FEMA scrambles to avoid being sued for poisoning people

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

Congress needs to ensure that FEMA's negligence in providing people with trailers with high levels of formaldehyde in them is not excused.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week asked for immunity from lawsuits over the high formaldehyde levels in the trailers it used to house Hurricane Katrina victims. FEMA says it did not build the trailers, merely bought them, so the manufacturers should be held solely responsible.

A U.S. attorney argued before a federal judge on July 23 that FEMA's response to the natural disaster is legally protected since the agency was exercising governmental discretion. Only Congress, he said, has the authority to address the agency's possible negligence. U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt of the Eastern District of Louisiana is taking the request under advisement. Attorneys for the plaintiffs expect a ruling in the next two or three weeks.

Congressional hearings have revealed that FEMA knew about the formaldehyde problem in its trailers and failed to take action for almost two years. FEMA's lawyers advised the agency not to test for toxicity in order to avoid liability -- but that advice may have left FEMA vulnerable to even greater liability. Those familiar with this gray legal area say the government agency could be held liable for several reasons.

Of course, FEMA is trying to pass the buck and direct the lawsuits towards the companies that manufactured the trailers. In some ways, yes, I can agree with proceeding against the manufacturers. But for FEMA to provide the trailers and do nothing for two years is unacceptable.

The reasons for the shoddy work are problematic for FEMA. Their employees were present--and set the specifications for--the trailers as they were being manufactured. Cheap materials and low-cost procedures were used (I have visions of half-assed trailer components being slapped together with cheap glue by people who didn't give a shit, don't you?). It's hard to escape liability when the people who manufactured the trailers were under your nose and doing what you told them to do. I think the manufacturers should have cried foul and refused to build with formaldehyde. The problem is, whistle-blowers are often driven out of business or punished for exposing government corruption. Until we reform the government whistle-blower laws and protect the rights of people who speak out, we are going to have debacles like this.

Sadly, the government's terrible response to Hurricane Katrina continues to this day. Alabama football boosters have great condos to use now, but the actual people flooded out and driven from their neighborhoods are still living in trailers manufactured with poisonous materials inside:

Three years after Hurricane Katrina, many people are still living in the FEMA-issued trailers. The trailers were never intended for long-term housing -- they were meant for short-term, emergency use only.

This has only exacerbated the effects of the building specifications set by FEMA, which fall below federal safety standards.

"The fact that people are still in those trailers," said [David] Super of the Univ. of Maryland, "is a failure on FEMA's part."

Yes it is, and that failure should not be excused away with immunity
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Another American City Under Water

From one of the diaries at DailyKos.com:

Darrel in Iowa:

I am in Mason City. Our levees broke Sunday morning. Flood stage is 7 foot and waters are now at 19 feet. Hundreds of homes and businesses are underwater. The City's water plant was flooded and the entire city of 30,000 is without potable water. A couple of hours ago the main electric substation flooded and failed and much of the city is without power. People remain in flooded homes. Early tonight I saw people wandering the streets not knowing where to go. There are entrie areas of the city with NO emergency personnel on hand.

NOBODY from the outside has come to help. Our local first responders are exhausted and overwhelmed. Small rural towns downstream tonight are being devasted. Levees everywhere are failing. Calls for help in these small towns have been unmet. Portions of our local guard are in Iraq.

The homeland has been left unprotected and people are suffering horribly.

Pictures of the flooding:



Near Des Moines:



[One thing I've noticed is that, while searching for photos, there are many, many more people who want to shoot jerky, grainy, out of focus video with cheap phone cameras or with digital cameras. That's nice, but it looks like crap. The YouTube-ification of the world means photos are passe and crap video of shit that you sort of can make out is de rigueur. Hence, there are not many dramatic or decent photos. Besides, if your town is flooding, you are probably more interested in saving yourself than taking a picture we can reproduce here.]

Here is what they're saying in the local newspaper:

The Winnebago River made history Sunday and left misery in its wake.

The river, which weaves through Mason City, climbed to a record 18.57 feet, tumbling over its banks, flooding homes, forcing residents to evacuate, shutting down the city’s water treatment plant and closing all city restaurants.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, the river level was 18.57 feet; the previous record was 15.7 feet set in 1933. Flood stage is 7 feet.

Heavy rains late Saturday and early Sunday morning — more than 5 inches over the two-day period — started the river rising.

“It went from 13 to 17 feet very quickly,” said Brent Trout, Mason City’s city administrator. “We’re dealing with a record event here.”

Gov. Chet Culver issued a disaster declaration which covered 31 Iowa counties including Butler, Cerro Gordo, Franklin, Floyd and Worth in North Iowa.

The governor’s proclamation activates Iowa’s individual disaster assistance program. Additionally, federal agencies have been contacted, according to Culver’s office.

