Are FEMA Trailers Making Residents Sick?

CBS News: Homes For Those Displaced By Katrina Can Contain High Toxin Levels

(CBS)  August marks the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Today the government says 86,000 families are still living in those white FEMA travel trailers across the Gulf - more and more waking up with a host of health problems - tied, medical experts believe, to the place they still call home.

When Hurricane Katrina tore apart homes here in Bay St. Louis, Miss., Angela Orcutt and her young son Nicky found shelter in a FEMA trailer meant for weekend trips.

That trip has now lasted 21 months - something these trailers were never built for. Time has turned them into human Petri dishes - unregulated experiments on the health of thousands still stuck inside.

What were the symptoms?

"Pretty much just the constant coughing,” Angela Orcutt told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian. “He would just - you could hear it, just in his chest."

Dr. Scott Needle, a pediatrician in Bay St. Louis, was the first to notice Nicky was not alone. Dozens of his patients were suffering from the same symptoms that kept coming back: coughing, burning eyes, nose bleeds, sinus infections.

They had one curious connection.

"Every one of them said, you know, we are living in a FEMA trailer. And not only that, but, you know, little Johnny wasn't having these problems before we moved into that trailer," Needle said.

Trailers with floors and cabinets built with particle board containing the chemical formaldehyde. Under hot, humid conditions, formaldehyde lets off toxic fumes, especially harmful to young lungs.

---

Blog: FEMA's Documents Tell The Story
Blog: Fumes Felt in Indiana

---

"It's the long-term carcinogen issue that really concerns me," Needle said.

Terry Sloan was a floor supervisor at a Gulf Stream Coach factory in Etna Green, Ind. Gulf Stream Coach built more than 50,000 stripped-down travel trailers.

Sloane says his crew worked at a breakneck pace for months, which, he says, forced the company to use cheaper wood products.

"Quality suffered dramatically because of the drive and pressure to put these trailers out," Sloan said.

Executives at Gulf Stream Coach declined an on-camera interview. Instead, the company issued this statement saying, in part, "For the FEMA trailers it used components and materials that met or exceeded industry standards."

But there are no federal standards for formaldehyde. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends a workplace exposure limit of .1 parts per million.

Last year the Sierra Club tested 31 travel trailers in Mississippi and found that virtually all - 94 percent - had levels of formaldehyde above that limit.

And CBS News has discovered an internal FEMA document that cites cancer as a potential job hazard for those just inspecting the trailers.

FEMA'S recommendation for fixing the problem? Open the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

David Paulison, FEMA’s administrator, told Keteyian, "I don't know that the trailers are causing" any sickness.

As for Angela Orcutt, she's long suspected something in her home was making her son sick.

So we tested it, using the exact same meter used by FEMA.

Our result read .17. That’s 70 percent higher than what the EPA standard is.

"It's scary," Orcutt said.

[rich1620]

FEMA IS GIVING AWAY TRAILERS THAT WERE MANUFACTURED WITH "IMPORTED PARTICLE BOARD". This particle board contains super high levels of FORMALDEHYDE. The Bush administration is tired of all the conplaints that these health hazzards are causing FEMA so they are attempting to get them off their inventory. Guess who the luck recipicants are? State and local governments with the police departments requesting the most.

[michellem99-2009]

I live in the west of the Us of A and they showed the TV coverage. A old lady begged for help right on the air. She had diabetes and could not get the medical help. She died. As others did. It was the helpness. I will not judge you but you should the govt.
I haved lived in rental housing that used treated wood and it does make one sick. There are those who have health issues.
They could have a 3 days 3 ways plan but when people have all they could somebody must step upto the plate and be there fot us not overseas giving them aid who are not grateful of America's aid to their nations.There are poor here.

[phoenix1218]

BobEBenson,
I do not think I would go so far as to say "New
Orleans was a dirty, old, drug and crime infested, poluted, corrupt city BEFORE Katrina hit." as you did because there are bad areas of almost every city in this country. BUT you do have a point about the soil and everything that leaked into the soil after Katrina. Have people tested the water and soil? Are people so sure that it is the trailers causing the illnesses and NOT the water/soil? You cannot say you are sure unless water & soil are tested. Have they been? I wonder.

[complexities]

Quoting BobEBenson: "New Orleans was a dirty, old, drug and crime infested, poluted [sic], corrupt city BEFORE Katrina hit."

What a prejudicial and judgmental statement! Let's just paint the entire city and all who inhabited it with the same brush. EVERY city has it's problem areas. But those areas do not define the entire city.

My friend, whom I mentioned in my earlier comment, is a very good person, who readily helps others, is financially sound, and has her PhD. She keeps her house clean, her yard mowed and weed free - as do all of her neighbors. Her house is not tiny; although, it is of older architecture because many of those living in New Orleans have a passion for the character of that style of "old" architecture. Is liking a certain style of architecture a crime?

