FEMA Trailers: Death Capsules for the Poor

Since the name of this blog has the word “toxic” in it, it only seems natural that I’d be interested in poisons. (Good example of mental poisoning here). And since I live in Alabama, one of the states hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, it makes sense that I’d be particularly concerned by ongoing and still-unfolding reports that the federal government knowingly arranged for natural disaster victims to live in toxic trailers.

It’s disturbing that the phrase “toxic trailers” already has a certain currency in our language. To say that someone lives (or lived) in a FEMA trailer has taken on a kind of special baggage, like saying that someone in India is an “untouchable.”

It’s also disturbing that the cumulative effect of formaldahyde poisoning has been so quickly dismissed by a lot of people (that is, when it is even mentioned at all). I spoke with a guy at a luncheon recently who was explaining to me that not only is formaldehyde a natural product of virtually every single manufacturing process, but also these Katrina victims are really the ones to blame for all this cancer and disease because they didn’t know how to properly “air out” these trailers. He explained that you can’t just stick stupid people in trailers and expect them to know how to not get lung diseases. This sort of reasoning is added to resentment that these victims would dare complain about charity that they were being given. It’s the “beggars can’t be choosers” argument taken to a fatal extreme.

Furthermore, you had Congressional Republicans like Tom Davis, Dan Burton, and Mark Souder saying that we ought to be thanking these trailer manufacturers, not harassing them about toxins (even though they admitted that they knew that their products were unsafe).

So now, as a result of my efforts to help get some additional attention and funding to Alabama’s still-suffering Katrina victims, I have come across a guy who claims to be able to cure FEMA trailers of their poisons. In his promotional materials (he wants to be hired do remediation work), he claims to be certified by the Space Foundation, which led me to this awesome page showing what a big honor that is. I love the fact that they refer to their certification as “the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval of the space industry,” oblivious to the fact that the Good Housekeeping seal was itself merely a signifier that the product in question had been the subject of a paid promotion in Good Housekeeping magazine. So this prestigious certification lumps you in with (according to the website) “Mannheim Steamrollers’ Music of the Spheres, the NORAD Tracks Santa Web site, and the colorful book, I am a Space Shuttle!” But I digress …

Fact: FEMA knew the trailers were dangerous.

Dr. Christopher De Rosa, director of the CDC’s Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine, told his superiors “there is no safe level of exposure” to formaldehyde in trailers. That warning never made its way into any public report about the trailers. In addition, Dr. De Rosa wrote in an email that two of his staff members had been directed by FEMA officials to not “address longer term health effects” of formaldehyde in this February 2007 report.

Fact: FEMA knew they were culpable.

On June 16, 2006, three months after reports of the hazards surfaced and a month after a trailer resident sued the agency, a FEMA logistics expert wrote that the agency’s Office of General Counsel “has advised that we do not do testing, which would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue.” A FEMA lawyer, Patrick Preston, wrote on June 15: “Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.” … FEMA tested no occupied trailers after March 2006, when it initially discovered formaldehyde levels at 75 times the U.S.-recommended workplace safety threshold and relocated a south Mississippi couple expecting their second child, the documents indicate.

Fact: Nineteen Alabama families are still living in FEMA housing.

Almost four years after the two storms scoured much of the Gulf Coast, it is “sort of amazing” that 19 households remain stranded in FEMA housing, said Craig Baab, senior fellow at the Montgomery-based Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, Inc., a nonpartisan organization that has pressed for more housing assistance … As of late last month, almost 3,700 Louisiana households were either in FEMA-provided temporary housing units or motels and hotels, while some 2,220 Mississippi households were in similar circumstances.

There’s a pretty good Slate piece here, but I think the definitive piece has not yet been written. This will be one of those stories that is told in some book a few years from now — a book circulated among universities and book clubs, but rarely read by the people still dealing with the long-term consequences of the government’s neglect of their suffering.

All in all, this is one of the sorrier episodes in recent American history. The toxic trailer subplot is just one of the ugliest of a whole series of ugly post-Katrina incidents. This entire saga will hopefully long be remembered as a revolting stain on our national fabric — a post-disaster tragedy piled high with corpses not killed by the storm. The United States: Where those who know how to play the insurance game get richer, and the poor get poisoned.

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