Word: fema
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...While Katrina made victims of just about everyone in New Orleans, poor black residents have had the hardest time restoring their lives, with many evacuees still living outside the city and others in FEMA trailers, waiting for promised help to arrive. "I don't think African-Americans are paranoid in believing that they have suffered in ways that white people didn't," Hill says. "But the prevailing conventional wisdom among white people in New Orleans is that African- Americans had no grievances since Katrina, they didn't suffer any kind of special discrimination in the rescue and recovery, and that...
...made ("we're recognizing that we may have something larger than just some individual cases"), Paulison still maintained that formaldehyde might not be the problem. "There is an issue inside those trailers, but I'm not sure if it's formaldehyde, or mold, or what." At present, he said, FEMA has "documented just over 200 complaints of strange odors including formaldehyde." Only 58 trailers have been replaced...
...Before too long, it became clear that those symptoms also pointed to yet more evidence of FEMA incompetence in dealing with the aftermath of the devastating storm. In fact, if anyone thought that FEMA's reputation for its handling of Katrina couldn't get any worse, they only had to listen to Stewart and others testify at Thursday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Dozens of pages of internal FEMA e-mails released by the committee revealed the agency's deliberate ignorance of field staff who were concerned about formaldehyde gas being emitted in trailers housing...
...Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA doled out over 120,000 mobile homes to residents of the Gulf Coast. Many of those trailers have walls and cabinets made up of particleboard, which contains formaldehyde that can sometimes emit gas in hot, humid weather such as that found in Louisiana and Mississippi. The effect on humans (especially children) range from "burning sensations in the eyes, nose, and throat; nausea; coughing; chest tightness; wheezing; skin rashes and allergic reactions." As early as March 2006, FEMA began to receive complaints about formaldehyde odors. After one trailer was tested, an April 2006 e-mail...
...Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and committee chair, referred to FEMA's attitude as "sickening" and further said, "The nearly 5,000 pages of documents we've reviewed expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance." He also criticized the testing standards that FEMA and the Environmental Protection Agency used before they eventually came to the incorrect conclusion, as Paulison stated in May 2007, that "the formaldehyde does not present a health hazard." Trailers were left with windows ajar, air conditioning on and all vents open for days before interior air levels were tested for the gas - conditions that...