Katrina victims being maimed by FEMA...again.

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

At a news conference Thursday in New Orleans, CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency to relocate residents before summer, when heat would be expected to cause the formaldehyde levels to increase, with priority given to families with children, elderly people or anyone with asthma or other chronic conditions.

FEMA Director David Paulison, who also spoke at the news conference, said he believed his agency could meet that goal despite a shortage of affordable housing plaguing areas of the Gulf Coast afflicted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

“We’re going to work very hard to meet their recommendations,” he said.

38,000 families still in FEMA units

He estimated that approximately 38,000 families — or roughly 114,000 individuals — are currently living in FEMA-provided travel trailers or mobile homes along the Gulf Coast, down from a high of about 144,000 families.

Paulison also defended FEMA’s response to the problem, which surfaced in late 2005, when some travel trailer occupants began reporting breathing difficulties, headaches and nosebleeds.

“I think we have moved very quickly based on what we knew,” Paulison said Thursday. “… We did the best we could do with the information we had.”

The Sierra Club began warning about formaldehyde levels in travel trailers by early 2006, after conducting its own air-quality tests. FEMA officials initially dismissed the environmental group's testing, saying the trailers conformed to industry standards.

More here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23168160/

[ixion]

1. "we're doing a heckuva job" - FEMA

these people make me ill. My heart goes out to those people who have suffered so much at the hands of our corrupt and crappy government.