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Dying for a Home: Toxic Trailers Are Making Katrina Refugees Ill

By Amanda Spake, The Nation. Posted February 15, 2007.


FEMA-supplied trailers for displaced Gulf Coast residents have been found to emit formaldehyde vapors, causing serious health problems.
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Along the Gulf Coast, in the towns and fishing villages from New Orleans to Mobile, survivors of Hurricane Katrina are suffering from a constellation of similar health problems. They wake up wheezing, coughing and gasping for breath. Their eyes burn; their heads ache; they feel tired, lethargic. Nosebleeds are common, as are sinus infections and asthma attacks. Children and seniors are most severely afflicted, but no one is immune.

There's one other similarity: The people suffering from these illnesses live in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

An estimated 275,000 Americans are living in more than 102,000 travel trailers and mobile homes that FEMA purchased after Hurricane Katrina. The price tag for the trailers was more than $2.6 billion, according to FEMA. Despite their cost of about $15,000 each, most are camperlike units, designed for overnight stays. Even if the best materials had been used in their construction -- and that is a point of debate -- they would not be appropriate for full-time living, according to experts on mobile homes. The interiors are fabricated from composite wood, particle board and other materials that emit formaldehyde, a common but toxic chemical.

"Formaldehyde is a very powerful irritant," says Mary DeVany, an industrial hygienist in Vancouver, Washington. "When you inhale the vapors ... the breathing passages close off." The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified formaldehyde as a human carcinogen. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that more than 0.1 parts per million of formaldehyde in air can cause eye, lung and nose irritation. Few scientists dispute the chemical's power to worsen respiratory health. Yet there is no federal standard for formaldehyde in indoor air, or for travel trailers, and no consensus on whether any "safe" level exists.

Last summer FEMA began distributing a leaflet to trailer residents explaining that the materials used in the interiors can release toxic vapors. The agency suggests residents keep windows and doors open and the air conditioner on, yet reduce heat and humidity. (The Gulf's hot, humid climate increases the rate at which materials release formaldehyde.)

FEMA has not responded to requests for the total number of complaints it has received about formaldehyde -- some media reports put the number at forty-six. The agency does say that seventeen trailers in Louisiana had to be replaced because of the chemical.

Many residents suffering from symptoms, however, are afraid to complain to FEMA, fearing the agency will take away the only housing they can afford. It was complaints of respiratory problems to the Sierra Club that led the organization to test fifty-two FEMA trailers last April, June and July. Some 83 percent of the thirteen different types tested had formaldehyde in the indoor air at levels above the EPA recommended limit.

Air sampling by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at holding stations where groups of trailers were kept before they were set up revealed high formaldehyde levels even in outdoor air. At the holding station in Pass Christian, Mississippi, formaldehyde in outdoor air was thirty to fifty times the level recommended by the EPA, and several times OSHA's workplace standard.

One of the first to notice an unusual number of illnesses among trailer residents was pediatrician Scott Needle of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. "I was seeing kids and families coming in with repeated, prolonged respiratory illnesses -- sinus infections, lingering coughs, viral infections that didn't go away," Needle says. The mothers told him that their children had never been sick like this before. Some of the infants had to be hospitalized. "Over the course of three months, I saw several dozen families with these health problems. That's really high, and this isn't something I'd seen in my practice before. All of them were living in FEMA trailers."

Angela Orcut, a preschool teacher, and her three year-old son, Nicholas, are typical of Needle's patients. "Ever since we've lived in this trailer, Nickie wakes up every morning choking and coughing," Orcut says. "He's had so many sinus infections since we moved in here." At night, when the family returns to the closed-up trailer, "the smell burns our noses and our eyes," she says.

Like many trailer residents, Orcut has not filed a complaint with FEMA. "I'm afraid if I complain, they'll take the trailer away," she says. "Then where will we live?"

Paul and Melody Stewart have a similar story to tell about their health problems, which began shortly after moving into a FEMA trailer at the site of their storm-ravaged house. "When we got here, it smelled bad," says Paul, a former Waveland, Mississippi, policeman. Melody woke up the first night they stayed in the trailer, gasping for air. "Within a week," he says, "we both had nosebleeds."

One morning the Stewarts found their cherished pet cockatiel lethargic and unable to stand. They rushed the bird to the vet, who said the cockatiel would die if he were kept in the trailer. Stewart began doing research and discovered that the wood products used to make cabinets, walls and other interior parts could emit formaldehyde, especially in hot, humid climates.

