Posted on 03/22/2008 7:31:04 AM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(NEW ORLEANS) - A group of Gulf Coast hurricane victims sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday for sheltering them in trailers that allegedly exposed them to dangerous fumes.
The complaint filed in federal court adds FEMA as a defendant in a batch of consolidated cases against several manufacturers that provided the agency with tens of thousands of trailers and mobile homes after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
The cases against trailer makers were consolidated in November 2007 and transferred to U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt in New Orleans. However, FEMA couldn't be named as a defendant in the litigation until at least six months after a plaintiff had filed a claim against the agency.
Several plaintiffs from Louisiana have met that threshold, allowing FEMA to be named as a defendant in the consolidated litigation, according to one of the lead plaintiffs lawyer Gerald Meunier.
Meunier said FEMA already has been dismissed from similar federal lawsuits because that mandatory six-month waiting period hadn't expired yet. Including FEMA in the cases is an 'essential step,' he added.
'I don't think we can have any conversation ... about this controversy without the government's role in this being legally addressed,' he said.
Many trailer occupants have blamed their illnesses on formaldehyde, a common preservative found in building materials. Formaldehyde can cause respiratory problems and has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
The plaintiffs accuse trailer makers of using shoddy materials and construction methods in a rush to fill FEMA's unprecedented demand for emergency housing after Katrina laid waste to tens of Gulf Coast homes in August 2005.
Recent government tests on hundreds of FEMA trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi found formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than......
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
ggggggggggggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I’d just love to read ONE article of gratitude.
Mobile Home makers use formaldehyde during construction. I lived in a mobile home at one time, and remember the smell. What you do is open the windows for a few days and it’s gone. Guess that was too much to ask from these “victims”.
It you open the windows you waste all the refer and crack smoke.
The “MAN” didn’t tell us. Must be racist!
They tried this with the mobile home industry in the ‘80’s and lost.
But maybe with the Katrina Victim Card who knows?
What, no stories of suffering due to plastic contamination from the free Target gift cards?
(Along with dozens of other agencies of the federales!)
I’d like to know if I can purchase some of these trailers (not the trashed ones) for hunting camp.
Nostrilus Waximus...
Unfortunately, FEMA is one of the few that can be truly beneficial if appropriately utilized and managed.
I'd be safe in assuming that damn near all of them have been trashed.
After watching the clowns at FEMA f@rt around for the past several years, I am utterly amazed that there are still people who think the government should be in charge of everyone's health care.
I’d be safe in assuming that damn near all of them have been trashed.
Or sold illegally.
That's an excellent point. The next time I hear someone express interest in national health care I'm going to ask them "Do you really want people like the folks who run FEMA manage your health care?"
BTW, is Dickie Scruggs representing the plaintiffs?
Nostragalus Humongous
They're right, of course, FEMA shouldn't have provided them with any shelter at all...I bet they'd all have their own shelter by now if the government hadn't "provided" one for them...
Slim
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