Late Sunday afternoon Mason City Mayor Roger Bang set a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., except for employment or essential purposes.

Residents were told that anyone in violation would be charged with refusal to obey orders.

As the river left its banks and the levy system failed, water made its way to basements, across roadways and a major evacuation effort ensued.

The Mason City fire and police departments used a boat to help residents from their already flooded homes.

Several hundred residents were also evacuated throughout the morning.

Officials did not have an exact number of homes that were evacuated, but said the evacuation appeared to be complete by mid-afternoon.

“We believe all the homes that need to be evacuated at this point, have been evacuated,” said Trout.

Rebuilding Fire Stations in New Orleans

Pajamadeen is on the case...fire fighters in New Orleans have to turn to celebrities to get help because the government...well, read on:

So, let’s see…We can spend over $2.4 billion a week “rebuilding” Iraq, but we can’t rebuild fire stations in New Orleans?

Help has come, instead, from the kindness of strangers. Actor Denis Leary, who portrays a firefighter on the Rescue Me TV show, formed The Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000 in response to a Worcester, Massachusetts fire in an abandoned warehouse in his hometown. More than 75 firefighters worked what’s been called “the perfect fire.” Six of them perished, including Jerry Lucey, who was Denis’ first cousin, and Lt. Tommy Spencer, a childhood playmate and high school classmate.

The Leary foundation has provided millions of dollars in equipment and training support to firefighters. After 9/11, the foundation created The Fund for New York’s Bravest to raise money for families of the 343 fallen firefighters. Relying on his entertainment industry connections, Leary created The BASH for New York’s Bravest, which is now an annual star-studded fundraiser. After Hurricane Katrina, FEMA estimated that it would cost millions of dollars and take 10 years to repair and replace the damaged New Orleans fire stations. Last year, a member of the New York District Council of Carpenters, Jerry Cremins, was in New Orleans to pick up his son at Loyola University. He couldn’t believe what he saw. As he told CNN: “It doesn’t translate that well on TV…It was astounding to me that they haven’t been helped out — that local governments and municipalities haven’t held up their obligations. That is basically when citizens have to step in and get the job done.”

Deciding he was just the man to help, Cremins contacted the Leary foundation. Soon, union volunteers and NOFD firefighters were working together. So far, five fire stations have been rebuilt by the volunteers, with two more scheduled to be finished this spring. Cremins himself has made nine trips to the Big Easy, on his own dime and own time. Leary says he got involved because “I gave up on ever hoping that politicians in this country — local, state or federal — would step in to help these guys.” Leary says that some of the firefighters have told him almost-unbelievable stories of bureaucratic red tape and heartlessness. One firefighter spoke of a fire house that had three feet of water in it; he told Leary that when FEMA inspected the fire station, they told the fire department that they’d pay for the hinge on this door below the water line, but the two hinges above the water line they weren’t going to pay for.”

Edward Blakely, who’s in charge of New Orleans recovery efforts, said he appreciates the Leary Foundation’s work but, due to spiralling crime rates in town, the city has focused on rebuilding police headquarters instead. While not complaining, firefighters like to note that not a single firefighter abandoned a post during Hurricane Katrina — unlike many NOPD officers who bailed.

That's right--your fucking government is arguing over which hinges on which particular fucking doors it will fucking pay for. In New Orleans. In America. In April of 2008.

Is it January 20, 2009 yet?

FEMA Tells Everyone to Suck Eggs

Well, not literally. But close!

Here's how I found this story--geneo left us a comment. I clicked over to his blog and saw some pictures of him out protesting the war with friends. I'm glad he was doing that--but I wish more people were out with him.

That's where I learned that our government is afraid we're going to get addicted to this:



THEN I clicked over to "Mercury Rising" because he had linked to Phoenix Woman. On her blog, there was a catchy headline about FEMA and a post written by MEC:

FEMA has declared that it will no longer provide free bags of ice to victims of natural disasters such as hurricanes, because the ice is a “luxury”.

Reuters, to its discredit, shares FEMA head David Paulison’s callous cluelessness:

U.S. hurricane victims will have to find another way to cool their drinks.

Sadly, no. Victims of disasters don’t want ice to cool their drinks. They want it to keep their refrigerated food from spoiling. Maybe they have sufficient nonperishable food on hand to see them through until power is restored, but probably not. They need free ice to keep their refrigerated food safe to eat because no power may mean no ice or fresh food available for purchase. They need free ice because they may not be able to afford to buy it.

FEMA should dispense free ice because it’s the decent thing to do. Which is why a Bush appointee doesn’t see the point of doing it.

The Reuters article includes this revealing paragraph:

But in recent years, disaster managers have been debating the wisdom of certain kinds of aid because it seems to create dependency.

This is Republican thinking. Doing anything for people who need help is “creating dependency”. If our neighbors don’t have the resources to fend for themselves, the rest of us have no responsibility for them. They’re “surplus population” in Bush’s On-Your-Own-ership Society.

