USA: Gulf Stream is either criminal or incompetent
Source: USA Today
This all gives slime a new definition:
Gulf Stream, the main supplier of travel trailers for displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, knew of high levels of formaldehyde in some of the trailers, but did not tell anyone because it regarded the situation as a public relations and legal matter, not a public health issue, the Democratic chairman of a House oversight committee said Wednesday.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who convened hearings on the trailer issue, said internal documents from Gulf Stream, which provided the trailers to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, showed the company had found "pervasive formaldehyde in its trailers, and didn't tell anyone."
Gulf Stream received over $500 million from FEMA for 50,000 trailers for Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
They tested the trailers - but those weren't "official tests" (that's their defense, really):
Jim Shea, chairman of Gulf Stream, said there was no actual "testing" of trailers. Instead, there was informal screening with a Formaldemeter, which is not a scientific test. However, Shea said his company in 2006 asked FEMA if it should test the trailers. But FEMA said no, he said.
The heads of three other suppliers of travel trailers also attended the hearing.
Republicans on the committee blamed federal government for not having standards for safe levels of formaldehyde in trailers and said the hearing was too narrowly focused on manufacturers.
The bottom line:
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said that the country "failed" Gulf Coast hurricane victims in the initial response to the disaster and in putting them in unsafe trailers.
"Our country is becoming a culture of mediocrity and failure to be empathetic to human beings."
Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing hundreds of current and former trailer occupants who are suing dozens of trailer manufacturers, said before the hearings that it is laughable to assert that the manufacturers bear no responsibility for the levels of formaldehyde in the trailers they made.
I hope someday the fine folks at Gulf Stream get to spend some quality time in one of their trailers; it might help change their perspective some.
