Documents Feed Debate on FEMA Trailers

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post

NEW ORLEANS -- Federal officials issued trailers to Hurricane Katrina victims even though some workplace safety tests detected high levels of formaldehyde at government staging areas for the structures just weeks after the storm, a lawyer for hundreds of occupants said Wednesday.

Documents from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration raise new questions about how much federal officials knew about the units, which were sent to tens of thousands of displaced residents, said attorney Anthony Buzbee. But they don't say whether the tests in the weeks after the August 2005 storm were conducted inside or outside the trailers.

...

Buzbee said he reviewed a 10-page summary of test results from air sampling at FEMA staging facilities in Mississippi that found formaldehyde levels exceeding maximums set for federal workplace safety. Buzbee said the documents show some tests were performed as early as Oct. 11, 2005, and as late as Jan. 17, 2006.

"This is astonishing," Buzbee said Wednesday in an interview. "How could they feign ignorance that this was an issue even before they sent these trailers to residents?"

Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031204539.html?hpid=sec-health

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Another act of cutting corners to save gone wrong, incompetence, or maybe, just culling the herd?

[SpiralHawk]

1. "I don't have to feign it. I'm a republicon. Ignorance (smirk) is our speciality." - Commander AWOL

[Plucketeer]

2. "I'm a republicon. Ignorance (smirk) is our speciality." - Commander AWOL"

We simply approach everything with the same intellect as those who are our faithful follower comrades!

[SpiralHawk]

3. Well, alright. I suppose you could say that about yourself if you want...

[KT2000]

4. the nice thing about chemicals

is that they are invisible.
Once the trailers were used by residents they no longer had to comply with workplace safety standards. Consumers do not have ironclad protections. Therefore, whoever was in charge of this project could deliver them for use and it would be a period of time before illness became evident. That person would be eligible for promotions and bonuses, or at least move on.

Once the excessive formaldehyde was discovered, obsfucation and blaming the sick would take up another period of time. Then it would play out in court where the corporations have stacked the deck against such claims.

This was all very intentional and plays out often on a smaller scale.