AP: Different safety standards for FEMA employees and Katrina victims
Source: Associated Press
There is a part of me that can not believe this is true:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is barring employees from entering thousands of stored travel trailers over concerns about hazardous fumes, while more than 48,000 other trailers continue to be used by hurricane victims in Louisiana and Mississippi.
FEMA is advising employees not to enter any of the roughly 70,000 trailers in storage areas across the country, but the directive does not apply to other trailers still in use, agency spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker said Thursday.
"It's common knowledge that formaldehyde emission levels rise when they are closed in the heat and humidity without any ventilation," Walker said.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., accused FEMA of using a double standard, and said it "defies logic" that occupied trailers are safer than those in storage.
"I don't really buy that argument," she said in an interview. "It makes no sense, in that most of these (occupied) trailers are closed up and locked during the day."
Many trailer occupants have asked to be moved because of concerns about formaldehyde contamination, and hundreds are suing trailer manufacturers, accusing the companies of jeopardizing their health by providing FEMA with poorly constructed campers.
Last week, FEMA indefinitely postponed plans to test for formaldehyde levels in the air inside occupied trailers, saying it needed more time to prepare. FEMA has suspended the sale of used trailers and says it won't shelter victims of future disasters in them until safety worries are resolved.
I'm not even in a trailer and I want to sue FEMA. At least I'm not the only one who thinks that organization is a waste of space:
"The foot-dragging continues," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), whose House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in July disclosed documents indicating that FEMA had suppressed warnings about the health problems and had resisted testing since March 2006, in part because of fears over legal liability.
"It doesn't seem to me that the administrator is following through on what he said to the committee in July, nor is FEMA doing what needs to be done to adequately address this problem," Waxman said, referring to FEMA head R. David Paulison.