MEC is spot on! The number of people who get sick because they eat spoiled food during a disaster could cause even further strain on medical facilities. If we now live in an era where the government can't bring frozen water to people who need it, what the fuck are we on this planet for in the first place?

Frozen water, sometimes referred to as "ice" in the American vernacular, is not something that could create a dependence. What creates a dependence is when you mismanage your financial portfolio so badly, the government has to spend billions to bail you out so you can pay your CEO twenty million dollars to go away and stop being incompetent with your company's assets. This magical, almost mystical concoction that has so many different uses and powers it must have been brought to us by aliens--frozen water--is not going to get you addicted. It's not going to make you give up masturbating or anything like that, although, to be honest with you, anyone who masturbates with frozen water probably has other issues. It creates livable conditions so that people don't have to leave the area and go elsewhere and...depend on other communities to help them. Bringing them frozen water lets them stay with their home, stay with their belongings, and get on their feet quicker.

FEMA, on the other hand, would rather you suck formaldehyde fumes and wait 17 months for a loan they'll take away from you after you spend the money to hire a fly-by-night contractor to not fix your property. But that's for another blog post...

The Katrina tragedy is just never ending

Two years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the gulf coast, nearly 67,000 families displaced by the storms are still stuck in FEMA trailers throughout the region. Alabama and Texas have small FEMA-trailer populations, and Mississippi has about 16,500 of the trailers still in use; but Louisiana, hardest hit by the storm, has the greatest number of displaced people in Katrinaville trailer parks. In Louisiana, nearly 48,000 of the trailers are still in service.

Now, the cities where people landed have come to the end of their patience and hospitality. Residents are being told to "move forward or get out."

Gulf Coast communities are moving to banish the FEMA issued trailers. They are shutting down the impromptu settlements, and telling homeowners who are living in the trailers on their own property while they fight insurance companies and struggle to rebuild and repair storm-damaged homes that they must be making tangible progress toward the restoration of their homes or get rid of the white travel trailers that dot homesteads from Texas to Alabama.

The Mayor of Pascagoula, Miss., Matthew Avara says "It's an act of tough love. We don't want to put any unneeded hardship on any of our people, but at the same time, we've got to move forward, and the way to move forward is to close down these parks."

Attorneys representing the displaced said the local ordinances leave the occupants with few, if any, alternatives. Affordable housing is in short supply in the areas hardest hit by the storms. "Throwing people out when they have no place else to live is not a long-term solution for a community," says Davida Finger, a lawyer with Loyola University's Law Clinic, which has represented trailer occupants fighting attempts to remove them. "Some of my clients have been made homeless." Ms. Filger could not say how many of the trailers had been removed under the hodgepodge of local restrictions.



The FEMA trailer is the most ubiquitous symbol of the bungled post-Katrina recovery effort. Small and cramped, unsound, and contaminated with formaldehyde. Some of the tiny little travel-trailers are home to six, eight, even ten people.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA spent $1.8 Billion on the trailers to provide temporary shelter. In the past, when hurricanes have hit Florida and the Carolinas, the trailers were a good option. They provided shelter while homes and lives were rebuilt. The storms that hit New Orleans hit a different population. Many of the displaced didn't own their homes, so the land their homes sat on was not theirs to park a trailer on, nor was the home theirs to repair. These people were shunted into temporary trailer parks, like the ironically-named Renaisance Village in Baker, LA (pictured above). For the people in the FEMA trailer parks, minutes pass like hours, and hours pass like days.

Local officials wanting to get rid of the Katrinaville trailer parks cite complaints of crime in the trailer parks as a reason, but also point out that the trailers are not structurally sound, that they are unsafe in bad weather. They also maintain that the trailers stand in the way of recovery. "In time, we have to get normalcy back, and what we were concerned with was the amount of trailers and the people who were planning to stay in trailers for the rest of their life," says D.J. Mumphrey, who has handled trailer removal issues for Jefferson Parish, LA - just outside New Orleans. Jefferson Parish (which is not home to a Katrinaville) will be sending inspectors to the trailers still sheltering residents of the parish in November, to verify that trailer occupants are on their own land and making progress toward repairing and restoring their homes. The parish claims it will grant extensions for people still fighting their insurance companies or waiting on rebuilding aid.

And that last bit there sets me off all over again. What the hell? Two years on and people are still at odds with insurance companies??? I see a need for congressional hearings about that.

Katrina is the metaphor for the failures of the Bush administration. A president who partied while an American city drowned. Her people abandoned to their own devices. The state's National Guard deployed; and their deep-water vehicles in Iraq.

Now many of those people who were abandoned to the storm, people who lost everything and have no way of regaining any of it, are facing homelessness as the localities where they were settled legislate the only shelter they have access to out of existence.