He bought a testing kit for airborne contaminants and sent it back for analysis. In winter, with windows open and the air conditioner on, the test showed, the formaldehyde level in the Stewarts' trailer was more than two times the EPA's limit. Still, FEMA refused to replace the trailer until a story about the Stewarts' formaldehyde problems ran on the local television news. FEMA called the next day to say they were bringing a new trailer.


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See more stories tagged with: new orleans, hurricane katrina, fema, trailers, gulf coast, formaldehyde, vapors, illness

Amanda Spake is a Katrina Media Fellow and contributing editor to U.S. News and World Report.

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3rd World Toilet
Posted by: NoPCZone on Feb 15, 2007 12:21 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Can anybody explain to me why, in the USA, we are putting people in trailers of any kind for housing? With FEMA, they are putting homeowners in travel trailers, which is even worse.

If we had had a President, Secretary of Defense and FEMA Director with half a brain, the displaced people of New Orleans & the Gulf Coast could have been evacuated to massive stockpiles of excess housing (barracks, apartments, duplexes) on any number of military bases instead of cramming people into travel trailers.

Until the end of the Cold War, we maintained an Armed forces easily double that of the current force. We also had a much larger Reserve and National Guard force and kept plenty of excess housing for surge capacity in the event of a large mobilization. Spreading the evacuees among a dozen military bases that are equipped with hospitals, clinics ,schools, etc- all on an already secured base- would have made more sense than the abortion ongoing in New Orleans.

Jesus, what a mess. Each new story only shows things getting worse.

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» RE: 3rd World Toilet Posted by: willymack
A Disgrace
Posted by: Lightfoot on Feb 15, 2007 12:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Trailers? That was my first reaction too. It seems our government doesn't see these people as important or as permanent dwellers and are maybe hoping they will go away somehow. This is a sign of what lies ahead, of the treatment to expect from our government should anyone of us become victims of a disaster. Our government would make us twice victims. How a government treats its people says a lot about a country.

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» RE: A Disgrace Posted by: willymack
If trailers are not good enough
Posted by: White middleclass male on Feb 15, 2007 2:01 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
get your own housing. Poor poor people aren't giving a house in the 'burds? These are the same people that sat on their lazy ass in the 9th ward and collected welfare. Its time to let them sink or swim on there own.

For the writer that asked about military housing: They were considering moving some of these people to FT Lewis in Washington, but it was a security risk. Not to mentioned the military families went ape-shit when they heard. I don't blame them I would not want them living next door to me for any period of time. I could see a 9th ward family of 1 mom and 6 kids from 6 fathers moving in between two Generals. That would be funny.

I lived in a 50 man tent in Kuwait. We shared a shower unit with 10 units. Here in Iraq we live in trailers cut into 3 sections that enlisted live in with a roommate. I get my own 200 SQ FT room because I am an officer. For meals we wait on line for at least 20 minutes and eat what ever they are serving. So if a 50 man tent, public showers, and chow hall is good enough for us, I see no reason why it is not good enough for ghetto trash.

Oh and just for the record I grew up in Florida. My family had to leave many times.

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» RE: If trailers are not good enough Posted by: RoffleTheWaffle
» Ghetto Trash comes in all colors Posted by: White middleclass male
» Libertarian? Ha Posted by: NoPCZone
damn the secret's out
Posted by: kelt65 on Feb 15, 2007 8:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Don't tell us New Orleanians there's formaldehyde in our trailers, we might start smoking them ...

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It's no wonder this country is in trouble
Posted by: Leadbyexample on Feb 15, 2007 10:04 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just think what the billion dollars a day we are spending on wars would do to help the gulf coast rebuild, lessen our dependency on fossil fuels and maintain our infrastructure. I think it is time for a priority list.

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And now they are selling the trailers at auction
Posted by: Artkansas on Feb 15, 2007 10:49 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Now that many of the trailers have sat unused for so long many are in such bad shape that they are being sold off.

Here's the link.

FEMA to auction trailers stored in Hope

Taxpayers lose, people lose. Business wins.

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Tents and trailers
Posted by: redbrownandblueparty on Feb 15, 2007 11:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree with Roffle that asshole is a useful term, and that an ahole is an ahole wherever found in whatever class. It's a level of consciousness. A welfare fraudateer can be rich or poor. Corporate welfare sucks more blood than common welfare. TheLoverGovernment and the RB&B Party welcomes all as long as they know what level they're playing on, whether in a fighter's tent or a FEMA trailer.

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