Formaldehyde Fumes Felt in Indiana

By: Michael Rey
Topics: Katrina

By Armen Keteyian and Michael Rey

(CBS)

Terry Slone, a former employee of Gulf Stream Coach, spoke to CBS News outside of the factory in Indiana where he says the company built tens of thousands of travel trailers, part of a half a billion dollars contract with FEMA. As he told us in our story, he saw and smelled what he said were poor quality wood products coming into the factory on pallets and leaving the factory as cabinets and flooring in the travel trailers. He installed much of it himself.

But as you will hear in this clip

, Slone also thinks he may have gotten sick from the same formaldehyde fumes that could also be making residents of the trailers in the Gulf sick.

Click here to read the Investigative Unit's story on FEMA trailers and formaldehyde.

Click here to read how FEMA's own documents tell the story.

2 Comments +

Add a Comment


by skeezix06 May 19, 2007 12:15 PM EDT: I would add a note here. Its not just FEMA trailers. We bought a mobile home back around 1980. If we left it closed while we were gone for a weekend, we always had to go in and open all the windows to let it air out before we could go back in because the formaldehyde literally made your eyes tear up and it was difficult to breath until it had aired out. We had already bought it before we found out that "little" problem and couldn't afford to move out. Something that I'm sure you reporters/pundits from a wealthier background don't really understand, but "that's the way it was", literally.

Health problems? Two autistic children born in a family who had no other known disabled children.; Reply to this comment


by rich1620 May 17, 2007 3:10 PM EDT: I bought a 2005 Cavalier built by Gulf Stream from FEMA (through GSA in Atlanta, Ga) last fall. Since I purchased the trailer I have been sick. I have had one reoccurring round with sinus infections, sore throat, irritation of my bronchial tubes, wheezing in my chest, a ticking so far down my throat that it is very difficult to cough hard enough to get the infection up. I have had symptoms of chronic fatigue for about eight months. In March, I was diagnosed with glaucoma (internal eye pressure of 29).

I have told my wife several times that I felt like I was being poisoned or that I had something inside that was slowly killing me. Also, when I awake my t-shirt is soaked from my upper chest up. I change wet t-shirts twice a night.

I never got anything from FEMA or GSA warning me of formaldehyde poisoning!

I know that it is in my body or has done permanent damage, because I haven't been in the trailer in about a month and I haven't gotten any better.

Can someone tell me what I need to tell the doctor and lab technicians to look for in my blood or tissue to detect poisoning or how to detect if I have permanent damage from exposure there of?

I am going to attempt to contact GSA and FEMA today. If I find out anything I will post it here.

Robert Richardson 205-681-5509 rich1620@bellsouth.net; Reply to this comment