Bush renews vow to aid Katrina victims

NF Reporter · 11-25-2006, 10:52 AM

AP - President Bush on Saturday renewed the nation's commitment to help victims of last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes and thanked U.S. troops fighting abroad.

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famous · 12-04-2006, 06:59 AM

More empty-rhetoric from the Decider-In-Chief.

Thousands of Katrina & Rita victims are STILL waiting for their trailers to be delivered to them - more than 15 months AFTER they requested them. Elderly people sleeping in gutted-out houses with no running water or electricity. It's shameful.

waltky · 08-24-2007, 07:25 PM

Anybody ever think of re-opening some of the closed military bases to house Katrina homeless??

Katrina Families Want Out of FEMA Trailers
Aug 23, 2007 - FEMA Moves Storm Victims From Trailers; FEMA Moves Hurricane Victims Out of Trailers Over Health Complaints

Quote:

Louisiana families have asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to move them out of government-issued trailers and mobile homes over concerns that the shelters are contaminated, FEMA officials said Thursday. Jim Stark, director of FEMA's Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office, said the agency already has moved or is moving about 140 of the families into apartments at the agency's expense. To accommodate others, FEMA has identified roughly 6,500 apartment units across the state that meet the agency's "fair-market value guidelines," according to Stark. "We're going to try to move people where they can fit," he told The Associated Press during an interview Thursday.

With roughly 43,000 Louisiana families still living in FEMA trailers and mobile homes following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, officials are investigating complaints that the units are exposing occupants to dangerous levels of formaldehyde, which can cause respiratory problems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is developing plans to test the air quality inside FEMA trailers, but those tests haven't started yet, a CDC spokesman said Thursday. Gil Jamieson, FEMA's associate administrator for Gulf Coast recovery, said one problem with conducting air-quality tests is the absence of national standards for acceptable levels of formaldehyde in trailers.

"FEMA is a consumer of these products just as, quite frankly, anyone else is," he said. "We bear responsibility because we're putting disaster victims in them, but it's really not our place or our mission to be a standard-setting organization." In Mississippi, 461 households have asked to be moved to an apartment or other housing because of the formaldehyde concerns, said FEMA spokesman Robert Josephson. To date, he said, 83 had been relocated but about 25 more households are scheduled to move at the beginning of September when apartments become available.

More ABC News: Katrina Families Want Out of FEMA Trailers

waltky · 11-04-2007, 07:03 PM

Takes `em two years to figure out the mess needs to be cleaned up...

FEMA agrees to fund Katrina debris removal
Nov. 4, 2007 -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to fund the removal of debris throughout southern Louisiana caused by Hurricane Katrina.

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Four months after it was learned that no federal program was in place to tackle the post-Katrina problem, FEMA officials have formally agreed to pay for the removal of the debris from various marshes across southern Louisiana, the New Orleans Times-Picayune said Saturday.

FEMA had previously funded such cleanup efforts through the U.S. Coast Guard, but both funding efforts have still left some Louisiana officials concerned that it will not be enough. Those concerns are due in part to the fact that much of the debris strewn across Louisiana marshland is not readily visible from the surface and could easily go unnoticed, the report said.

Added to those concerns is the fact that FEMA officials in Louisiana have announced the cleanup effort will primarily be focused on problematic debris. "We're not going to vacuum-clean the entire water system here," FEMA's director of external affairs in Louisiana, Bob Josephson, told the newspaper. "We're going to get the stuff that's affecting health and safety."

Source

waltky · 01-30-2008, 03:57 AM

More FEMA hi-jinks...

FEMA accused of twisting science in report on trailer danger
Tue January 29, 2008 - FEMA denies allegations it suppressed report on trailers used by Katrina victims; CDC has done two studies for FEMA on formaldehyde in the trailers; FEMA, CDC say studies were short-term, more comprehensive study in the works

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Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, said Tuesday that FEMA tried to control the outcome of a scientific study on formaldehyde in the trailers, which were used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina. "Someone from one of the agencies, the CDC, came to our committee and reported that he had information that indicated that good science wasn't followed when a decision was made to allow people to live in basically travel trailers that were not designed to be lived in," said Lampson, chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

In addition, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee -- Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Mississippi -- cited medical experts who said prolonged exposure to high levels of formaldehyde can cause ailments ranging from respiratory irritation to cancer. The committee recently obtained internal CDC e-mail which showed that "despite the efforts of CDC professionals to bring these health risks to the public's attention, those concerns were thwarted by CDC leadership for roughly eight months," Thompson said.

