TOXIC TIN CANS
THE FEDERAL Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has always been hand-in-glove with disaster, but unfortunately, the agency under the Bush administration has made sure that disaster applies to its own performance. The incompetence shown during the agency's slow and inadequate response to Hurricaine Katrina keeps getting worse.
THE FEDERAL Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has always been hand-in-glove with disaster, but unfortunately, the agency under the Bush administration has made sure that disaster applies to its own performance. The incompetence shown during the agency's slow and inadequate response to Hurricaine Katrina keeps getting worse.
The latest: A study by the Centers for Disease Control confirmed high levels of formaldehyde in trailers issued to displaced Katrina families. The news comes two years after trailer inhabitants and others, like the Sierra Club, first raised concerns about ailments caused by the trailers.
The 145,000 trailers that the agency hurriedly bought after Katrina in no-bid contracts are emitting dangerous levels of formaldehyde, making them 'toxic tin cans.' Now the agency must transplant 35,000 families still living in them.
A full year after safety concerns were raised and people started getting sick, FEMA was issuing bulletins for people to deal with the problem by opening the windows to create ventilation.
The trailers are an apt metaphor for the agency. Now someone should open FEMA's windows and release the poisons tainting the agency. *