Before labeling New Orleans, pick up some books on its history, its culture, and then go out and meet the people to learn of their lives and what they've gone through (pre and post Katrina). New Orleans isn't one big blob. It's a city made up of thousands of INDIVIDUALS, each with their own lives, values, financial success (or lack thereof), their own advantages in life, and their own disadvantages they've faced from the moment they were born. Get to truly know the PEOPLE. And maybe you will discover that those who did not receive the advantages that you and I received from birth does not make us superior. And it most certainly does not make those less fortunate be trash that we should just throw away!

[complexities]

Thank you, amenar0109!

I have a friend who lives in New Orleans. Her house made it. But the houses of her daughter, parents, sister, sister-in-law, many of her neighbors, friends and extended relatives were ALL destroyed. My friend also lost her mother who died in the floods. Her father and sister were stranded on their rooftop for days.

My friend is back to living in her New Orlean's house, but the loss and devostation everywhere is so overwhelming, she's still having a difficult time trying to absorb it all. Everywhere she goes there is destruction, from houses in ruins to the dead plants and trees to just the ghost town of areas that used to be vibrant and alive with people. She's in her house, but her HOME, as she knew it, is gone. Gone forever.

Depression, suicide and crime have all sky-rocketed. Those who do try to rebuild, are frequently victimized by scam artists who take the money and run. Fiding honest and qualified builders is very difficult because there's more work to be done than builders. Rental prices for the few apartments have also sky-rocketed because there is so much demand.

Jobs are gone. Friends are gone. Stores to shop are gone. Schools are gone. Teachers are gone. Medical services are gone. Entire neighborhoods are gone. The culture is gone. Just to even absorb it all takes time. And then more time to go through the natural steps of grieving the loss of it all.

Rather than cast blame, get off YOUR butt and help these people. They truly need it.

[bobebenson]

Someone please help me understand. New
Orleans was a dirty, old, drug and crime infested, poluted, corrupt city BEFORE Katrina hit. Now after all the chemical and petroleum plants were washed into the basin, not to mention all of the houses and stores with detergent, amonia, gasoline, floor wax, bleach, rat poison, oil, solvents, flour, salt, drano, comet,... you get the ieda. WHY would anyone want to live there anyway?? Are you sure that it's the trailers that are making people sick? Has anyone tested the water table?

How would you like to rebuild your home and grow toamtoes in THAT soil?

Just my oppinion.

[phoenix1218]

Sorry, I meant to say I've never sat on rooftops and watched people drown.

[phoenix1218]

resonance360, I've sat on rooftops & see people drown. I've watched my house burn down while only a man pushing 80 tried to do anything by trying to go in my burning home because he thought my sister & I were still inside. I was never put in a stadium, when my home burned we stayed w/family. Where was yours? I'm sure you MUST have family that wasn't devastated by Katrina. Where were they? I was never shot at by police trying to feed my family because I never looted from a store. There are proper ways to feed your family. Whose fault is it that you had no where to go...again I ask where is your family? People lose family members, Some more tragically than others, You're not alone there. I've never been to N.O. I'm sure there are hardworking people who lost much & THOSE are the people (as well as the old & cripple) that deserve to still be in trailers while they wait for the insurance claims to go through. I wouldn't say the damage rivals the Japan bombing because peoples skin was falling off, people were crippled, left barren (no kids), & stuff like that. I don't know anything about the security guards molesting & impregnanting teens...if that's the case why haven'y you brought charges? Don't put that blame on anyone but yourselves....OR the cops who do nothing. If it's cops doing nothing then go above their head & above THAT person until SOMETHING is done to stop it.

[resonance360]

For all those who insist on insulting New Orleans Residents I have a couple of questions

1) Did you sit on your rooftop while helicopters passed by and watch your friends and family drowned in filthy waters?
2) Were you herded into a football stadium with thousands of other people without food or water?
3) Were you shot at by police while trying to get food to feed your family in a drowning city?
4) Were you told to evacuate by a government who, if the cared to look, knew you had no means or other places to go
5) Did you have family members lost... still... two years later
6) Have you been there, to New Orleans, have you seen the destruction that rivals post atomic bomb Japan? Not in the French quarter but the lower ninth where well meaning hard working black people lost houses that had stood fore decades?
7)Did the government threaten to bull dose your house if you didn't fix it but then give you no resources to fix it
8)Were you put in a formaldehyde infused FEMA trailer park where the security guards molest the residents, deal drugs, and impregnate teenagers, for two years with little options?

There are so many more questions but I think (if your mind is open) you get the point.
Don%u2019t be so quick to judge a situation you have never had the horror of living through. Go to New Orleans, to the trailer parks and working class black community, listen to their stories then instead of passing your judgments %u2013 help someone.

[phoenix1218]

solace9,
Your parents actually owned there home so it is understandable why they are still in a trailer. I can only assume the insurance company is giving them a hard time. What a lot of people are talking about is the people who rented. I know it takes a while to make things better after something like Katrina but if you can't find a job then it would stand to reason you go where the jobs are and get one. ralan40 talked about hearing the warnings and living under sea level...people in the New Orleans area knew what they were getting into when they lived there and stayed even after they heard the warnings of Katrina. They shouldn't expect help from the government and should try to help themselves, like your parents are doing by working.