FEMA denies that it has suppressed any report, including one about formaldehyde prepared by a branch of the Centers for Disease Control. "The health and safety of residents has been and continues to be our primary concern," FEMA said in a statement issued Monday.

More FEMA accused of twisting science in report on trailer danger - CNN.com

waltky · 03-04-2008, 01:55 AM

Don't buy a trailer made in No. Indiana...

CDC: Toxic Katrina trailers made in Indiana
March 3, 2008 - Northern Indiana’s recreational vehicle industry is at the center of a federal inquiry into toxic air found in emergency trailers supplied to victims left homeless in 2005 by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Quote:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today that it measured the highest levels of formaldehyde in emergency trailers made by three Indiana firms: Gulf Stream Coach, Inc., the largest privately held RV maker in the U.S., based in Nappanee; Pilgrim International, Inc., based in Middlebury; and Keystone R.V. Co., based in Goshen. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which bought 56,000 emergency trailers for Katrina victims from manufacturers throughout the U.S., ordered the study after scientists earlier linked poor health cited by some trailer residents to toxic levels of formaldehyde measured inside the emergency homes.

The CDC’s study reveals for the first time the names of manufacturers whose trailers were sampled for the toxic-air study. Six leading brands accounted for 61 percent of the travel trailers purchased by FEMA. Of those, five have operations in Indiana. They also include Fleetwood and Forest River. Because formaldehyde is common in plywood used to construct buildings of all types throughout the country, government and plywood industry officials are trying to sort out what might have gone wrong in the production process of the emergency trailers and how to keep it from occurring again.

“Congress requested information, and we provided information to Congress,” said Steve Bennett, president of Pilgrim International, Middlebury, Ind. “We built the trailer to government specifications. We will cooperate with any information they desire.” Officials at plywood industry trade groups in the United States and Canada suggest improperly sealed plywood imported from China might be the culprit. The plywood would have been used to make cabinets and build the structure of the trailers.

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bizwiz · 03-04-2008, 09:20 AM

These people had suffered through the worst hurricane in their lives nad now toxic trailers. The government must find the ones responsible and bring the full force of the law on them.

waltky · 08-12-2008, 02:20 AM

What happened to all that red tape Fearless W was gonna cut??...

Three Years After Katrina
August 11, 2008 - The pace of recovery is slowing in New Orleans as the city approaches the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina late this month. The next president and Congress will need to expedite assistance before the city’s mood turns from guarded optimism back to despair.

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With a mélange of federal, state, city and private recovery efforts under way, it is difficult to grasp what is really happening in the stricken city. Fortunately, two reports on New Orleans’s condition have just been issued by authoritative outside organizations. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released its second survey of the attitudes and experiences of the city’s residents. The good news is that 6 in 10 Katrina survivors say that their lives are almost or largely back to normal, and most see recovery moving in the right direction. The bad news is that 4 in 10 respondents say their lives are still disrupted, and more than 7 in 10 see little or no progress in making housing affordable or in controlling crime, which they view as the city’s top problem. Smaller majorities see little or no progress in making medical services available, strengthening public schools, attracting jobs or rebuilding neighborhoods.

These perceptions are largely consistent with an index of progress compiled by the Brookings Institution and the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Their third-year report finds that the greater New Orleans area has recovered the vast majority of its pre-Katrina population and jobs but that recovery trends have slowed in the past year. Tens of thousands of blighted properties, a lack of affordable housing and thin public services continue to plague the city. Rents are 46 percent higher than before the storm.

New Orleans residents expressed mixed attitudes about their prospects. Three-fourths told Kaiser that they remained optimistic about the future even though most felt that both Washington and the American public have largely forgotten them. What is worrisome is that half of the residents are dissatisfied with or angry about the lack of progress, most think it is a bad time for children to grow up in New Orleans and 22 percent (predominantly young) are seriously considering moving away. Unless government agencies and private organizations pick up the pace of recovery efforts, New Orleans may see its future pack up and go with them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12tue2.html