FEMA to Workers: Stay Out of Trailers

Source: Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is barring employees from entering thousands of stored travel trailers over concerns about hazardous fumes, while more than 48,000 other trailers continue to be used by hurricane victims in Louisiana and Mississippi.

FEMA is advising employees not to enter any of the roughly 70,000 trailers in storage areas across the country, but the directive does not apply to other trailers still in use, agency spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker said Thursday.

"It's common knowledge that formaldehyde emission levels rise when they are closed in the heat and humidity without any ventilation," Walker said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., accused FEMA of using a double standard, and said it "defies logic" that occupied trailers are safer than those in storage.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FEMA_TOXIC_TRAILERS?SITE=PAYOK&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

If they're not safe for a woker to enter then they're sure as hell not safe to live in! x(

Yet one more sign of how blatantly they just don't give a damn about the poor people they're supposed to be helping and protecting.

Damn, I want to see a lot of these republican shits go to jail. :cry:

Poor refugees are probably too shaken up by having their homes destroyed to worry overmuch about being poisoned by their replacement housing. Glad to see that homicidal Republican incompetence has finally (finally!) approached a line that bothers Mary Landrieu, if only just a little.

Where as if those living in the trailers get cancer from the fumes, they are just collateral damage as far as the bu$h regime is concerned.

A worker might be in there for a few minutes; bad enough. A resident is exposed for many hours a day, even if windows and doors are opened. Pathetic. Heckuva job.

the plan is to give them to the Native Americans! :mad:

:dem: :kick:

...with a smallpox-covered blanket, sweetie!

(Line from "They Lied", a great song by Jay Mankita
http://home.earthlink.net/~jaym/They%20Lied_Jay%20Mankita.mp3)

It's OK to live in one, sleep in one, but it's too dangerous for a FEMA employee to ENTER one?

And what the fuck is this? - "Last week, FEMA indefinitely postponed plans to test for formaldehyde levels in the air inside occupied trailers, saying it needed more time to prepare."

Need to prepare for what? How you're going to spin why you've kept people living inside dangerous trailers?

Remember when we found out that Al Gore actually won the election?

if they are not safe when left unused. A town in the western edge of my county had FEMA and Rep. Hall get them one as their town hall is contaminated. the trailer arrived and was taken away because of the fume issue. Formaldehyde is used in many of the wood/wood like products in manufacture of the trailer and the glues & resins used. The obvious answer is they never have been safe except for people w/o homes. :wtf:

their kitchens.

The Chinese send that shit over here, and they consider it too toxic to use in their OWN construction.

You have old cabinets? Keep 'em. Paint 'em. Don't get those Big Box Store ones. Unless you like formeldahyde....

And because people like a cite, here's one http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14169

Destined for American kitchens, planks of birch and poplar plywood are stacked to the ceiling of a cavernous port warehouse. The wood, which arrived in California via a cargo ship, carries two labels: One proclaims "Made in China," while the other warns that it contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical.

Because formaldehyde wafts off the glues in this plywood, it is illegal to sell in many countries -- even the one where it originated, China. But in the United States this wood is legal, and it is routinely crafted into cabinets and furniture.

As the European Union and other nations have tightened their environmental standards, mostly in the last two years, manufacturers -- here and around the world -- are selling goods to U.S. consumers that fail to meet other nations' stringent laws for toxic chemicals.

Wood, toys, electronics, pesticides and cosmetics are among U.S. products that contain substances that are banned or restricted elsewhere, particularly in Europe and Japan, because they may raise the risk of cancer, alter hormones or cause reproductive or neurological damage.

all that cheap labor & high profits from China, their taking us to the cleaners and then they will bury us thanks to our government.

is going to be a public relations nightmare for some time to come. Living in a poison-filled box provided by the government is enough incentive for most any sane person to move as far as possible from the coasts.

Some woman who lived in a trailer said that her children kept getting nosebleeds every day, and they all had runny eyes. But she and her husband were staying because they couldn't afford to move out.

erg. she drives me fucking crazy.