is classified as a carcinogen.

FEMA says it needs more time to prepare before scientists from the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta begin the formaldehyde
tests, which were scheduled to start in Mississippi on Nov. 2.

However, attorneys for trailer occupants in Louisiana claim FEMA's delay in
testing the trailers is jeopardizing the health of thousands of Gulf Coast
residents displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

In court papers filed Friday, the trailer occupants' lawyers asked a federal
judge in New Orleans to issue a preliminary injunction that would compel
FEMA to begin the tests. The injunction also calls for FEMA to immediately
comply with any trailer occupant's request to move out of a unit and into
alternative housing.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Englehardt did not immediately rule on their
requests.

"Without this Court's intervention," the storm victims' attorneys wrote,
"FEMA will continue to delay and this national public health emergency will
continue unabated."

FEMA spokesman Michael Widomski, who would not comment on the litigation,
said a date to start the tests has not been set. "We're continuing to work
with the CDC," he added.

Roy Rodney, Jr., a New Orleans-based attorney who filed the motion for an
injunction, said the formaldehyde tests are a "matter of critical public
health."

"It's important to understand what the level of exposure is, particularly in
regard to children," he said. "Children are the most at risk, more so than
adults."

In Louisiana and Mississippi, more than 48,000 FEMA trailers were occupied
this month by victims of the 2005 hurricanes. Reacting to residents' health
concerns, FEMA has moved hundreds of families in both states out of trailers
and into apartments, hotel rooms or other temporary housing.

FEMA also has temporarily suspended the sale of its used trailers and says
the units won't be used to shelter victims of future disasters until the
safety concerns are resolved.

Hundreds of Gulf Coast residents are suing trailer manufacturers for
allegedly providing FEMA with poorly constructed units contaminated by
formaldehyde. Several of those federal lawsuits in Louisiana were
consolidated on Oct. 24 and transferred to Englehardt, who scheduled a Jan.
18 initial hearing on the litigation.