FEMA trailers tied to illnesses

Post-Katrina rush faulted

FEMA's R. David Paulison acknowledged missteps.

WASHINGTON - Within days of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in August 2005, frantic officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered nearly $2.7 billion worth of trailers and mobile homes to house the storm's victims, many of them using a single page of specifications.

Just 25 lines spelled out FEMA's requirements, with little mention of the safety of those to be housed. Manufacturers produced trailers with unusual speed. Within months, some residents began complaining about unusual sickness; breathing problems; burning eyes, noses and throats; even deaths.

Today, a range of industry and government researchers depict the rushed procurement and construction as key failures that may have triggered a public health catastrophe among the more than 300,000 people, many of them children, who lived in FEMA homes.

Formaldehyde is an industrial chemical that can cause nasal cancer, may be linked to leukemia, and worsens asthma and respiratory problems. It is emitted from the resins and glues used in many construction components, including particleboard flooring, plywood wall panels, composite wood cabinets, and laminated countertops.

The chemical was present in many of the FEMA housing units in amounts exceeding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended 15-minute exposure limit for workers, the limit at which acute health symptoms begin to appear in sensitive individuals.

Weak government contracting, sloppy private construction, a surge of low-quality wood imports from China, and inconsistent regulation all contributed to the crisis, a Washington Post review found. But each of the key players has pointed fingers at others, a chain of blame with a cost that will not be known for years.

Already, 17,000 plaintiffs who lived in FEMA units have alleged damaging health consequences, from respiratory problems to dozens of deaths and cancer cases, in a federal class-action lawsuit naming 64 trailer makers and the federal government. Many of the plaintiffs were drawn from the roughly 350,000 people who unsuccessfully filed claims against the Army Corps of Engineers over the levee breaches that flooded New Orleans.

The CDC reported this month that Hurricane Katrina led to increased complaints of lower-respiratory illnesses among 144 children studied in Mississippi, but it found no difference between those who lived in FEMA housing and those who did not. The agency is conducting a broad, five-year study of the storm's health impacts on children across the Gulf Coast area.

"I still can't believe that we bought a billion dollars' worth of product with a 25-line spec. There's not much you can do in 25 lines to protect life safety," said Joseph Hagerman, a researcher for the Federation of American Scientists. "There's over 20,000 parts in these homes."

FEMA faults manufacturers of the trailers and mobile homes. Some trailer makers used cheaper, substandard wood products in the rush to meet production targets, increasing emissions of the cancer-causing chemical, according to industry officials and analysts.

R. David Paulison, who became acting FEMA administrator two weeks after the storm hit the Gulf Coast, acknowledged missteps but said changes are needed far beyond his agency. "The manufacturers have been skating by on this thing," he said, pointing out that many trailers bought by FEMA were on sale to consumers. "This is bigger than FEMA."