Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials say they may be forced to use trailers to house hurricane victims this year — the same trailers the agency had vowed to retire after tests showed they were tainted by high levels of formaldehyde.
Thousands of the estimated 1 million people displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were given temporary housing in the FEMA travel trailers. Soon afterward, residents of the trailers complained of headaches, nosebleeds and other maladies — ailments that were caused by inhaling the formaldehyde that is commonly used in building materials, including those used for travel trailers.
The government sets formaldehyde levels for the interior of houses and mobile homes but not for travel trailers. FEMA has since set its own standard for the trailers, keeping it within the government’s guidelines for mobile homes.
Still, although FEMA Director R. David Paulison has said the trailers no longer will be used, the agency’s deputy administrator, Harvey Johnson, told the Associated Press last week that if a Katrina-level storm hits this year, the agency will have no choice but to use them.
FEMA has mobile cottages it will use first, and officials will ask states hit by a disaster which type of housing unit they prefer. Also, trailers will have to meet FEMA’s new, low formaldehyde standard before they can be deployed.
That still doesn’t cut it, however. It has been three years since Katrina hit the nation’s Gulf Coast, and FEMA still has not come up with a suitable alternative to the trailers. Agency officials have painted themselves into a corner and are faced with having to roll out these inferior units because they have not crafted a plan that involves having enough safe housing available in the event of a major disaster.
Americans deserve better. Helping people obtain immediate emergency housing in the aftermath of a disaster is a basic service that Americans rightly expect from their government. And FEMA still is not up to the task of providing it.
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